The Effect of News Media on Society
News nowadays is anything from the normal to the bizarre. News is generally the more abnormal picture of everyday life. It stirs people’s curiosity, interest and speculation whether it is relevant or not. Like a hot cake coming out of the oven, news is something that interests everybody. There are several ways through which news can reach people’s living rooms and bedrooms.
First, news is generally delivered by the media through some medium. The most popular among them are television, radio and print. The latter is considered as the most effective medium because it caters to everyone’s unique human interest, even though it is dealing with uncommon and bizarre news story.
Television news media plays a very crucial role in delivering the news. This medium of broadcasting news is widely popular among all sections of society and the masses. Television news is however, being challenged by new media. These include social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which play an important role in delivering breaking news to a broader section of society.
There has been a steady decline in the number of people who regularly watch television news. Some are even losing their subscriptions and tuning out completely. This trend is worrying because television news has been a great source of information for several decades now. With this decline, the ability of people to know what is happening around the globe is severely limited. To make matters worse, the global warming scare and the ongoing geopolitical rivalry have led to a considerable drop in the ratings of several major TV news channels.
There is another section of the population that uses news media differently. This section of society is composed of six countries – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China, Bangladesh and Japan. These six countries have a high illiteracy rate and a very low reading habit. These populations do not prefer news media that carries stories on issues that affect their lives. For example, if a story indicates that there is a political battle in a country, only a fraction of the people may be aware of it and are likely to ignore it.
The majority of the people in these six countries prefer to read news headlines over anything else. In fact, they spend more time on television news than any other form of entertainment. This means that they are less likely to have changed their habits drastically and are unlikely to change at all in the next few years. A majority of the people in these six countries will never switch to a different medium. In these situations, the impact of changing mediums on society is relatively small.