Sample Media is a Powerful and Dominant tool Essay

World Media

Media is a powerful and dominant tool that can be use to influence, sway, control, persuade, and manipulate the feelings, thoughts and consciousness of the society. In the field of mass communications, Smart (1992) argued that contemporary channels of communication are problematic when it comes to exchange of information as evident in the fabricated non-communication factors that are present in the public’s utilization of the current media in which response can only be determined in the transmission-reception process. The current position of mass media could be considered as globalize or in specific stage of global adoption. Historically during the earlier years of the 21st century, the means of communication became immense and the use of mass media grew extensively (2000). From here, the functions of the mass media in national and international situations eventually expand in terms of coverage and application. Today, media and all forms of communications are central elements that affect the way of life ( 2002, p.1). Media contains images and messages that influence the sense of identity. At the same time, media has directed and straightforward effect on various audience. Somehow, media can be assumed as a source of borrowing people’s identities. Mass media is a force of change although it seems more appropriate to emphasize that it initiates change within limits (Gauntlet, 2002 p. 248). There is no doubt in this day and age, modern societies and people are greatly influenced by the media. This is why most researchers have taken up the courage in understanding its functions, and impact it makes in changing the matters pertaining to society, the least of which is that of public opinion (Rothman, 1992, p.5). Meanwhile, international cooperation and globalization is currently the ‘label’ for the opportunities and challenges facing people in the 21st century (Giddiness, 1999; Gilpin, 2000; Held and McGrew, 2000; Nye and Donahue, 2000). As stated, globalization is a social change, specifically an increase in connections among societies and their elements due to, among others, the explosive evolution of transport and communication technologies. With the worldwide culture of globalization, media in general is widely and rapidly affected.

On this case, the idea of world media is intertwined with selected photographs from various sources. It primarily deals with the illumination of the idea of world media in relation to the following aspects: 1) the local and the international/ transnational/ global; 2) cultural significance; 3) commercial and industrial significance; 4) national identity; 5) moral or ethical standpoints and lastly; 6) any particular significance for New Zealand.

New Zealand’s Rugby Team – All Blacks® in their glorious moment after winning against the Barbarians in 2004 (score 47-19)

World media served as an avenue for information to transgress within intercontinental boundaries. As to this case, world media worked on its mighty ability of making the rest of the world aware of the victory achieved by New Zealand’s All Blacks®. The world media reported on the local as well as international level that the team won over their rival during that year. News circulated among the New Zealanders and extended up to other geographical locations through other media means – broadcast, print, and new media. The idea of world media on this aspect is exemplified on its ability to circulate facts or information to areas and people concerned. Similarly, this photo shows how world media play its role in culture. The cultural significant of world media is rooted on its potentialities in building distinct cultural identity of people belonging to various nationalities. To this case, New Zealanders are depicted as excellent rugby players. It is deemed that New Zealanders loves this sport, thus, resulting to their continuous dominance and outstanding performances all throughout the years. Similarly, the national identity of New Zealanders was incorporated with their cultural attributes. For instance, the image of feather with the name of the team below indicates the distinction that they are indeed New Zealanders as they belong to the team itself. Relating to commercial and industrial significance, the idea of world media refers to its persuasive ability to be involved in economic undertakings such as advertising. Media is a potent channel to launch a product or service in the market as this is the rationale of the business of advertising. It is the process of bringing company’s products and services to the mindset of the target market (McNamara, 1999; Allen and Gale, 2001; Goddard, 2002) using different mediums like TV, radio, internet, and print media. Of this particular instance, the photo above presents two global brands – DHL (an air courier logistics service provider) and Adidas (a sports apparel manufacturer). World media provides companies and their various brands to be seen in different locations and it facilitates competition among industries. Competition forces certain brand names to become stronger than others because of product loyalty and name recognition. Consumers tend to buy what is already familiar to them (Mittelhauser, 1997). A fine and well-advertised brand might have a competitive edge from a lesser exposed brand name. But then, a lesser known brand can also have an edge over price, given that they cost less than known brands (Kim et al., 2002). Thus, it can be said that world media has strong economic potentialities. Lastly, the concept of world media in relation to New Zealand is that it serves as broad passageway of making the country and its people recognized worldwide. This is not giving people vague ideas on the characteristics of New Zealanders but also adding knowledge on some aspect such as New Zealander’s excellence in the game called rugby. World media introduces them to the rest of the world.

The historical September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center, New York City

This has been one of the most memorable among the modern historical events of this era. This event significantly affected several areas of American as well as human life in general. In here, the idea of world media becomes more popular and extensive. World media in this aspect mainly comes in form of broadcasting (television and the internet). News is an indispensable part of people’s lives (Bovey, 1999 p. 3). It was a total spectacular, not in the exact essence of the word, but pertaining to the producing and broadcasting such visual images of the sort that millions of Internet and TV viewers all over the world must have watched on that day, unable even to blink, and the collective act of watching them intently, necessarily turned the events into a spectacle (Walker and Okay, 2003). Various institutions were affected after the massive catastrophe. Just after the attack, the world media – broadcast and print in nature immediately came into covering the whole story. In each of the different news media, the realignment of priorities took shape in different ways. In US during the early hours after the attacks, the four major television networks agreed to share video and satellite footages. They suspended their regular programming in their cable and satellite stations. Instead of showing entertainment formats revolving around music videos, sport, or films began broadcasting, news feeds were presented. This sudden shift of programming resulted to decrease or disappearance of the most number of commercials. Hence, it cost the country’s media outlets hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue especially during the dates of September 11 and 12 (Zelizer and Allan, 2003 p.4).

The idea of world media in terms of local and the international perspective pertains to the power of media to deliver news and current events across different locations. Since the media is considered as the fourth estate and the ultimate catalyst of change, its scope of coverage is trusted by people who use it for personal uses and gratifications. In times like this, people are glued in front of their television sets, radio, and the Internet in order to see, hear, and “feel” the action and information themselves. The news coverage of international affairs has been increasingly neglected over the recent years. News delivery and coverage has been a substantive treatment of historical context in news accounts, leaving audiences to make sense of events without the benefit of reporting concerned with the cultural, economic, and political factors underpinning them. But with the events of 9/11, international correspondence among mass media reawakened its full functions and operations. There is a sudden revival of the one of the most powerful agent of communication and change – the media. Further, with the historical nuisance, the world mass media strengthened their cooperation and unity in search for the truth and delivering the people the most reliable and useful facts right in the comfort of their houses, right in front of their television sets and computer monitors. World media in this photo portrays the image of power as it changed the traditional mass media means. In Journalism and political crises in the global network society written by Ingrid Volker, a CNN worker, she argues that the obvious aftermath of September 11 was that “news media are playing a new role in a globally enlarged public sphere” (cited in Zelizer and Allan, 2003 p. 21). As stated by Bailey, Brown, and Chirac (2003), it is the role of media to provide the fearless, balance and existing truth among the public. In reference to cultural significance, the image above is linked with the cultural impacts of 9/11 to the ‘culture’ of international broadcasting. As similarly related to the above discussion, the traditional ways of covering and delivering news stories became more urgent and instantaneous by means of technological innovations available at hand. To address national identity, the 9/11 events presented the inability of the so-called superpower – the US, in anticipating or even preventing these events to happen. According to the images presented by all forms of global media, the US is the most powerful alliance of states that can control specific areas of international affairs. They are also portrayed as the richest, wherein they have the capability to control international and economic trading. In this instance, the photo above showed how the US as well as the rest of the world suffered. It also had proven how various countries are dependent on the affairs of the said superpower. In terms of moral or ethical standpoints, the idea of world media played its role in presenting objective and factual news about the incident. Considered as an act of terrorism, the 9/11 incidents paved way to the global war on terrorism and established a culture of vigilance. It triggered the full cooperation and participation of the once so-called misanthropic individuals of the society to take time to accustom themselves to the vital changes that affects their lives in one way or the other. International media, being one of the most revolutionary, fastest, reliable and factual means of information dissemination to almost all parts of the globe, served its ultimate goal – to deliver the news in service to the people and in humble performance of duty. Of particular significance to New Zealand, the photo above as related to world media indicates the participation of the country against terrorism and the effects of 9/11 to the affairs of New Zealand and its people in general. Through world media, New Zealanders became more vigilant in taking care their state affairs as well as the country’s freedom from any destructive activities.

McDonald’s advertisement of a unique burger in New Zealand – the Kiwi Burger®

As stated, the world media is a potent agent of economic transaction through advertising. However, the contents of an advertisement is not limited to selling or attracting customers but it also presents various elements that can be interpreted using some analytical application. In this photo, the concept of world media is said to be focused on economic influence. The effectiveness of local and international application of world media in terms of promoting products and services is undisputed. The presence of advertisements in all forms of media makes it evident that media is a channel of information, to this case a product. Today, world media has numerous forms of advertising ranging from the traditional to contemporary means. Internet or online advertising can be considered as the most innovative way of advertising a product or service. It is also called web advertising that is a type of advertising in which a person can control or customize the information according to his/her interest with the use of internet (Shih, 2001). It provides instant interaction and connection to the consumers since the buyers or the audiences are the one who decides on what ad to view favorable to the field of their interest. The consumers are given the power to control the opportunity in establishing an online participation through the use of internet (Cordelier et al., 1997; Kim, 2001). The birth of internet advertising started in the year 1994 when Netscape navigator 1.0 was launched (Steinbeck, 2000). It only started by using banner ads as compared to these days in which companies are able to put their advertisements through pop-ups, micro-sites and other ad formats. With this innovation, internet advertising has gained significance in promoting products and services. The medium is also been successful in providing the company to have instant interaction with the consumers which marked opportunity for the company to save time and money (Kamala and Zima, 2002). In advertising, the world media, regardless of its form, is functional.

In terms of cultural significance, New Zealand’s distinctive attributes are presented in the photo. The famous items that make an individual a native of New Zealand is remarkably present in the advertisement. Through world media, such identities of New Zealand and its people are made known. This is called media representation. To quote Chandler (2007), “Representation refers to the construction in any medium (especially the mass media) of aspects of ‘reality’ such as people, places, objects, events, cultural identities and other abstract concepts”. The reality portrayed in the above photo is the fact that New Zealand is unique in terms of some identified natural resources (e.g. the kiwi – an endangered specie, which happened to be the country’s national bird). It is also a fact that the Kiwi Burger® is exclusive product of McDonalds in New Zealand. Media representation is an active, creative process through which images signify different meanings rather than merely presenting themselves as objective reflections of reality (Hall, 1997). Depending on the media, a representation does not have a unique interpretation. Factors such as demographic profile of a viewer, social outlook, psychological stance, philosophy, ideology, culture, stereotyped meaning, etc determine the assignment of meaning to a representation. The circulation of meaning, however, always involves issues of power because those who wield power do so by attempting to fix meanings in accordance with their own bias. This is consistent with the idea that representation can have assigned meanings which could be categorized as accurate or distorted depending on those who create and distribute a set of representations (Hall, 1997).

Referring to commercial and industrial significance, world media established itself as a venue of economic progression. The concept of advertising alone can explain such claim. According to Leis (1972 p.122), the process has been recognized as a “major vehicle of social communication in modern Western society.” There are commonly three main objectives of advertisements: (1) conveying relevant information regarding a particular product or service; (2) persuading consumers to purchase the advertised product; and, (3) keep the company under the watchful eyes of the public (Hancock et al., 2002). In a general sense, advertising is being utilized to be able to impart to the consumers the availability of a particular product. In a way, it is also able to provide critical information regarding the product. When an advertising campaign is achieved effectively, this can lead to an increased demand for the product. In world media perspective, advertising can break geographical barriers, thus, creating an extended market for the specified product or service.

The national identity of New Zealand as presented in the above photo is equated on the consideration of culture. The presence of New Zealand’s exquisite features can support this concept. World media represents the country by providing images that will create association to the awareness or consciousness of people who see it. In some other application, domestic or romantic dramas in film or television (including soap operas) show us how males and females interact. When a person has a lover for the first time in their lives, how do they know how to behave? And where do we learn the typical shape and content of friendships? The main reference points are surely films and TV or even theatre. Media norms, on this aspect, define the extent of the role of men as well as women in the society. Culturally, men are breadwinners. They are engaged in strenuous activities outside the house. On the other hand, women are expected to be caretakers of the family. They are kept within the vicinity of the house. Today, there are media portrayals and representation that are in contrast with the previously existing cultural belief (Crompton, 1999). Media depicts personalities challenging the possibilities of reversing or bridging the gap of sex segregation as well as national identity.

Finally, world media in relation to New Zealand as seen in the above picture signifies the establishment of knowledge pertaining to New Zealand as the only country in which McDonalds offers a Kiwi Burger®. These make it distinct among other McDonalds’ products. The role of world media is bounded on its function as an information carrier.

In sum, the world media has become more liberal and considerably more challenging to traditional standards since then. This has been a reflection of changing attitudes and also involves the media actively disseminating modern values. Just like the evolution of human life itself and the soaring heights that new technology brings globally, global media’s evolution is also pervasive and needless to say, that its market and coverage is consistently growing. Therefore, the global media hype will continue to amass a diverse audience in lieu to the changing trends in the lives of every country and its people.

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