Group blog: The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?

Media has become a ubiquitous in our modern life whereby it has gradually turned into one of the basic needs of human beings today. However, there is a bitter debate in our society regarding the issue whether the mass media is corrupting our society or not.What is defining as media is corrupting our society? It simply means the media today is destroying our society’s moral. Actually, media is not corrupting our society.

Firstly, media is very important is the world development. Research shown that media is one of the most powerful and cost-effective ways to promote international development and to ensure access to news and information for people in the developing world. Further, some of the most difficult global issues of our time—including national, ethnic and religious conflicts, terrorism and pandemics—can be resolved only when the flow of information is facilitated.

When those who have been marginalized have a voice, and individuals can access accurate sources of news and information, the effect is immediate. In times of stress and crisis, people respond more effectively when they have access to reliable channels of information.

For example, through a radio program called “She Speaks, She Listens,” produced by Internews, refugee women from Darfur discuss such taboo topics as child marriage, reproductive health and gender-based violence—often for the first time. Doctors without Borders credit this program with a marked increase in the number of refugee women coming to their clinics for prenatal counseling and childbirth.

As a result, health workers are seeing fewer complications in mothers and babies, improving the overall health of the refugee population.

As respond to most of the people’s argument regarding the violent issue, research shows that violent media is actually good if we didn’t misuse it. Fear, greed, power-hunger, rage: these are aspects of our selves that we try not to experience in our lives but often want, even need, to experience vicariously through stories of others," writes Melanie Moore, Ph.D., a psychologist who works with urban teens. "Children need violent entertainment in order to explore the inescapable feelings that they've been taught to deny, and to reintegrate those feelings into a more whole, more complex, more resilient selfhood."

I'm not going to argue that violent entertainment is harmless. I think it has helped inspire some people to real-life violence. I am going to argue that it's helped hundreds of people for every one it's hurt, and that it can help far more if we learn to use it well. I am going to argue that our fear of "youth violence" isn't well-founded on reality, and that the fear can do more harm than the reality. We act as though our highest priority is to prevent our children from growing up into murderous thugs -- but modern kids are far more likely to grow up too passive, too distrustful of them, too easily manipulated.

Music, and other media, can serve as a way to channel anger and process intense emotions and experiences. What I do like about the music and sex study mentioned above is that it includes actual quotes from teens, allowing them to voice their own critiques of how music affects them. Still, as we all know, what people say they do isn't always the same as what they actually do.

What the teens think is happening to them is probably influenced by what people tell them. If parents and other authority figures consistently disapprove of their music, that too could become a factor in what effect the music has. If authority figures respond with a healthier, more nurturing attitude, with a goal of fostering creativity and introspection, the results could be very different.

Hence, it is true that the media is not corrupting our world if you know how to use it wisely.