How Media Affect Society

1. Introduction

The aim of this assignment is to determine the effect of media context / texts on the society. In this modern world, the correlation between the media and society has grown strong. With the rising of new media, it is not surprising that the society has grown more and more dependent towards it (World Economic Forum, 2016).

1. Media context / texts effect on society

The media is now a big role in our daily lives. It is almost impossible to imagine a world without it. But what are its effects on the society?

1. Change patterns of Social interaction (400)

Social interaction is a crucial part of humanity in general. Communication today are more democratic and interconnected. A person from Canada can contact a person from Australia in a matter of seconds. It is not surprising that we will encounter some changes in the way we interact with each other

In the middle of it all is the social media. It has enabled humans to do so much more than just communicating. They have also provided means of mass information and sharing through interconnected systems. Social media is transforming the contours of social interaction. Emotions like love, friendship, family bonding, intimacy and language and are finding various platforms and forms of expression (Bala, 2014).

Intrapersonal communication is the one factor which is heavily impacted. Social media has become an important tool of self-expression and self-presentation. The impression in social media is that people are pressured to build their image online to the eyes of others which may lead to narcissism. We want to project as we are living the best life irrespective of reality we keep on posting the real, created or edited pictures of ourselves and surroundings. The desire of posting and checking comments after every moment is making youth addict towards the social media. There is another drawback other than addiction and narcissism. Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains stated that “While internet improves our cognitive ability to skim and scan, it diminishes our intellectual capacity to concentrate and contemplate. Internet gradually makes us incapable of long form reading and long hours of intellectual focus.”

Another aspect that is changing is group communication. In the past, people use to have acquaintances and friends that they can see and know directly, but now it is shifting. People can now have internet friends which they haven’t seen in person yet. They can engage in a conversation with an unknown person from all sides of the world. People nowadays find it easier to look for people or groups of the same interest. However, as a result, interactions with real people are often forgotten and has created a shift.

2.2 Change in Business Environment (400)

Business today has changed as well compared to decades ago. Today, the media has a lot of role to play. In the past, people only advertise their businesses through newspapers, posters, and billboards. People today use something far more powerful. Social media. Now, every business big or small has their own accounts which can double as an advertising media and a customer services media.

Moreover, people these days can create their own businesses just through social media. Online shops are emerging here and there making it a lucrative area to delve in. They do not even have to have the goods they are selling in stocks with the help of drop-shipping and reselling. All they need is just an account and you are good to go.

“Online will be the primary driver of like-for-like sales growth,” said analysts at HSBC. “This confirms the structural shift away from high fixed cost bricks and mortar retailing.” Online sales across the entire retail sector, excluding food, have been outpacing in-store growth for some time now. They grew 18pc last year and by 27pc over the past two years, according to figures from BDO, an accountancy firm, while bricks and mortar sales fell over both periods (Bradshaw, 2017).

However, it has to be admitted that with the ever increasingly cheaper ways of both advertising and catering to customers, it has its catch. Due to the hyper connectivity, every wrong move by the business can become viral in a matter of minutes. That means that businesses are more scrutinized than ever before. Just like the recent fluke made by United Airlines which has become a viral sensation. It has become a recent PR nightmare after the incident of Dr. David Dao, who was forcefully dragged from a fully-booked United Express flight in Chicago because he refused to give up his seat to make room for crew members. Cell phone video of the incident sparked widespread outrage and created a public-relations nightmare for United Airlines. Markets dropped and they suffered a loss because of it. This is one of the examples of what hyper connectivity can do harm instead of good.