Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Media as Social Determinant- Overdose of Violence by Mass Media

Violence overdose criticizes the very concept of portraying any type of violence on screen. It critically reviews and talks on the concept of making audience aware of the violence existing through mass media. Mass media since ages has certainly claimed that through creating certain programmes, it tries to aware people of the forms of violence around and how to tackle through it. But it argues on a point that when it tries to reinforce something through all forms of media continuously one after another. It starts affecting the society the other way around. The overdose of the violent content on screen on the other hand starts forming a view point which can totally change the way one pictures a society. Because of such programmes on screen, people have different notions of the societies in their mind. And because the notion itself is so violent, it doesn’t let the other person do well to the society thereby giving birth to the concept of violent society in the never ending process. There is the overdose of such violent content in newspapers, periodicals, and magazines and rather even online. Pick up any newspaper in the morning, there are generally pages dedicated to report these crime stories every day. Rather the graphical representation of the chronological event of a crime incites violence of a sort in the minds of consumers. I would like to share a personal example regarding the influence of violence overdose by media. My father is a dedicated viewer of ‘Saawdhan India’ a reality show which is telecasted everyday on LifeOK an entertainment television channel. He has certainly started seeing everyone with the same eye as characters are usually portrayed on screen. He keeps warning me about the society around citing how every another relationship shown in that show tries to fraud and fool around the girls especially to seek sexual gains. Even before stepping out of home, he reminds me about what all was shown in the last day’s episode and how the society has turned so evil. And always it is even more surprising for me to know the extent of influence that show has on him that he believes each and every story portrayed there. Being a student of mass communication and film studies, I certainly analyse it as a viewer whose view point is very different from him. The idea is that it is very important for us as viewers to analyse the kind of information mass media shares with us. It is even more important to be an intelligent viewer who knows what information is accurate to what extent and how to synthesize it. With the similar examples, we can measure the extent of effect mass media can have on children’s psychology. They try to resolve situations as the resolutions are suggested by media and thus they start understanding the life media projects them with.  The problem with the overdose of violent content on television can definitely be resolved by control viewing and by changing the concept to literally aware audience rather than explaining the violence through depicting stories which can have adverse effect on their minds.


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