The media is such a huge topic in today’s world. Back when my parents were growing up the media did not have this huge impact as it does today. The media plays a role in influencing people’s thoughts and behaviors. As the media focus on topics the public becomes more concerned with that topic and more people begin to question it or talk about it.
In the 1980’s illegal drug use started to become a problem. As the years went on the media started to cover this topic more and more. As the topic was covered by the media people began to pay more and more attention to the problem. During the coverage of this illegal drug use the related deaths began to decrease. As the related deaths were decreasing the people were still involved and concerned with this topic most likely due to the media coverage.
“The idea that the media can shape what issues we think about or what issues we think are important is referred to as agenda setting.” (Gruman, 181) A perfect example of agenda setting is the current media coverage on COVID-19 and the election coming up. Most of the media are focused on these two topics and a lot of people are taking these topics to their own media platform. People are posting on social media platforms voicing their opinions on these two important topics. There are so many other topics the media should be focusing on also such as sex trafficking. The world needs to really focus on the sex trafficking issue but due to media only covering COVID-19 and the election not many people are focusing on the sex trafficking issue.
Media has both it’s pros and cons. The pros of media include an easy way to get information out, easy way to communicate, and a way to keep people informed. The cons of media include influencing people, fake news, negativity on topics and wrongfully portraying topics. In today’s world everyone automatically believes what the media is saying and portraying and that could be a really bad thing. Media is sometimes portraying the right things but there are so many things that can be twisted and portrayed in a wrong way on media. I do not want to get into the topics of politics but there are so many things that the media either leave out or portray in a wrong way when it comes to elections and politics. It is sad how much influence media truly has on people. Back in March when quarantine started due to COVID-19 everyone just automatically believed the media. Is it wrong to question the media and think that they could be lying to us? No, it is not wrong because people know how much the media has an impact and influence on the world. People just automatically believed that COVID-19 was real and they had to follow all the rules. I am not saying that COVID-19 is not real because I know it is, but a lot of people did not even question it and just went along with everything the media was saying. That right there shows how much media has an influence and impact on this world.
Gruman, Jamie A., et al. Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems. SAGE, 2017.