Mass Media: Types and Influences

This writing below I made for my students. The idea of the writing not originally mine, but I got from many sources. Mostly from Father Yos Lalu Pr’s book ‘PAK bagi SMU’. May it can helful for us to discuss.

Mass Media: Types and Influences 

Mass media has become an integral part of our lives and can not be separated from our life. Particularly for the urban people, the need for information is more important than ever. Our values and way of life in the society in this information era are strongly influenced by the mass media like newspapers, TV, radio, video, and the internet. Mass media’s influence on people’s lives is even greater and deeper than many kinds of state indoctrination or priest’s sermons from the pulpit in the church .The full range of unfiltered media is now available to most of us by using a parabola and satellite transmission. We can buy many kinds of videos freely. Access to the internet is easy and inexpensive almost everywhere. We can find many kinds of information using the internet technology..It is worth remembering that there have been three important revolutions in recent history, i.e. agrarian revolution in farming, industry revolution in mass production and information revolution that provides global access. We are now in the midst of the information revolution. Due to continuing developments in media technology, we are flooded by a huge volume of non-stop information. Most of this information comes to us without a filter or censor. The information can be positive and negative. It is important for all, and particularly teenagers, to be able to look critically at the information and the sources and make positive choices. Having a critical attitude means that we can distinguish between positive and negative information and make choices that will give us information that will benefit us and our society,  Below are some things we can do to develop our ability to think critically:

ü      Reading regularly

ü      Attend a variety of training sessions on media, if any

ü      Practice to viewing media critically

ü      Ask and learn from the experts or mature and experienced people

ü      Read the Bible regularly

ü      Do daily reflection

ü      Attend Sunday mass or worship regularly

ü      Etc. 

Mass Media’s Influences

The research from the US tells us how many teenagers’ lives are seriously troubled. The results of the research show us that 43 % of teens in the US have used drugs and alcohol at least once. Around 1 million teens have left their homes and a half of them live as delinquent (naughty) boys and girls and the other half are drug users. About 2,000 teens from the age of 10 to 19 years old commit to suicide each year. Most of them come from wealthy families that are not harmonious. There is no love, caring and acceptance in those families.Many teens make all of their own choices about the media they use. No one guides them or restricts them from accessing any type of information that they choose.. Everything is allowed. Then the kids grow up and become people who are out of control.. They feel mature enough to make decisions on their own. Many forms of authority, rules, and norms are seen as an obstacle to their freedom and so, should not be followed. Ethics and morality are not really important for them. For many violence, crimes and sex are their daily life and concern. The research from the 1980s in the US shows us that teenagers between 16 and18 years old are wasting up to 16,000 hours of their time per year watching TV. In the same period, the violence and crime in US grew by 293 %. Times weekly magazine reported that the frequency of crimes committed by students in New York per month was the same as that committed by Japanese teenagers of the same age in a year.Here are some positive and negative influences of mass media on our lives:

C Positive Influences

Positive influences of mass media can be seen from several aspects or points of view:

1. From media technology side itself
2. From the side of the owner and sponsor of the media
3. Unintended influences of the media technology and sponsors

a.            The influences of  media technology

Ø            Media technology makes the reduces the distance between human beings. The world is smaller due to increased communication and access to information.It makes human being closer to each other in terms of space and thinking. We are exposed to a broad range of ideas and thought from all kinds of people from all over the world.

Ø            Media technologies allows us as to take part ‘virtually’ in occasions and activities in other parts of the world. Through the  media we know immediately about earthquakes, tsunamis, avian influenza outbreaks, etc that strike any areaon earth. We know about the results of champions league which is tacking place far away in Europe.

Ø            It allows us to learn more easily and faster by using the internet.

Ø            It help us to get the best results of pictures and sounds.

b.                  The Influences of the owner and sponsor

Ø            Men can use the media to create and invite the people concerned with certain world issues like AIDS, drug abuse, mass killing, totalitarian government, etc.

Ø            Media can help to create a positive  and educated opinion. Media can be used to fight for freedom, truth and justice.

Ø            Media can help us to relax by listening music, dance, etc.

c.                   Unrealized influence of media.

Ø            Media can create a new cultures

Ø            Media can changes people’s way of thinking about life, culture, existence,etc. 

D           Negative Influence of Media

a.             Negative influences caused by the media technology itself:

ü            Information is power and those who control the media empires have great power and a great responsibility to use that power positively. Those who have power over the media have real power in the modern world.

ü            Media could create new cultures which change the old and original ones from the community. This could be both good and bad

b.            Negative Influences that caused by the owner and sponsor

ü            Media is business. In order to exist media providers must make a profit. The owners and sponsors tend to create a media environment that is driven by materialism, consumerism, and hedonism.

ü            Media can create the wrong perception of prosperity. Prosperity is made out to be having an excess of material goods (cars, houses, jewelry, etc). Men are not measured by their character and dedication but by what things they have in life .It is promoted by advertising in most kinds of media.

ü            Media can create stereotypes of beauty and style which is then imitated by citizens, like fashion and hairstyles, for instance.

ü            Media can create a sensation of sex, violence, and horror which may be popular with the audience.

ü            The owner, ruler, and media sponsor can make up any trick for their own business and politics interest.

c.             Unrealized negative influence of media

ü            People’s daily schedules and work schedules can be interrupted if most of our time is used by listening to music or watching TV. Communications between family members can also be reduced.

ü            Sex addiction and violence has a close relationship to TV shows, movies and videos or chatting via internet or HP

ü            The trend towards urbanization creates a constant flow of people coming from the villages to the city and is at least partly caused by the unrealistic glamour of urban life as shown on TV.

Mr. Maxi – from many sources.

(The writer is alumni of STF Driyarkara, Jakarta; Now teach ‘Character, Cultural, and Community Development at Sekolah High/Scope Indonesia TB. Simatupang, South Jakarta).

School of Love Named family

School of
Love Named Family

By: Maksimus Adil*

After passing several months of marital life, I got an insight or inspiration or some people call it an understanding about family life. From my own experience, I have discovered that marital life is a kind of school, i.e. a school of love.

There are many reasons why I call it a school of love:

1. The foundation of family life as well as the first reason why a man and a woman agree to live together as wife and husband is love. Love is the reason why two people from the opposite sex come to an agreement to hand in hand face every situation of their life (bad and luck, sick or health), to always trust and obey each other for their sake and their children.
2. After a man and a woman decide to marry, the journey is not finished. I mean everything is not perfect yet for them. The decision to marry is just a beginning of a new phase in their life. This couple needs to learn more about each other’s habits and behavior, which are maybe a new discovery for him or her. These new finding can be something that you never hoped for before, something that can give you a different view of your spouse. It can make your love decrease or increase and you have to receive it as a challenge to help you to be more mature than before. So, family life is an on going process to be a real man and woman.
3. Since family life is an on going process to know your spouse better and together with him or her design your future together, it is a school in its original meaning. School is a training process to be an expert for life in certain aspects.
4. What do you learn in this school? It is LOVE. LOVE is the main subject for this school. When you come closer to your spouse, you can see him or her better, more clearly. Like I stated above, you will discover his or her new habit or behavior. Those discoveries can give a negative or positive effect on you. It is the real challenge. For instance this new finding makes your love or respect to your spouse decrease; as a human being that is already blessed with a mind, you have a responsibility to save your marriage, to defend it, to fulfill your oath before the public. The only one way to do it is to LEARN. You have to learn how to love your spouse and make it grow day by day.
5. In this school, who is the teacher and who is the student? The spouses are teachers as well as the students. As a teacher, you have to be a model for the world how to love your partner or other people. You are a model for how you obey or fulfill your commitment and your oath before the public. At the same time both of you are students who need to always learn how to love each other.
6. When will you graduate from this school? This school is a school for life. You will graduate on the day the death comes to separate you. Your graduation depends on how you live your marital life. And the only one who knows it is God and maybe yourself.

SO, don’t give up. Many problems you face along your journey in your marital life are homework or projects for the students. Just do your project or homework carefully and you will get the credit or point.

In practice (on our daily life) the situation is really complicated. Beside family problem itself, different self interest, different hobbies, many others different things which are the spouses already knew before (maybe religion, race, etc.), the situation or difficulties which we find in work or environment around us give more effect in our marital life. For these reason we need a problem management skill. But problem management skill just works if we know the priority in our life. So, we have to design our value hierarchy first and then we know what is the most, more, or even important for us. Each parties should be sit and speak together to design their value hierarchy. And because love can make everything is possible, I believe, because of love every spouses will learn more skill to make their love strength enough to face many challenges in this era.

One of the most important challenges in marital life is children. Almost all people who agree to marriage have the same dream: have children. In a normal marital relationship all spouses need to have their own descendants. As a part of society, the on-going task of these spouses is to educate or train their children to live in harmony with others.

The main subject in which parents have to train their children is LOVE. Parents have to show to their children how to love other by loving each other and their children in words and deeds. If the parents usually teach their children to love and let them experience how to be loved, those children will be great lovers for others and society will be a society of love.

By doing these, I am sure, the teacher in school will not find any difficulties with those children, criminal acts in society will decrease, and above all we create a brother and sister relationship. This is the society that we want to live in. This is the Garden of Eden society, this is the heavenly life. Each of us has the same responsibility to develop this kind of society by starting to make love as the main spirit in our family. Finally, love is love only if we practice it.

Jakarta, July 28, 2006

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* The writer is Catholic Religion and 3CD teacher at Sekolah High/Scope Indonesia, TB Simatupang.

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