What is Education?
Education is the teaching and communication of knowledge, information, and instruction.
Education also is the practice of receiving information and instruction and to learn and to understand a topic or knowledge. Schofield said “Education is perceived as a place where children can develop according to their unique needs and potentialities” (Schofield, K 1999).
The two most common modes of education are formal education and informal education.
Formal education is what most people think of when the hear the word education. Formal education refers to the hierarchically structured graded education system, this compromises of the education taught/learnt from primary school through to university education.
Informal education is the lifelong education every individual gains from life and daily experiences. This can range from values, ethics, skills, knowledge and other educative influences and resources found in and around the individuals environment and include such things as family, friends, neighbours, from work and play, from the library and even mass media.
What is media?
Media is a huge influence on the education of people in both a formal and informal manner. So what is media? Media or mass media can be defined as transition tools to communicate, deliver information or influence wide range of people.
Today in this modern world, media has become a major role in the globalization of the world as powerful tools of communication. The unique role of media has made people of all ages become consciously and unconsciously dependant on media for entertainment, information, opinions and education. As technology has advanced so has the mediums in which media is deliverd. Media now goes beyond printed media (newspapers, magazines, direct mails, brochure etc.). Media is only delivered vis television (cable, network, satellite, etc.), radio, film and video, photography, and electronic (E-mail, computer networks, etc.).
There are many different institutes that involve education which are school, TAFE, university and family. There is also a certain ‘life-long education’ and it is clearly evident that media falls into the category as media seems to become a life-long entertainment source in most of our lives. The media itself becomes a raconteur throughout our lives and media is all around us and it becomes very hard to ignore. Children and young adults are learning about all these different things through the mass media, such as movies, television shows, magazines and music and all this media is being controlled by multi national corporations.
These corporations have the power to choose what issues or story’s they want to cover and how they want to cover them and this is where we can become highly influenced through media portrayals. These portrayals aren’t always true and can become misleading or miscommunicated. Rice (2007) states that ‘Journalistic non-partisanship and accuracy…have the paradoxical consequence of reinforcing and legitimating the status-quo.’ Rice (2007) also mentions the role of the gatekeepers (editors) and how they generally shape the media by influencing the public to pay more attention to ‘what the gatekeepers feel are the more important issues of the day.’ So this suggests that not everything we see on the media is totally accurate information as it can be molded to become a more entertaining solution for the public rather than the truth.
Good influences of media
The influences that media has on us, especially with the younger generation is seen as either bad or good. The media can be a good influence when addressing issues such as drugs, obesity, global warming and sexual violence etc. TV shows like “The Biggest Loser”, which deals with overweight people getting healthy and fit can be of good value to overweight people as it is a positive outlook for losing weight and showing off good health and wellbeing.
Moreover, good aspects of media can be seen as a good influence from government-run ad campaigns that tell us about healthy living, like not to smoke, be sun smart, and alerting us on such things like sexual violence. Things like the anti-smoking campaign where they use images & footage of the shocking things caused by smoking play on people’s health values to find it within themselves to quit smoking for their own well being.
Other government-controlled media that are seen as positive aspects are types of media that promotes social stability in functionalism. The evidences can be seen within careers, such as police, hospitals, schools and farms. Issues like the environment and global warming also can be well educated through the media such as Al Gore’s Documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” and also increasing environmental coverage in general through the mass media. The effect of high coverage on a certain issue gains awareness and better educates society about that issue making them want to extend their knowledge and self-interest within that issue.
Bad influences of media
Apart from the fact that there are some good influences from the media existence, it also gives the society some bad influences as well. Although the impacts vary on different users, but studies portrays that the biggest impacts are delivered to children. The reason being is because children commonly do not have set minds yet, therefore they are more likely to believe whatever is thrown to them through the media. However, it does not neglect the fact that there are also impacts on the older generations.
Firstly, one of the main obvious problems that occur within the society is the high dependence rate on the media. TV is considered one of the most popular media forms among the society, although the other forms contribute their different influences to the audiences. Robert Kubey (2007), a Rutgers University psychologist and TV-Free America board member, stated that there are some dependency symptoms to television. They are: 1) using TV as a sedative; 2) indiscriminative viewing; 3) feeling loss of control while viewing; 4) feeling angry with oneself for watching too much; 5) inability to stop watching; and 6) feeling miserable when kept from watching. In addition to this, the A.C. Nielsen Co. (2007) statistics shows that the average of people watching TV is 4 hours per day.
Secondly, the media also has its impacts on the social behaviour. For children, media emerges as one of the first education sources that they get in their lives, other than family and schools (as well as interaction with other people). Studies portrays that TV portrays negative behaviours and effects on children, such as deceitful behaviour, disrespect for parents, early sexuality, etc. On a national poll of 750 children aged 10-16 years old, two-thirds of the participants said that they are influenced by what they see on television. To support this fact, 65% of them reveals that programs, such as “The Simpsons” and “Married..With Children” encourage a lack of respects for parents and 62% of the participants also mentioned that TV influences young audiences toward early sex.
Not only problems mentioned above, there are also a large number of other kinds of negative impacts. One of the most debatable ones is children become violent and aggressive. As quoted from a Debate.com (2007) website, “Researchers have found that violent imagery in the media had a ‘substantial’ short-term effect on children’s arousal, thoughts and emotions.” These behaviours will not only affect the children, but it becomes long-term problems. Children will bring their attitudes to their later age and this may lead to other big problems in the society, such as drugs, crime, etc.
Thirdly, media has a strong relationship with the “ethos” among the society. It is about the message and what they see as “beliefs” on what is right and wrong. Children can be considered to be pretty thin on the line as they commonly do not have set minds, unlike the older generations. Some of them were made believe that “Being bad is cool. For an example, Rayelyn Rodriguez (2007), as one of the participants of the poll mentioned earlier, commented on the negative behaviour portrayed on television. She said that the message that she gets is, “Everybody’s doing if.” So some of the kids think,”Well, if everyone’s doing it, why don’t I?”
Ethos in the society also differs one to another because different people have different perspective and perceptions. While each individual of adults is shaped by their own experience, it is still understandable that the commercials and advertisements that people see on the media have the most last influence in people’s choices and decisions. So whether or not people already have their minds set (unlike children), media still holds a significant role in their daily life.
Moreover, research and studies has demonstrated that heavy television-viewing may lead to serious health consequences. The fact is that children tend to neglect other activities, even in their leisure time. Based on ABS, in the 12 months to April 2006, even though the majority of Australian children were active with 63% playing organized sport and 71% visiting even outside of school, 92% of children used a computer and an estimated 65% accessed the internet. These statistics support the fact that children nowadays seem to be very dependent on the media.
The problems that occur are varied on individuals, from the lack of face-to-face interaction to obesity. Obesity is one of the main problems that Australia is facing. While junk food ads becomes one of the causes being blamed on this, sitting passively in front of the television leads to weight gain; increasing the chances of diabetes in children and other diseases. A survey, conducted in NSW, revealed that 10 junk food advertisements were shown each hour during children’s television times, as reported on news.com.au.
Not only on children, but obesity is a problem that becomes more urgent on adults. Based on ABS, in 2005 there are 7.4 millions people aged 18 years or more (54% of adult population) were classified overweight or obese. For comparison, there was an increase of 5.4 millions adults (45% of the adult population) in 1995. Rates of overweight and obesity vary depending on age and sex. Men commonly get heavier at an earlier age, while for women the increases in average weight were similar across all age groups.
Health issues are never far from the existing ethos on the society, although other aspects always relate one to another. According to ABS, people have their own perception about the ‘acceptable weight’, which commonly different to the BMI standards. Wikipedia (2007) stated some environmental factors that encourage obesity. They are: 1. lack of activity; 2. lower relative cost of foodstuffs; 3. increased marketing; 4. the changing workforce; 5. ‘two-income households’ behaviour; 6. urban sprawl; and 7. increased number of fast food restaurants.
Studies also portray that adults with education background (degree, diploma, etc.) were less likely to be obese than those with no academic qualifications. In addition to this, people with low income households were more likely to be obese. Around 21% of adults in low income households were obese, compared with 15% of adults in high income households. This means that sometimes not all the education messages that are sent through the media get across all the media users. Other aspects, such as economic status, etc. are the ones that matter on the problem. However, with such differences in status, the advertisements that go through the media can encourage ones with less economic power to be influenced towards bad food that leads to obesity, regardless the education on healthy living.
Furthermore, there are some parties who have control over the media. While this can be a good thing, it can also lead to media bias which becomes a bad thing. The government, for example, can spread out the education message about saving water in response to the global warming issues. But in terms of political issues, the media can also be used for the sake of one’s needs. This is where media can be “used” as a tool for propaganda or brainwashing the society.
As a group we see a link between education and media where the mass media can become a highly influential source for learning and gaining knowledge of certain issues of today. A certain hypothesis came about in a case study from Tichenor, Donohue and Olien, which suggests that ‘increasing the flow of news on a topic leads to greater acquisition of knowledge about that topic among the more highly educated segments of society’ (Tichenor, Donohue and Olien,1970). In this paper we found out about the “gap hypothesis”, Which states that ‘as the infusion of mass media information into a social system increases, segments of the population with higher socioeconomic status tends to acquire this information at a faster rate than the lower status segments, so that the gap in knowledge between these segments tend to increase rather than decrease. The hypothesis makes good points on the connection between gaining knowledge and education for issues or topics highly publicised in the mass media that for those less highly publicised. This so called ‘gap hypothesis’ also suggests that the media is failing through mass publicity to inform the public at large. Another interesting concept that comes about in this paper is that ‘as people learn more their interests increases, and as their interests increases, they are impelled to learn more.’ So this supports that increasing media coverage on a certain topic and educating through the media will gain a higher interest and acquisition of knowledge through the mass media.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the mass media works in many different ways to promote different values within our society today. The media seems to have more of a negative influence upon society but can we find a way to improve it for more positive outlooks? Is it a matter of better educating people in society to block out the bad influences or misconceptions coming through the media and educating to only listen to ‘truthful’ journalistic views? We are in a world today where media is almost impossible to escape. So it is just how we can take the information and the good education, without denying that the bad education always comes along the way.
