First Writing Assigment

The mass media was appearing in the 19^th century when the mass newspaper started to get circulated in cities. This mass communication allowed people to get information more Easley than before and mass media at this time served the purpose of getting more information around people I think. Before the newspapers were printed out in massive quantities there was almost no new news or information going around people. Due to the circulation of the newspapers people started to get new information and other things, such as advertisement etc. After the inventions of newspapers there a=came the radio and other technologies that helped mass media get developed in incredible speed. The mass media helped information go around people in the inception of the United States History.

The media in the film takes a big part of it. The main character’s job is a lobbyist. However, he is not only a lobbyist he is also a speaker for the research of tobacco. As the movie goes on, we see how well this character uses the mass media. He goes out on talk show and convinces people that tobaccos are not harmful. In this part, the mass media plays role of persuading people to do something, or to think in a particular way. Mass media able people to persuade or spread out their opinion faster and quickly than any other sources. In the movie his opinion gets spread out among people very quickly and since it is media that he is on, it gives more persuasiveness to his speech. If he weren’t on television and just talking to a person by person it would not be that persuasive. But since he is on television I think that it gives him more persuasiveness and makes people accept his ideas. Another thing is that mass media is the source that creates big issues out of small ones. As the movie goes to its climax, the main character’s plans and his secrets are written by a journalist. It creates a BIG issue with his life. Like this, media is an issue-maker. We can see this in our own lives too. If some famous star is getting married to someone it is on television and internet that creates big issues. Or very big issues such as elections are the big chunks of pieces that will make a big issue in society by the media.

In manufacturing consent, Noam Chomsky argues that corporate owned media like the radio, television or print are subject to commercial competition for revenue and profit. In the beginning of the mass media the books were printed in massive quantities so everyone can share new information and get more knowledge than they have. It started from a very genuine reason. However, as time passes the mass media changed into some profit making machine. Even in the movie, the more issue the headlines create the more profit journalists get. The more response you get from the public and positive view you get end up in money in the end. Every media is related to one thing. Money. For instance, I heard that every time some words that are the most searched for that day is say a corporation. By creating this issue of being searched the most for the day, the corporation gets some kind of profit. This is just an example of organizations getting blinded by money that they forgot the real reason for the existence of mass media. I think that Noam Chomsky is right about the fact that news businesses favor profit over public interest. As time passes public interests are lost and instead the corporations’ interests are what people think nowadays. People are so obsessed with things the media show that they just fall for it instead of thinking if it is any help to the society and eventually if it is helping the public interest.