Meddling Media

I used to watch a really nice TV program every weekend. It is a youth-oriented show if my memory serves me right. Athough I cannot remember the whole story any more, something we may call "a mere make believe" left an indelible mark in my memory. This is how it goes.

Two of the many characters in the show were best of friends. They shared their secrets to one another, fought for each other, and cared for one another. Well of course that's within the idea of the scriptwriter and the instructions of the director. Some people would think that those two artists are really best friends in real life because they portrayed their roles effectively. It so happened that I was able to watch a showbiz news the following day, and what I heard somehow caught my attention; those two artists that I mentioned earlier were actually enemies in real life! .

At this point in time it is really hard to distinguish fallacy from reality. This is due to the very creative minds of the ones that created the media. Technology is now at its peak and it steadily and rapidly advances that most of the times, although only a few notices, authenticity is gradually being covered up by clouds of erroneous beliefs.

"We are bombarded today by such a quantity of images that we can no longer distinguish direct experience from what we have seen for a few seconds on television. The memory is littered with bits and pieces of images, like a rubbish dump." This was said by Italo Calvino, a Cuban-born Italian novelist and short-story writer. Though he died almost 20 years ago, what he said is slowly but surely taking its place in this world.

Definitely, these media effects are now changing the mindset of our present generation; furthermore these also alter their lifestyle. And these will certainly continue shifting lives in the near future.

Media may come in different forms: broadcasting, communication, journalism, multimedia, newspapers, periodicals and telecommunication. All of these play major roles in sometimes improving, but also destroying societies. But the one that has the most enormous upshot in our society is broadcasting, which includes in itself televisions and radios.

Statistics shows estimation that almost 1.8 billion of radios and 800 million televisions are in use world wide. Just imagine how many people it could reach in every single tick of a clock. And more interestingly, new broadcast systems are still being developed in order to reach more publicity.

These years can be considered as the broadcast era of communication. This era will be remembered as a period when vast national populations shared witness to a wide variety of political and cultural events, such as the address of a leader, the performance of an actor or singer, or a sporting event. It is fair to say that this was perhaps the only time in history when so wide a range of economic and social classes constituted a single audience.

But how do all these affect us, as what I have been repeatedly pointing out from the beginning? In an essay written by the British historian and broadcaster Asa Briggs, he looks at how technological advances made in recent decades have created a revolution in the media, allowing people to communicate in ways they had never dreamed of. Briggs noted that although these new modes of communication--including the television, the personal computer, the Internet, and other digital technologies--are available throughout many parts of the world, these media may be used in different ways depending upon the prevailing political and social circumstances. Briggs also raises questions about the future of the media and how the unfolding media revolution will affect people's lives.

I once read a famous magazine that one of my classmates brought to school, I found there a part which asks the reader questions such as; "Why is it that you still don't have a girlfriend or boyfriend?" Others discuss how to have a good sense in fashion, and some about sex. I said to myself: "Is this really the focus of our generation today, to move by the standards of the society and abhor individual productivity for a better country?" And as I observed my surroundings, I realized that the answer to my question is definitely yes!

Remember that what we see everyday can influence our thoughts and outlooks through life. One of the major and most vividly seen effects is the young ones' view on love which is due to the rampancy of love teams being portrayed by different dominant personalities in TV programs particularly soap operas and youth oriented programs. The audience thinks that in order to be accepted in the society one must imitate what they see in television. In effect they will then waste their time finding for their so-called "soul mates", while disregarding their obligations. It is fine to have such relationship if it's done in the right place at the right time. And would you consider the money one will use for wooing somebody? Where will it come from? From their parents, of course! Now, isn't that a slack of shame on the part of the suitor, meaning he can't even provide the needs of his "love" by his own efforts? Then he is certainly turning himself into a leech, just sucking what he can get from his parents and bringing it to the junkyard of "puppy love and romance".

Another is the dominance of anime, action movies, as well as the ever famous wrestling and brawling types of sports. These kinds of shows stir up the violent part of people. When we watch wrestling, we sometime tend to think