The importance of media in modern society significantly exceeds the limitations imposed by traditional media: several aspects of modern media require studying to identify even more new ways in which people can interact with information.
Firstly, it is important to consider that modern media, or new media found in digital sources, is significantly different from traditional media. Traditional media is designed for mass consumption and implies a one-way connection with the mainstream audience (Hong and Zhang, 2020). On the other hand, the new digital media provides diverse audience members an opportunity to act as authors, observers, or commentators, supporting the foundation of trustful relationships. Moreover, according to Sama (2019), internet and TV advertisements have a similar level of influence on people’s desire to make a purchase, even though TV ads are much more expensive. Thus, exploring the differences between modern and traditional forms of media is a valid reason to study the topic.
However, in considering the media’s influence on people’s behavior and opinions, it is important to acknowledge the value of media in defining the political opinion of the population. In modern society, traditional media represents the primary source of political information, and new media is the main place to exchange political beliefs and opinions. According to Weismueller et al. (2022), people are more likely to share political content on social media because it allows people to share their views and emotions without considering the quality of the arguments. Thus, both traditional and new forms of media have the same level of trustful relationships with the audience to influence the political opinion of the population. However, the interactive nature of new media makes it possible to manipulate public opinion, for example, through the use of bots (Cheng, Luo, and Yu, 2020). The specialists suggest that the modern audience must develop online media literacy skills to prevent the spread of false political information (Adjin-Tettey, 2022). Therefore, the study of media is important for the development of society in the future.
Reference List
Adjin-Tettey, T. D. (2022) ‘Combating fake news, disinformation, and misinformation: Experimental evidence for media literacy education’. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 9(1), pp. 1-17.
Cheng, C. et al. (2020) ‘Dynamic mechanism of social bots interfering with public opinion in network’. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 551, 1-17.
Hong, Y. and Zhang, P. (2020) ‘Political news and happiness: the difference between traditional media and new media use’. Chinese Journal of Communication, 13(4), pp. 370-388.
Sama, R. (2019) ‘Impact of media advertisements on consumer behaviour’, Journal of Creative Communications, 14(1), pp. 54-68.
Weismueller, J. et al. (2022) ‘What makes people share political content on social media? The role of emotion, authority and ideology’. Computers in Human Behavior, 129, pp 1-11.