Role of the Media in Society

Introduction

The role of mass media can be analyzed in relation to the role of the society or can be discussed the influence that media play or should play on it and question the relevance of their content which should involve training, education, information, news, entertainment and fun. The term media is usually interpreted broadly and includes sectors such as television or radio broadcasting plus newspaper, magazine, or online publishing; communications infrastructure provision; and also production of digital and other forms of media content. Media economics is concerned with unraveling the various forces that direct and constrain choices made by producers and suppliers of media. It is an area of scholarship that has expanded and flourished in departments of economics, business, and media studies over the past two decades.

Discussion

The role of media in society is to distribute, transmit, getting the contents of communication to the desired audience. To do this, it must be able to generate an audience, capture it and hold their attention so that the message actually gets to the desired audience. Moreover, a number of reasons explain why media economics has advanced quite significantly in popularity and status over recent years. The increasing relevance of economics has been underlined by the so-called digital revolution and its effect on reshaping media businesses while, at the same time, accelerating related processes of convergence and globalization. Deregulation of national media industries is another key trend that has shifted attention on the part of media policy makers and also academics from political toward economic issues and questions. So, although media economics, is the application of economics theories and concepts to all aspects of media, is still at a relatively early stage of development as a subject area, its importance for industry, policy makers, and scholars is increasingly apparent. (Gladwell, 2005)

Media Bias

Irrespective of how the news is reported, the media are accused of being biased and lacking objectivity. Left-oriented media critics argue that as businesses, especially in the era of consolidation, the media are dependent on advertising revenue and are thus inclined to tilt to the right and support the status quo. Critics on the right, on the other hand, point to the disproportionate number of liberals and Democrats among journalists as evidence for left-oriented bias in the news. It is impossible to argue with the numbers on this point: Taken as a group, journalists are indeed significantly more liberal and more likely to identify as Democrats. The question remains, however, whether these ideological and partisan preferences translate into biased reporting. The answer to this question is not entirely clear. One study reports that a majority of a sample of journalists suspected that their political opinions sometimes affected their reporting. Another experimental study found only a minor effect of political ideology on how reporters described reporting a hypothetical story. (Loffreda, 2001)

There are several reasons why the ideological preferences of journalists do not strongly and consistently affect media content. First, journalists take seriously their professional code of ethics. Second, editors, ...