In the last few decades, the influence of media towards children and teenagers has grown increasingly due to the advance of technology. Mass media has now played an important role in our day to day activities example it provides us information like education, career advancement, travelling, personal relationship, entertainment, services and many more. This media tools have kept us close to all the information or sources that is happening in our daily life now.
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We cannot deny that in 21st century, majority of the children and also teenagers are largely exposed to the influences of mass media. It is true that there are both good and bad influence of the media towards teenagers. ” Children and young people are a distinctive and significant cultural grouping in their own right-a sizeable market share , a subculture even, and one which often “leads the way” in the use of media” (Livingstone, 2002,p.3)
Problem Statement
Children and teenagers between the ages of 8 to 18 years spend on average more than 7 hours per day with various forms of media and electronics (Kelli Rield, 2010) Researchers began to study the influence of mass media by doing all sort of experiment and also asking children and teenagers who watches television, how much and why. For many people, mass media is said to play a large role in our daily life. Without the mass media in our society, our world is like an empty box which each and every of us does not know a single thing happening. We, as the new era of researchers would want to look more into this problem although it is a very common topic.
Research Objectives
To find out the influence of mass media towards students in Taylor’s Lakeside University.
To determine which mass media influences students in Taylor’s Lakeside University the most.
Research Questions
How does mass media influence students’ behaviour in Taylor’s Lakeside University
Which mass media does influence the students in Taylor’s Lakeside University the most?
Significant of the study
This study will be significant in showing the good and the bad side of influences of mass media towards children and teenagers. This study will also be beneficial not only to children and teenagers but also parents, which it will give a little bit of hints how parents can allow their children to use the mass media in a right way. By understanding the influences of mass media, children and teenagers might have the advantages on knowing the true colours of the mass media in the society and be more selective towards choosing the media to indulge themselves. Moreover, this research will provide the negative and positive influence that will be given to the mass media.
CHAPTER 2
Literature Review
Works Cited/Bibliography
In this new millennium, mass media is providing access to change worlds and virtual realities into something different. This is because a large amount of human activity has made it clear that mass media definitely an important element in society.(Sayre and King,2003) Media can inform us what was happenings about the world besides connecting with our friends.( Abhinav buzz,2010) Nowadays, mass media has successfully influenced the children and teenagers in this era. Unfortunately, many believes that mass media has influences many negative effects to children and teenagers. Mass media are like television, advertising, and etc.
We will look at what kind of influences that television can bring to both children and teenagers. From the earliest years of television broadcasting, parents and educators have expressed concerns that television is harmful. (Alexander and Hanson, 1999) According to Aletha Huston and John Wright, they say that television program is not content encourage intellectual passivity and children will ruin of their concentration skills.Researchers began to study the impact of television on children and what they have analyzed is cognitive development towards school achievement, family interaction, social behavior and general attitudes and opinions has slowly changed into a serious issue. Majority of the people around us say that television is a big role when it comes to children’s and also teenager’s environment, but is it really true? The problem with the television broadcasting this day has made not only parents but also researchers realized that television allows children and teenagers to grow less civilized. For example, girls are generally preoccupied with attempting to become beautiful because of program that there showed in television like America Next Top Model or Supermodel Me. As Perry suggests, “Today’s specifications call for blonde and thin-no easy task, since most girls get bigger during adolescence. Many become anorexics or bulimics; a few rich ones get liposuction.” (Alexander and Hanson,1999 ) According to Rachel Matthews, nurse consultant and clinical manager of Newbridge House says that social media is the main cause to increase the admission for eating disorders. (Christopher York, 2012) Physical attractiveness and self-esteem in children and also adolescent has become a big issue this day due to the influence of mass media. Cultural norms not only in United States but now effecting the whole has specific that the importance of being physically attractive, especially being thin and tall. The emphasis on being physically attractive begins in infancy and continues through-out childhood and teenagers. (Alexander and Hanson, 1999).Other than that, studies have found that female students are always compare their physical attractiveness with those models who are good looking in the advertising. (Kennedy and Martin 1993,1994b; Richins 1991)
Moreover, too much of influence in mass media can cause media violence to children and also teenagers. Many studies have showed that violent scenes in television programmes can lead a higher level of aggression in teenagers and children. ( Charlie S, 2011) Certainly we can think that of many films and television which shows violence inside it draws majority of the viewers or audiences who are watching it. Slashes films such as Scream and the sequels of Halloween are example of violent content that has been extremely popular towards the teenagers. (Stransburger, Wilson and Jacob,2009) And the success of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, The Powerpuff Girls, and even Pokemon demonstrates that violent programming can be popular to children. (Stransburger, Wilson and Jacob,2009) Behind the negative effects, there is also a positive influence when it comes to mass media like television and other entertainment media use-such as video game playing-is sometimes blamed for stifling children’s creativity imagination and make-believe (or pretend) play.(Strasburger, Wilson and Jordan,2009) No doubt that children and teenagers imaginative is influenced by environment, including the presence and absence of electronic media as well as their development stages. (Strasburger, Wilson and Jordan, 2009) One line of thinking, which Valkenburg labels the “stimulation hypothesis,” suggest that media enrich the store of ideas in an individual which can be drawn from children and also teenagers to engage in imaginative play or creative task. (Stransburger, Wilson, and Jordan, 2009)
Willie (1979) mentioned that the mass media have penetrated so deeply in our society that it is important to examine the types and nature of the influence the mass media exert on individuals in society. Society can be counterproductive by using mass media if the channels used are not audience-appropriate.(Albrecht, Terrance L. and Mcdermott, Robert J, 2002) The influence can be divided into three basic types, that are linguistic, psychological and social. Research findings in relation to the mass media and language development are by no means definitive. The possible implications of the mass media regarding language development, with particular reference to the influence of television. It has been said that children who lave grown up with the mass media, are better able to cope with special languages the media employ. Children that react to the media does not necessarily mean that they have the ability to analyze and understand.
W. J. Potter (2011) mentioned that mass media effect is a change in an outcome within a person or social entity that is due to mass media influence following exposure to a mass media message or series of messages. Dominick (1999) and Bitner (1989) found that the mass media affects and influence the operate within a complex social content in messages which are affected by attitudes. With mass media effects, it appears useful to make a distinction across three levels: individual, aggregate of individuals, and human creations. Influence of the mass media is conceptualized broadly as including both direct and indirect. The mass media exert a continual influence on individuals through direct exposure to their messages. There are many types of media influence patterns.
Croteau and Hoynes (2003) mentioned that as we saw earlier, media are affected by the constraints of legal and information political pressures, as well as by the economic forces that shape the media industry. Mass media have a position as an instrument and a political force for all public education. (Altschull (1995).However, the media’s impact on the political world is real and undeniable. This influence reaches not only presidents and political elites but also ordinary citizens. Commentators discuss media influence solely in terms of the potential impact on regular citizens. For example, the question of whether the news media effect voting behavior is a perennial favorite among researchers. The media’s influence on a hundred politicians has much more significant and pronounced implications then their influence on a hundred regular voters.
Public concern for the negative effects of exposure to media violence especially among children. The Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) and American Academy of Child stateda studies show adolescents and children exposed to media depictions of violence become desensitized to violence, imitate the aggressive acts that they had watch on television, identify with the characters and grow to accept violence. (Shane Hall, 2011)Most concerns about violent media fare have focused on movies, television dramas, cartoons and other fantasy shows, as well as violent video games and websites. This sensational nature of copycat crimes attracts the notice of print and electronic news media, examples of such crimes abound in the public’s memory, in reality, copycat crimes are extremely rare. (Jennings Bryant, 2002) Gerbner and his colleagues defined violence as “the overt expression of physical force against self or other compelling action against one’s will on pain of being hurt or killed or actually hurting or killing” (Jennings Bryant, 2002).
“Movies are often re-edited to include more sex and violence for release in the U.S. market. In January 2003, researchers at Boston University released a shocking study that showed how teenagers around the world held a negative view of Americans” (Corteau and Hoynes, 2003) In American pop culture, mass media is a very powerful force, the images that create lasting impressions can be seen on big screen and there have negative impact. Americans are negatively affected by the content of mass media. (D Trem, 2008) The study also found that negative depictions of Americans in movies and TV programs influenced the beliefs of many of the subjects.” (Corteau and Hoynes,2003) “There is one babysitter who is constantly abusing millions of our children: a television set. The same could be said about computers, iPods and other mass media of entertainment.” (Corteau and Hoynes,2003) “Our children may see from 800,000 to 1.5 million acts of violence and witness 192,000 to 360,000 murders on television by the time they are 17.” (Corteau and Hoynes,2007)
CHAPTER 3
Methodology
Subject:
30 students of Taylor’s University. There are no gender and age restriction for the participants.
Instrumentation:
Our questionnaires consist of 20 questions. The questionnaires are replicated from Archita (2000), however, several changes have been made to meet the needs of our topic.
Questionnaire
Course: _______________________________ Age:____ Gender: ________________
No.
Yes
Sometimes
Maybe
No
1.
Do you always watch television more than 2 hours?
2.
Do you think television commercials are easily influence?
3.
Does the picture of a famous personality in the TV made you feel uneasy with the personality that you have?
4.
Do you find television ads interesting?
5.
Do your parents allow watching violence on TV?
6.
Do you often watch television?
7.
Do you use social networking as a hobby?
8.
Do you regularly use your mobile phone to go online?
9.
How many hours per day do you spend on gaming?
10.
Do you often read magazine?
11.
Do you think advertising commercials are easily influence?
12.
Does an advertisement urge you to buy new brand?
13.
Do you find radio ads interesting?
14.
Does mass media brings positive influence to you?
15.
Does mass media brings negative influence to you?
16.
Do you compare your body image with famous celebrity’s body image?
17.
Do you think having a good body image/muscular body is important?
18.
Are you concerned about the way you look?
19.
Does the media affect the way you feel about your body?
20.
Are you pleased with your appearance?
Chapter 4
Figure 1
Figure 1 showed that there were 59% respondents chose that they watched television more than 2 hours, 22% of the respondents chose to sometimes watch television more than 2 hours. Furthermore, the other 15% respondents chose to maybe watch television more than 2 hours and finally about 4% of respondents chose not to watch television more than 2 hours.
Figure 2
Figure 2 showed 30% respondents chose to think that television commercials are easily influence but 57% of the other respondents think that television commercials sometimes are easily influence. Furthermore, 10% of the respondents think that maybe television commercials are easily influence and finally, 3% of the respondents think that television commercials do not easily get influence.
Figure 3
Figure 3 showed that 27% of the respondents find that television ads are interesting. The other 13% of the respondents find that maybe some television ads are interesting. Next, about 53% respondents find that television ads can be sometimes interesting.
Figure 4
Figure 4 showed that 66% of the respondents used social networking as a hobby. Next, 22% of the respondents sometimes used social networking as a hobby and about 5% of the respondents did not used social networking as a hobby.
Figure 5
Figure 5 showed that there were 58% of the respondents preferred to use their mobile phone to go online, 31% of the respondents preferred to sometimes use their mobile phone and laptops to go online. Next, 7% of the respondents preferred to maybe use their mobile phone to go online. Finally, 4% of the respondents did not prefer to use their mobile phone to go online.
Figure 6
Figure 6 showed that 49% of the respondent chose to sometimes read magazine while 25% of the other chose to maybe read magazine. 21% of the respondent chose to often read magazine and 5% of the respondents did not chose to read magazine that often.
Figure 7
Figure 7 showed that 14% of the respondents chose that radio ads is interesting while the other 50% of them chose that radio ads can sometimes be interesting and 32% of the respondents chose that radio ads can maybe be interesting. Finally, 4% chose that radio ads are not interesting.
Figure 8
Figure 8 showed that 13% of the respondents chose that mass media brings positive influence to them while about 56% of the respondents chose that mass media sometimes bring positive influence to them. 27% of the respondents chose that mass media can maybe bring positive influence to them but about 4% of the respondents chose that mass media did not bring positive influence to them.
Figure 9
Figure 8 showed that there 14% of the respondents chose that mass media will bring negative influence to them while 44% of the respondents chose that mass media sometimes will bring negative influence to them and 38% of the respondents chose that maybe mass media will bring negative influence. Finally, 4% of the respondents chose that mass media did not bring negative influence to them.
Figure 10
Figure 10 showed that 23% of the respondents chose that media does affect the way they feel about their body. Next 30% of the respondents chose that media sometimes does affect the way they feel about their body and 27% of the respondents chose that maybe media affect the way they feel about their body. Finally, 20% of the respondents chose that media did not affect the way they feel about their body.
Chapter 5
Discussion
Mass media has now been a very important topic to discuss because the influence of media is so huge that teenagers and children had misused it. Mass media supposed to provide us important information that relates to all over the country but when time goes by and technology starts to get much more advance, the mind of a teenager and also a child has started to get corrupted.
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Many researchers have asked themselves the same question over and over again. How exactly mass media influence students’ behavior and what makes their behavior change so quickly like the speed of a lightning? Nowadays, programs that they showed in the television have made the teenagers and also children to grow less well-mannered or in other words less civilized. For example, girls who watch programs like Asia Next Top Model or Supermodel me are really attempting to become beautiful in the sense that they want to have a body figure like a model. This kind of attempting has not only happened to the girls but also to the boys too. When teenagers feel that their body figure does not match like their idols or models, their self-esteem will immediately drop. (Alexander and Hanson, 1999) Not only television makes teenagers feel so attempting to have a good body figure but also some advertisement that provoke them to be like that. According to our data, about 59% of our respondents said yes that they watch television for more than 2 hours. This is a solid prove that teenagers might have a chance that they are easily influence to the media especially obsessive beauty. Same goes to television commercials, our data showed that about 30% of the respondents agreed that television commercials are easily influenced although 57% of the respondents said that sometimes television commercials are easily influenced.
Media violence is also other cause that influences teenagers’ and also children’s behavior. Films and also TV programs like to insert a few scenes that show violence because it can increase the rating. For example, movies like Slash and Scream, both movies consist a lot of violence that show people killing each other in a very harsh way. These two movies have a really good rating for it thus these movies are really popular especially among teenagers. (Stransburger, Wilson and Jacob,2009) When teenagers and children watch movie that consist of violence, they tempt to use it towards people they dislike. They will try to recall or imagine the movie that they watched which consists of violence so that they can release their anger by killing them or torture them like how it was shown in the movies. (Stransburger, Wilson, and Jordan, 2009) That is why, media violence is a serious issue this day. In the research data, our graph showed that about 58% of the respondents agreed that they regularly used mobile phone to go online. The result showed that teenagers may have a chance to watch movie or programs which contains violence when their busy browsing the net in their phones.
The media that has the most influence to the teenagers and also children is television. Television has been once to be a good source of information but now television has been a harmful technology for the teenagers and also children from the perspective of parents and educators. (Alexander and Hanson, 1999) According to our data, about 44% of the respondents mentioned that sometimes mass media can have a negative influence towards the teenagers. This proved that television can be one of the media that brings negative influence towards teenagers and also children.
In conclusion, mass media can bring positive and negative influence to the teenagers and children. If the society knows how to make use of the mass media well, maybe the influence of the mass media will not affect teenagers and children that much.
Recommendations
It is true that the influence of mass media has been a massive problem in the society right now. Parents nowadays depend on mass media as a tool to teach children something new in a fast and accurate manner. It is also true that we cannot stop showing programs that consist of violence in the mass media. Mass media should put parental control for the younger generations so that they would not be exposed easily to media that contain inappropriate materials. That is why parents should monitor their children when they are watching television. Nowadays, teenagers and children are largely exposing to mass media because of the interesting commercial and TV shows as majority of it capture teenager heart easily. That is why teenagers are easily influence by the media. They tend to learn by observing and imitating the observed models. This is why government should strictly control the commercials that contain body image. For example, commercials that portray models with provocative outfits with inappropriate messages like sexual content.
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