Media and Society
Communication is one of the most important aspects of the life of a human being. The impact of communication on development cannot be overlooked as well as several benefits that come with individuals being able to communicate. The development of media has been a major step in the communication field with people being able to share and spread ideas faster. However, communication tends to be treated as a positive attribute, although the aspect has a dark negative side that does not offer productivity to humankind. The role of media in communication has been associated with both positive and negative impacts. Media is useful in ensuring that communication plays its role in bringing people closer, making people recognize each other and developing the practice of freedom. However, media is also responsible for breaking people apart, causing and spreading conflicts and promoting individualized forms of existence. Readers and other audiences have been given more opportunities to contribute to the social construction of reality by accessing end-user products easily through media.
The freedom of media use has been crucial in developing the field of communication through media. Facebook has, for example, improved the relationship of people from different geographical locations. The benefit that comes with the improvement of relationships is that Facebook offers a platform where end-users can interact with their audience online and easily spread their services (Croteau & Hoynes, 2013). For example, an artist can interact easily and more efficiently with a large number of fans online than in real life. The interaction between end-user producers and the audiences improves the construction of reality by the audiences without necessarily having to meet the producers. Also, audiences can easily give the interpretations on the products easily and freely through the media than would be the case with face to face interaction. Therefore, the media can be seen to have created a platform that gives audiences the freedom to interpret meanings in a way that befits them. Also, the cost of reaching a producer’s followers if significantly reduced with the online interaction offering sufficient space where the producers and audiences can exchange ideas and improve the content produced.
Media gives the freedom of interpretation to audiences. The meaning portrayed by an end-user producer is not necessarily the same meaning that audiences will get. A difference exists between audiences in different locations, although media tries to bring together the different meanings to come up with a firm meaning that captures the interpretations from the different groups (Singaraju, Nguyen, Niininen, & Sullivan-Mort, 2016). For example, a reality show may be interpreted as an inspiration in one society, only to be interpreted as immoral in another society. Facebook, however, brings together audiences from different societies. When people with different points of view are brought together, different reactions are expected. First, every group tries to win dominance over the others and tries to defend its opinions. However, continued interaction may make different groups to recognize the validity of each other’s opinion. Eventually, the groups become closer to each other, and the producer of the debatable content can adjust the content to fit the requirements of the different audiences. Generally, media has gone beyond the original objective of creating an avenue for people to interact with family and friends to a marketing avenue where businesses interact with consumers from almost everywhere on earth.
Media services offer an avenue for resistance by audiences. Several end-users take advantage of the resistance caused by audiences to adjust their content to fit into the demands of the audiences (Carr & Hayes, 2015). However, resistance is viewed differently by different producers. Besides, resistance also varies among audiences with the different forms of a resistance offering different impacts to the content in question. For example, producers are comfortable while addressing resistance that helps to change the content for the best. However, resistance to the dominant meaning of the content in question is harmful, and producers are not favored by such resistance. The fact that media such as Facebook lacks the means to filter the form of resistance to be accepted has found producers losing on the motivation to improve their content. Unfortunately, the suffering is mutual when resistance goes beyond boundaries to kill the motivation of end-user producers. The audiences lose the opportunity to contribute to the construction of reality as well as healthy social integration.
In sum, readers and other audiences have been given more opportunities to contribute to the social construction of reality by accessing end-user products easily through media. The freedom of media use has been crucial in developing the field of communication through media with Facebook having, for example, improved the relationship of people from different geographical locations. Media gives the freedom of interpretation to audiences such that the meaning portrayed by an end-user producer is not necessarily the same meaning that audiences will get. Also, media services offer an avenue for resistance by audiences with the audiences enjoying the freedom to choose whatever form of resistance to give. Generally, the development of media has been essential in the improvement of the communication field.
References
Carr, C. T., & Hayes, R. A. (2015). Social media: Defining, developing, and divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1), 46-65.
Croteau, D., & Hoynes, W. (2013). Media/society: Industries, images, and audiences. Sage Publications.
Singaraju, S. P., Nguyen, Q. A., Niininen, O., & Sullivan-Mort, G. (2016). Social media and value co-creation in multi-stakeholder systems: A resource integration approach. Industrial Marketing Management, 54, 44-55.