Influences Of Media

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May 2011 The Influences of Media Media is what we depend on to tell us the news around the world or warn us of any danger. Over the past fifty years media has had a huge influence on the way we view the world. It can affect the way we interact with other people or even the way we deal with our problems. The last fifty years have been a rapid growth for the media sector. It has progressed from telegraph, radio, newspapers, magazines, television and now finally the internet. These are all things that are normal to us and have become part of our every day use, but the television may be “the single most powerful transmitter of cultural values to our society” (Ray Uso). Television was introduced to the American public by the Radio Corporation of America at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 (Levine 12). The first image publicly broadcasted on television was the dollar sign. When television was first introduced, well-known children’s author E.B. White said “we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky” (Levine 12). In 1950, 9% of people had television; today 98% of people have television (Levine 13). As a result, American parents spend less time with their children than parents in any other nation in the world (Levine 15). Imitation is the earliest way that children learn. Levine said in a few months of life, babies can mimic facial expressions (18). A 3 year old will imitate television characters such as Teenage Mutant Ninja turtles, but an older child with a larger repertoire of behaviors just seems to get “pushier” (Levine 21). Kids find it easy to imitate the popular characters they like. Suicide rates may increase after the suicide of a celebrity. When the lead singer for the rock group Nirvana Gaviria 2 committed suicide, there were many copy cat suicides. “When Kurt Cobain died, I died with him,” was
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