Is the influence of mass media in your country big on shaping general public opinion?
This speech won the second place in the category of Millenials, designed for 11th graders, but these tenth graders competed with excellency at Biffi La Salle's Oratory Contest, held as part of their Fest on Oct, 21st at 7:30 a.m.
Abstract:
During this speech we are going to explain what the types of mass media are, what the positive and negative aspects of the main ones that nowadays exist are, how they influence, in a general aspect, the public opinion, and then focus on how this influence is present in Colombia, showing real life examples, with facts and opinions from specialists. All of this, in order to conclude with our opinion about this serious influence on our current lives.
Mass Media came to our lives without any warning or notice, it did not give time to anyone to get ready, however, in the matter of a second, it revolted the world, changing the way in which all humanity receives information about any type of matter, either political, economical, social, cultural, among others. Modifying completely the whole dynamic of news diffusion, turning them into something way much quicker and efficient.
The creation of all this mass media, like the press, the television, the radio and posteriorly social media, brought to the world of communication an enormous amount of benefits, among which we can highlight their expressiveness, the variety of news and all the opinions that began to be implemented. Its speed allows the news to arrive to its destiny with more promptness. And finally, mass media provides an increment in its diffusion, this due to the fact every day the information arrives to more people than ever before.
Nevertheless, mass media does not only bring a great amount of improvements to today's society, but it also has a great amount of inconveniences that are really tough to manage. Each mass media comes with its own and unique problems, for instance, a difficulty present in all mass media is that, what we see on the television, what we hear in the radio, is not the actual truth, it is just an interpretation given by the media.
With this system, there is always going to be a barrier that separates us from knowing the absolute truth. Everything that we ever get to know is just a distorted image, a reflection of the truth. This is why the same fact can be known differently by each person, and have a thousand various versions.
Besides this, each mass media has a different problem, just to mention a few:
- Advertising and Propaganda: These two were created with the only purpose of selling and object or an idea, The strategy managed to make this happen consist in influencing the public in a psychological way, appealing to fears like bad breath, in order to sell mouthwash, or the fear of communism, in order to sell an idea during a political campaign. This by distorting reality with the end of achieving a goal.
- The Press: the diffusion of news through the press suffers from the same problem as with television, even when it is a media where the point is to present the truth, the only fact of transmitting any type of information implies a subjective interpretation and reality can never be shown the way it actually is. Besides, this media needs a large amount of economic resources in order to function, this is why we can find biased media, referring to a media where the news may be manipulated by the same person that sponsors them, this is why it is so difficult to find a press completely independent.
- Social Media: Nowadays, social media represents a communication mechanism that has facilitated the diffusion of news among the population, specially the teens. This is why, for a teenager, trapped in the chores of life, what is easier than waking up, looking at their phone and finding out about everything they have missed during night? All of this in less than 10 minutes! Besides, throughout time, social media has shown that they allow efficient and dynamic interactions. The true problem is that everything published does not have any type of control or filter, so we will never be sure that the information we are receiving is true.
And the influence of this media is not little thing, according to El Espectador, practically all the information received by the Colombian population comes from the mass media. Turning this into a crucial tool to shape public opinion, and the reach of these medias is frightening.
This happens because in all the governments, all the political parties, the religious sector, between others, recognize the value of the public opinion. In consequence, they try to influence it through different media. This strategy has seen to be highly effective, due to its speed and reach.
An example of this is during election time, where any time of subjectiveness in the media changes the opinion of the spectator; for instance, the time they dedicate to cover each candidate, the type of questions they ask, the attitude of the interviewers toward a determined candidate, the visibility given to each candidate, between many other factors that influence profoundly in the decision of the population of who to vote for.
This influence could be clearly seen during the last presidential elections, where, according to Mario Morales, a writer of El Espectador, the cover of the media during this time is highly questionable, he criticizes the different media for the lack of persistence to accomplish a debate during the second round and he emphasized in the fact that the lack of partiality changed quite a lot the decision of the colombian people, where “the positive or negative affirmation of a candidate, the intonations (kind or aggressive) of voice and the body language transmit emotions, hates and affections with an indisputable and improper resonance”.
It is necessary to know the background of the situations raised and to have very clear ideas, in order to be able to contrast the information and find the truth. But most of the time due to lack of knowledge we swallow everything that is said, believing completely each word, just because it has come out in the media. Because media should not lie, so we trust them.
This speech is an invitation to open your eyes and mind, to learn to use the media correctly, to use all your ability to compare and contrast information in order to identify all the lies, and invitation to not being fooled, and instead of adopting other people’s opinion, make your own.
By Camila Orozco and
Susana Rengifo, Step 10.
