The first printed pages appeared more than 500 years ago. Types of drama in numerous cultures were probably the first mass media, going back into the Ancient World.... since then; the media has been delivering information and entertainment. In this century alone, dramatic developments have taken place in mass media. In 1900, there was no radio, television or Internet; newspapers dominated the media market, with virtually no competition. It's remarkable to see how far society has come since then. Media today has evolved into a multi-faceted entity that has become an integral part of our life. Using available technology, such as the Internet, we can now communicate with one another anywhere on Earth, or Space, instantly.

Two basic kinds of mass media are the print media including newspapers and magazines, and the broadcast media including radio and television. Initially, in the 19th and early 20th centuries news coverage was carried out by newspapers and magazines. However during the past five decades, the television network has become a more powerful medium. Modern scientific and technological advances, such as the Internet, bridge differences between the print and broadcast media, by presenting information available both in the newspapers, as well as that on radio and television.

It started by way of messengers and scribes, evolved through the presentation of newspapers and radio, brought us together with television, and now serves us world- wide via the ever-popular Internet. Even from the earliest days of its existence, it has contributed greatly in ways that both enlighten and enrich society, and ways that deteriorate and perplex it. It is not a surprise to learn, then, that the mass media is the most powerful source of information we have, and nothing else in today's world influences public perception quite as heavily. The mass media have an important role in modern democratic society as the main channel of communication. The population relies on the news media as the main source of information and the basis on which they form their opinions and voting decisions.

The mass media plays a significant role in modern society. They bring about a general diffusion of knowledge about life in the world today, thus influencing many aspects of our social, political and economic patterns. Mass media has certain important functions to perform which include affecting public opinion, political opinion and government, to improve the political fabric of our democracy. The basic functions performed by media include:

• Information: it keeps us informed about the latest news in and around the world. Instantaneous delivery of Information is possible. It enables good mass-market coverage at low cost per exposure
• Entertainment: Mass media help us relax with family and friends and pass time. They also fulfill our psychological and social needs
• Advocacy: Both for business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication.
• Enrichment and Education: Media plays a major role in all developed, developing and under-developed countries as ICT tools used for providing Education. It provides as an attractive tool for dissemination of knowledge and thus is highly influential in Education. It is an effective and interactive way to take students to new environments and very effective in introducing, summarizing and reviewing concepts leading to high knowledge building
• Link between Government and Public: Through the mass media the government can inform, explain and convince the public over their programs.
• Government watchdog - The news media plays also the vital role of "watchdog" over the government, looking out for instances of malfunction and corruption.
• Socialization - Another important function of mass media is to illuminate the social fabric and to influence the shape of its pattern. Various aspects of our habits, desires and relationship, both as individuals and as groups, are examined by the media; thus it helps in shaping our social values. Getting along with the neighbors, personal problems, our taste in popular music, racial tensions, athletics, interior decorating, trends in fashion and the beliefs of religious groups are constantly the subjects of reporting and discussion by the press, books as well as radio and television programs.

Media affect how we learn about our world and interact with one another. Media literally mediate our relationship with social institutions. We are dependent on the media for what we know and how we relate to the world of politics because of the media-politics connection. The media has a strong social and cultural impact upon society. This is predicated upon its ability to reach a wide audience which often sends a strong and influential message.

Media is undoubtedly the greatest medium of communication in our society, but how does media’s portrayal of real world affect our society? Media are very integral part of our lives and therefore they generate popular interest and debate about any social problem that we can think of. Does TV have too much sex and violence? Are the news media biased? Have TV talk shows gone too far with their sensationalized topics? Should the content of Internet be regulated? Are media shaping our values? IS TV harmful for our children? Do media drive foreign policy? Are newspapers insensitive to minorities? Is emphasis on body image harmful to our society? Should tobacco advertising be restricted? Should the media cover criminal trials? Do media reports of crime heighten the fears of citizens? Is advertising ethical? Do paparazzi threaten First Amendment Rights? Does the globalization of media industries homogenize media content?

Among the alarming developments of these years has been the widespread increase of pornography and wanton violence in the media. Books and magazines, recordings, the cinema, the theatre, television, videocassettes, advertising displays and even telecommunications frequently offer a representation of violent behavior or of permissiveness in sexual activity that reaches the point of being openly pornographic and morally offensive.

The communications media have made pornography and violence accessible to a vastly expanded audience, including young people and even children, and a problem, which at one time was confined mainly to wealthy countries, has now begun, via the communications media, to corrupt moral values in developing nations.

Exposure to pornography can also be - like exposure to narcotics - habit-forming and can lead individuals to seek increasingly "hard core" and perverse material. The likelihood of anti-social behaviour can grow as this process continues.

Researchers have found consistent evidence that young children who watch more television and films showed more aggressive play and behavior. There has been increase in juvenile crimes like murders, robbery, thefts, and rapes and there has been poor eating habits, increase in drinking, smoking, doping as children see their role models performing wrong acts and tend to emulate them.

Commercials are a way that gender roles are displayed in society. When you see a car commercial for a mechanic most of the time the mechanic is a man. But when you see a commercial about cleaning products for the house, normally a woman is the face you see. Such commercials are leading to more gender bias in the society and especially shaping young minds that perceive information on television as the real world.

A distortion of Reality - Individuals with greater exposure to media violence see the world as a dark and sinister place. Television programs present a narrow view of the world, and the world they present is violent. Thus, people who watch a lot of television are more likely than those who watch less to see the world as being violent and overestimate their chance of being involved in violence.

Media Freedom & Misuse

[Professor] Galtung laid out 12 points of concern where journalism often goes wrong when dealing with violence. Each implicitly suggests more explicit remedies.

Decontextualizing violence: focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons for unresolved conflicts and polarization.
Dualism: reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, when often more are involved. Stories that just focus on internal developments often ignore such outside or “external” forces as foreign governments and transnational companies.
Manicheanism: portraying one side as good and demonizing the other as “evil.”
Armageddon: presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives.
Focusing on individual acts of violence while avoiding structural causes, like poverty, government neglect and military or police repression.
Confusion: focusing only on the conflict arena (i.e., the battlefield or location of violent incidents) but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence.
Excluding and omitting the bereaved, thus never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence.
Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself.
Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers.
Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes.
Confusing cease-fires and negotiations with actual peace.
Omitting reconciliation: conflicts tend to reemerge if attention is not paid to efforts to heal fractured societies. When news about attempts to resolve conflicts are absent, fatalism is reinforced. That can help engender even more violence, when people have no images or information about possible peaceful outcomes and the promise of healing.

— Danny Schechter, Covering Violence: How Should Media Handle Conflict?, July 18, 2001 (Emphasis Added)
Arthur Siegel, a social science professor at York University in Toronto, describes four levels of varieties of propaganda:

No matter how it is spread, propaganda comes in four basic varieties, said Arthur Siegel, social science professor at York University in Toronto, whose 1996 book Radio Canada International examines World War II and Cold War propaganda.

“The first level is the Big Lie, adapted by Hitler and Stalin. The state-controlled Egyptian press has been spreading a Big Lie, saying the World Trade Center was attacked by Israel to embarrass Arabs,” said Siegel.
“The second layer says, ‘It doesn’t have to be the truth, so long as it’s plausible.’
“The third strategy is to tell the truth but withhold the other side’s point of view.
“The fourth and most productive is to tell the truth, the good and the bad, the losses and the gains.
“Governments in Western society take the last three steps. They avoid the Big Lie, which nobody here will swallow,” Siegel said.

— Beth Gillin, U.S. intensifies the war of words, The Philadelphia Inequirer, October 21, 2001

Mainstream Media

While many countries have signed the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 (about freedom of expression, opinion and information) has not been made a reality. A free and impartial media is a key pillar to a functioning democracy to help spread informed views and opinions. Yet developed and developing countries alike are plagued with various problems in the media in numerous ways. International news coverage is declining which is an increasing concern at a time when the world is attempting to globalize. In many countries, journalists face threats of censorship, beatings and even death for reporting issues that may be controversial or not in the interests of power holders. The mainstream media of the developed and freer, nations pose an often unmentioned or poorly analyzed problem: the lack of objective reporting that is not influenced and, to a growing degree, controlled by elites with concentrated ownership to advance their interests. Last updated Wednesday, October 25, 2006.

Diverse Media as a Critical Part of a Functioning Democracy

A critical aspect of a functioning democracy is to be well informed in order to participate effectively in that democracy. One of the most important ways that many people are informed is through their mainstream media. Yet the world over, we know that the media is far from perfect.

Many countries have signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but freedom of opinion, expression and information (Article 19) has hardly been a reality.

Some journalists in certain developing counties are subject to torture, incarceration, beatings, or even death, just for reporting something that those with power want suppressed.

Even in the developed and freer nations, news and information is subject to partiality and unbalanced coverage or just plain omissions of the major issues.

While September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States had increased some world news reporting for a while, in general, for many years coverage of international news has been declining. In November 1998, U.N. Secretary General, Koffi Annan also highlighted this decline. (And in some countries, as mentioned below, just a few months after the tragedy of September 11 saw international coverage increase, it began to decline again).

Accurate media representation of world issues is crucial. Whenever media reports are censored or biased, the people’s basic rights are systematically undermined. In these situations, violations and unaccountability often go unnoticed and suppressed viewpoints become commonplace.

Press Freedom Around the World

In October 2006, Reporters Sans Frontiers (Reporters Without Borders or RSF) published their 2006 worldwide press freedom index. The results were interesting:

• On the whole, it showed that democracies ranked best. (The top position was jointly held by predominantly North European nations: Finland, Iceland, Ireland, and the Netherlands.)
• Totalitarian and communist regimes ranked worst because there was next to no press freedom as in almost all such cases, the media is government controlled. (The worst 5 were Burma, Cuba, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, and North Korea.)
• But there were a few surprising findings:
  • The U.S. slipped down to just 53rd. In 2005, they ranked 44th, and in 2004, they ranked 22nd which were not good, anyway;
  • France also slipped (to 35th), from 30th, in the previous year;
  • U.K. ranked just 27th, down from 24th the previous year, and behind Benin, a small nation in Africa which the United Nations classifies as being one of the poorest nations in the world, Jamaica, and Namibia, other very poor countries;
  • Italy and Spain ranked just 40th and 41st, respectively (they were both only 42nd and 40th, respectively in 2005, and joint 39th the year before).
  • Japan slipped to as low as 51st
• Bolivia (16th), New Zealand (19th), Trinidad and Tobago (19th), Benin (23rd), Jamaica (23rd) were the top 5 highest ranked countries outside Europe, which also dominated the top 20. Only the 3 were from elsewhere.

You can also see RSF’s 2005 worldwide press freedom index to compare