Introduction
Various scientific disciplines contribute economically to the mass media evolution and growth. The mass media in turn influences the political environment as well as democracy in the modern world. The fierce competition in today economically advancing experiences forces the media to keep up its obligation of entertaining, informing and influencing people’s emotional needs.
The most fancied topics being crime, disaster or dangers relayed in a manner that make people perceive the reality of the dangers more intensely and thus influencing authoritarianism and intolerance in the democratic world. (Zillmann, 2002)
At present, the media plays a vital role on informing people on matters pertaining politics thus highly influencing the voters’ decisions. It assists in identification of the societal problems as well as offer service to people especially for them to deliberate on matters pertaining their welfare. (Vivian, 2009, 55) The issue of uncovering errors of the leaders makes the media to be the main watchdog for the society.
The societal decisions rely heavily on the assumptions that the information provided by the media is positive and right. Today’s due to the freedom accorded by the law, the media is in a position of availing the surveillance reports regarding the social developmental projects. They are in a position to identify the pertinent issues pertaining governance, provide a platform for debates as well as steer them. They can also hold the officials to account on their practices through interviews or other data collection procedures. (McQuail, 2003)
One main role involves provision of the incentives to educate the society. The media is in a position of resisting any external forces that may subvert their sovereignty over involvement in the political procedures. It enhances democracy and “similarly, the low-power radio and television stations enables mass communication with narrow niches within the society” (Vivian, 2009, 51)
Today the advancement to the chemical and electronic technologies is a revolutionary such as the reduction of human voice, text or images to a form of binary codes or light energy for transmission. Digitization has overcome the unnecessary paperwork but not replaced it. (Vivian, 2009, 39)
The core media industries of books, magazines, newspapers, sound records, television and radio are still active beside the new technologies. Currently, the mass media utilizes the advanced technology of the internet for delivery of is products across the globe. According to Vilvian (2009, 40), digitization is a technology that involves breaking and coding of messages for high capacity and speedy transfers. The internet deliveries have also influenced the text and photographic production units such as the print media publishers.
They use the digitized deliveries and broadcasts provide inexpensive system in both running and maintaining transmitters. It also broadens the source of information for the media content. The democratization of the mass media in communication describes the environment as turbulent for change with prescience. Today the world has graduated from the mass media communication to web media communication.
Much of the control features shifts to recipient who has access to the transmissions within the network and can determine the type of information received as well as the time. As opposed to the sequential message presentation of the network television newscast, they are in a position to switch instantly from dozens or hundreds of alternative sources through the net and theoretically connect to every recipient or sender worldwide. (Vivian, 2009)
Most scholars agree that the development of the digital technology has emerged with major effects on the distribution of content as well as the style of distribution. This is probably due to the advancement of labialization concerning media markets, competition and the need for maximizing profits.
The media select stories with the sole aim of profitability more willingly than relevance. Some of the characteristics brought about by the advancements of technology in the electronic and digital media entails tendency for convergence. Different media such as the newspapers, telephony, internet or television face technological and economical merges such as the digital television on the mobile telephony technology to reach the intended client efficiently.
Secondly, do the mergers by media companies cause the concentration? There is a parallel concentration regarding ownership where by several media are under same ownership and links of ownership to other company groups. This makes the media houses to give news from similar sources.
Another characteristic involves globalization where ownership of media companies is international and news covers cross borders without special focus. Today, commercialization is a huge factor such that many companies tend to blur the distinction between advertisements, news, and entertainment in a manner that audience without much spending face marginalization. (Murmann, 2003) There are high commercial influences by the advertisers and owners concerning edition and publishing of advertisements.
Lastly, there is a major effect concerning trivialization. Today people are prone to more sexual and violent scenes mostly regarding private lives of the celebrities. As opposed to the earlier scenarios, the media is avoiding the contentious issues affecting the society and the serious debates. The debates have turned to be controversial issues to provide a crush on personality that seem entertaining or attractive to viewers.
References
McQuail D (2003) Media Accountability and Freedom of Publication. Oxford University Press
Murmann JP (2003) Knowledge and Competitive Advantage: The Co evolution of Firms, Technology, and National Institutions. Cambridge University Press
Vivian, J.C. (2009).The Media of Mass Communication (Ninth Edition) Pearson Education Inc
Zillmann D (2002) Exemplification Theory of Media Influence. In: Bryant J, Zillmann D (Eds) Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research. 2’nd edition. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, New Jersey