Media Essay, Research Paper
Pro and con TV.
This essay is not divided in pro and con parts, I have just written it as a whole essay, mainly about pro’s but you will be able to find some con’s. I was in doubt if I should have did it the other way, but I hope this is the right way. Now at least you know the reason.
I must say I am totally pro television, it is a brilliant way for us to absorbe various information. The pace of news, movies, series, or whatever we are shown is up to the broadcaster but anyway it is much quicker than to read a newspaper to i.e. watch the seven o’clock news, though a question is likely to be raised here; Do we remember a news bulletin as well as if we had read a newspaper? I can not give a definitive answer to that, but I must say that for my sake I do. Anyway you can always watch the news more than once, of course you can do the same with a newspaper, but that is one of the great things about television; it does not demand anything from the viewer, only that he/she has one. You must of course be able to read to read a newspaper, then you must open it, put on your glasses if necessary, turn the pages and read. Doing that, reading, you must concentrate, otherwise you do not understand any of it. It is more easy with a television; you just sit down push your remote, if you have one, and whatever you are whatching gets practicaly thrown out into your livingroom.
Radio is also a good option, for news and music, but then, to me, that is it. There were in the past radio plays, but the only “survivor” is, as far as i know, the old play by O.Wells not that there is anything wrong with that, but today we want more action. Exciting pictures, and expensive special effects, the people behind it all knows it, so they try of course to give us what we want, which is succeeding brilliantly, after my oppinion! Some do not like this development. They want the old radioplays back. They long for the time when you went to the movies, whenever we wanted to se a film. But the only one responsible for this development is us, mainly the people in the 60’s and the 70’s. They rather wanted to watch television than listen to radio shows, and as I wrote above, they just satisfies our, the viewers/listeners, demands. They do not care about tradition or how we messure our life qualities today, it is all buisness, only money matters. That is the most dangerous, if not vulgar, factor of our medias today. The few who tries to hold on to i.e. good journalism is going down, which is a shame, but… . To take to examples, “Det fri aktuelt”, and “Ekstra bladet”, just try and compare their sale figures! Even though “Det fri aktuelt” is a far better newspaper, I am sure that “Ekstra bladet” sells twice as many newspapers. That makes you wonder!!!
What is coming towards us? What can we expect as the next information boom? It has already been predicted. The Internet! The next 21th century society has already been named as “The information society”. As more and more buys a computer, it will soon be as common as television, what could we have expected? But is it not dangerous? Consider how fast a letter or a book can be read by thousands all over the world. The latest example is Ritt Bjerreg?rds book, or diary if you like, not only was it published by a newspaper, “Politiken”, it was also “launched” on the internet, everyone with acces to the internet could read it; even “download*1″ it, I would like to know how many computers it is on right now, not exactly few I think. I sincerely hope that whoever was behind the launching of that book on the internet, gets a serious sentence, because where will it end if we accept this ilegal publishing of anything, nothing will be secret anymore, a scary thought after my oppinion. Fortunatly this is the first example, as far as we know anyway, of really internet crime. There I mean it should have severe consequences, we must not tollerate this kind of dangerous media before it is legal. To end the subject internet I will turn back to my previous statement; todays medias is all about money. About a month ago the owner of the biggest software company in the world Bill Clarke, owner of “Microsoft”, declared that he was planing to buy the internet. I do not think, hope, it is possible because right nobody really owns it. It is a big telephone meeting, like Telecoms 159 number, just much more complicated. But we will see in the future!