Do the media have a good or bad influence on society?

Most of us consult at least one branch of the media on a fairly regular basis. We may read a newspaper or a magazine, we may listen to the radio or we may watch television. Never have people had access to so many forms of communication.

Is this a good thing? On the whole, I think it is. In my opinion, the media have a good influence on society because they keep us well informed. It is important for us to be given information about what is going on around us. When we have knowledge of something, we have a better understanding of it and we can form our own opinions about it.

Newspaper, radio and television provide us with detailed information on a wide range of topics. For example, they supply us with data about the economic state of the country in general and of various businesses in particular. They also keep us informed about the activities of the government.

They regularly bring us articles about the social conditions in our own country and abroad. For example, they might tell us how many people are unemployed at a particular time, or how many people are homeless, or they might supply us with details about the plight of immigrants.

They bring us information about disasters worldwide. These might be major accidents, such as aeroplane crashes or motorway pile-ups, natural disasters, such as earthquakes or floods, and terrorist attacks.

They equip us with information about the natural world, too. We are given the latest information on such issues as climate change or the pollution of the atmosphere. Also, we are kept up to date with information about endangered species of wildlife or recent important archaeological findings.

There is hardly any area of life that we do not receive information about on a regular basis. We are told about the most recent developments in medicine, the latest fashions in clothing and hairstyle, interior designs and holidays. We are also given reviews of books, plays and films. We can scarcely help but be well informed with all this information made available to us.

So can all this information have a bad influence on us? Certainly, the media come in for enough criticism to suggest that it does.

Some people object to the nature of the information that some of the media provide, considering it to be too trivial. They protest that we are given, for example, too many details about the private lives of minor celebrities and feel that the media contribute greatly to the dumbing down of society. This is true, of course, but people do not have to read such articles. If they do not read them, they will not be influenced by them.

Other people object not only to the nature of some of the information provided by the media, but also to the sheer scale of it. For example, they might acknowledge that it is the duty of newspapers and television stations to report on the events that take place in the course of a war or in the course of a violent crime. However, they would argue that many media provide far too many gruesome details and pictures, and that they do not handle these events sensitively enough. They feel that all this concentration on violence has a bad influence on readers or viewers and, consequently, on society.

My own view is that the media get too much stick. Our newspapers and television channels may not be perfect, but they fulfil their duty by keeping us well informed and we can be selective about what we read or view.