Alicia Baldwin – essay one
Postmodern media- ‘society and culture has changed radically
since 1945 but how far have the changes in technology and the rise of mass
media affected peoples understanding and experience of the world around them’
Society is arguably unrecogniseable from the 1940s, the
significant rise in mass media has meant that our culture has become completely
consumed by the media, to the point of hyper reality, we can no longer
interpret what is real and what is not because the public have become so
subdued to believing what they read in the media. This has been taken to such a
point that innocent people have been accused of crimes in papers such as news
of the world and the sun and had rubbish thrown at them in the streets despite
being completely innocent and not even under arrest from police forces. The idea
of postmodernism is unavoidable in our culture due to rises in mass media and
technology, society is obsessed with the idea of being individual and different
due to the media trying to form us into something identical to one another. However
cultures are so different and there are so many different religions and choices
in life people make that there will never be one successful ‘objective’ truth,
because unlike in the 1940s freedom of speech and actions is accepted and not
only that is encouraged at the present time. This has meant people can
experience what they wish and gain a better understanding for culture if they wish
to do so. The public can no longer avoid being subjected to the media as it is
everywhere we go and we cannot guarantee we are being given the truth,
televisions, internet, mobile phones, and communication has improved so
drastically that it has become almost impossible not to hear about the latest
scandal in the news, whether you want to or not, it is impossible not to be
affected by what you read on the internet or in magazines and because it has
become such a big part of everyday life it almost seems unnatural if you are
not involved. Particularly, with the younger generation of today, from using
mobile phones from the minute of waking up to going to sleep, using social
networking sites such as facebook, twitter, instagram, you are never able to
miss what is going on. This has been proven to be unhealthy for society and the
immense pressure the media has put on society in the past century is truly
shocking. However, there are definitely positive outcomes from technology as people
are now able to communicate better meaning people can keep in touch with one
another despite long distance, security has improved with people being able to
ring you to see where you are or use their mobile phone to track your mobile
phone, CCTV has rapidly reduced crime as people are less likely to commit a
crime if they know there is a chance they are being filmed and could get
caught, however rises in technology and media influencing everyone to have the
latest gadget and this undeniable competitiveness to be the ‘best’ has lead to
an increase in crime as people are stealing what they do not have, and
breaching privacy rights for example paying the police forces to gain storylines
to publish in their papers or hacking celebrities phones in order to receive information
to sell stories that the public so desperately want to read, I struggle to
believe their need was this intense in 1945. Arguably now we live in a society
filled with freedom of speech but have we become a little too exposed to this
and resulted in there being too much freedom of speech and if so where do we
draw the line and where should this stop? This has definitely had a growing
affect on society and how we interpret and understand the world around us due
to mass media and technology and this has now become irreversible, it is now a
way of life as opposed to a factor in society. Privacy rights are being
breached every single day in newspapers making certain members of the public
feel embarrassed and ashamed which does make us question the positivity or
progress in technology and what is published in the media. The progress in
technology for medicine and health care is undoubtedly a positive and something
that has made so many positive changes for the NHS system and the nation’s
health, perhaps he should be giving more of our money towards findings for
medical health as opposed to the latest phone or even just the pound we pay for
our morning newspaper. The difference between positive changes in technology and negative
changes is what they bring to society and how that influences our culture,
ultimately positive changes will influence it positively and negative changes
will influence it negatively, but is our culture to blame for the changes made
to society and culture since 1945, possibly so as we are the consumers.
