The Power of Mass Media and Its Ability to Limit People's Thinking and Decision-making
Table of Contents
I.Introduction
Overview
Purpose and Objectives
Research Questions
Definition of Terms
II.Literature Review
Introduction
Methodology
Theories of Power
Mass Media: A Commercial Industry
The Power of Mass Media: Influence on Decision-Making
The Power of Mass Media: Influence on Non-Decision-Making
The Mass Media and the Latent Face of Power
III.Methodology
Research Design
Data Collection Method
IV.Results and Discussion
Research Question 1: How is the power of mass media used to achieve specific political and/or social objectives?
Research Question 2: What interventions can be developed as a means of protection against media propaganda?
V.Conclusions
References and Bibliography
Introduction
Overview
The power of mass media and the scope of their influence on the modern society can only be fully appreciated through a complete understanding of who or what the media are. Nowadays, mass media and the mechanisms of their influence on public views become even more complicated than in the past, in particular, because of the Internet. The emergence of the Internet not only introduced completely new forms and channels of mass communications media, like social networking sites, blogs, YouTube, and micro-blogs, but also revolutionized the patterns of access to traditional mass media, including television, radio, and newspapers. Innovative developments in technology also positively contributed to the process enabling the phenomenon of media convergence to occur (Jenkins 2006). As a result, a single mobile device can easily enable a citizen of modern society to gain access to a huge pool of information, delivered through the unmatchable until now richness of media channels.
Television, radio, movies, newspapers, social networks, and blogs among other media are now accessible from a single point.With regard to their role as a major source of information and news coverage all over the world, mass media should be recognized as a powerful social actor. Furthermore, it seems sound to argue that the power of modern mass media to influence people’s views, limit their thinking, and shape their decision-making is even greater than it used to be in the past, given the pervasive prevalence of mass media worldwide. Due to the capabilities enabled by the Internet and web-presence, the mass media channels that used to target the citizens of a particular region, now, can target rather massive and diverse audiences, delivering specific messages that reflect perceptions, preferences, objectives and aims of a particular group of people (the elites) beyond borders of a single community and/or country.
On the one hand, as a powerful social actor, mass media manipulate people’s views and perceptions by the way they define realities through their interpretation of issues and events. As a …
