Mass Media

Mass Media Essay

In today's society, mass media, including television, radio, internet and books have become very dependable sources to so many people. People spend many hours everyday reading or watching television for many hours at a time, or watching low brow channels, or participating in violent video games. Even though most media is highly entertaining, people have become so reliant on media that we have let the media run our everyday lives. The main purpose of mass media is to provide information, entertainment and advertisement. In this essay I will discuss the influence that Mass Media has had on me and giving the evidence to support the statement "People are more influenced by mass media than they think."

The long and short- term effects of mass media are separate but distinct. When I analyzed and gathered my information for my journal, Mass media not only affected me greatly but I also saw that I couldn't live without mass media. I saw and underwent throughout the day various forms of media all of witch I consumed many hours of. I did not realize how exposed I really am to the Mass media till I calculated all my hours. I was astonished by how many hours I was surrounded by the media in only a short month. The hours go as followed from least to greatest; (Magazines 3.5 hours, Ads roughly 5 hours, I-pod 33.7 hours, Radio 42.1 hours, Internet 49 hours, Xbox 55 hours, then finally Television with a staggering 63 hours. I was surprised to see how much television I really watched, thinking that I was keeping my viewing hours to a minimum, but it turned out that it was the highest amount out of the seven.

I was not too shocked to see that magazines and Ad's were the lowest amount of my mass media with a combined 8.5 hours. I didn't really think that I was being to exposed to Ad's but as soon as I did my journal it showed me otherwise. Most people don't realize that the media is actually controlling us threw what they show in magazines and a lot of ad's they portray all sorts of messages threw imagery, symbolism or just bluntly show it. We don't really realize that when we walk into a gas station, we see beautiful skinny models on magazines with out flaws or any imperfections and assume they are bulimic. But although we may not realize it, we are under the influence of the images that we see and don't see, In fact, these sources may make people have negative assumptions about many modeling ads.

My I-touch with 33.7 hours did not shook me at all because I take my I-pod almost everywhere with me. Besides my alarm clock and the radio, my I-pod wakes me up almost every morning. I have an I- trip so I can connect my I-pod to the radio wirelessly and that makes it a lot more convenient and easier than to listen to the radio in the morning. I also walk to school with my I-pod connected and use it for short periods in and out of class. I can also go on the internet with my I-touch and browse the internet and browse threw websites. Having an I-touch really added more time to my mass media consumption.

The third highest form for my mass media month was the Radio. The radio is a world wide function that we have had for years. Being able to broadcast and transmit messages over the radio has greatly influenced me in my