Media: Its Effects to the People

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Are your eyes weary of the staggering billboards across every corner in the city? You might get dizzy over those topsy-turvy rows of pawnshops, dress shops, bakery and stalls competing for consumers’ attention with their different styles and propriety presentations along the highways. Most of the ads are propagandas of multinational companies ranging from clothing lines, fast food chains and the enticing perfumes among others. Some find them okay because they’re big fan of the endorsers. Others will question, “Why are those people endorsing those products”.

After a long day at school, you rush going home and go to your room switch on the radio and let yourself be serenaded by the songs. You might not notice, but the radio ads consume almost half of the programs. Few ads might be informative and others are just dangling and irritating. You might want to switch on the TV afterwards to watch your favorite soap operas. With the very dramatic scene you’re watching, you can’t help but cry or laugh if the scene is hilarious. Sometimes you feel like your in love again after witnessing an intimate setting with the actors.

Have you tried buying toothpaste and you were confused what to buy? After a minute you decided to buy a particular brand with the reason “this is quite cheaper” than the other.

Without noticing, most of us experience this routine. This is just a slice of our daily life but oftentimes we fail to recognize what is its significance. Everything is powered by media in this modern age from the moment you wake up until you sleep at night. Have you ever asked yourself how all of this affects your reasoning, your power to choose and your lifestyle?

In this paper, the author would like to gather information all about mass media: its evolution through times, its disciplines and how it affects the people’s lives.

Chapter 2

WHAT IS MASS MEDIA?

According to wikipedia.com, mass media is a term used to denote a section of the media specifically envisioned and designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. Clipnotes.com further define it as “communication whether written, broadcast, or spoken that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth”. Madden (2008) simply defined mass media as avenues for messages that are created for consumption by large numbers of people.

Mass media in the Philippines

Mass media started way back in the ancient world. Drama in many cultures was probably claimed as the first mass-media. In the Philippines, print media proliferated along with zarzuelas (a term used for typical melo-drama depicting the Filipinos’ life and struggle) during the Spanish colonization. Known Filipino heroes fought against the Spaniards by the use of print media either in books and newspapers among others.

Our national hero, Jose P. Rizal, wrote “Noli Me Tangere” and “El Filibusterismo” in showing his resistance against the friars and the Spanish regime. Marcelo H. del Pilar became the editor-in-chief of the newspaper called “La Solidaridad” during this time among other Filipino patriots. The medium took a leap in the Philippine history as it boosted the Filipinos’ nationalism, thus, making it independent from the Spanish government. Today, with the advance technologies, mass media in various forms send messages across the globe very fast.

Kinds of Mass Media

Mass media has its forms. Broadcasting, for one, is the distribution of audio and/or video signals (programs) to a number of recipients ("listeners" or "viewers") that belong to a large group.

The sequencing of content in a broadcast is called a schedule. With all technological endeavours a number of technical terms and slang are developed please see the list of broadcasting terms for a glossary of terms used.

Television and radio programs are distributed through radio broadcasting over frequency bands that are highly regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. Such regulation includes determination of the width of the bands, range, licensing, types of receivers and transmitters used, and acceptable content.