The main reason why people feel that the media corrupts our society is due to our disgust and anger in its displays of violence and pornography, which are often accused of corrupting the minds of children and the young.

However, they fail to even clearly state the form in which the media corrupts the public. Some people feel that media’s corruption is more in the form of violence, killing and massacre. Others may see pornography as a greater form of corruption. Political party members may even claim corruption as the dissemination of information that do not adhere to their political aims, such as introducing communism in a democratic state or vice versa. With such a poor definition of the way in which media corrupts society, we can never be certain about what in the media is corrupting. What appears to be corrupting to one person may be seen as by another as a way to a way in educating the people of the harsh realities of life.

Furthermore, the media is not necessarily the one responsible for the corruption of society. Ironically, it is actually the changing of opinions and the creation of a more "open" society that has caused this "corruption". As more people in the world become more open to new trends and practices, the control over the media has also loosened. There is an increasing airing of shows and movies on violence, bloodshed and gore such as SAW and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which actually enjoyed large viewership. The very fact that there is an increasing demand for such shows means that society is actually encouraging the airing of such shows. This brings about the controversial question: is it the society or the media that is corrupting?

The actual fact is that the decline of morality in the society has caused the decline of media morality and it is not the other way round. Furthermore, the statistics obtained from a survey entitled "Shooting the Messenger: Why Censorship Won't Stop Violence" have demonstrated that while research indicates numerous causes for violence, none of them link directly to media violence.

"When violent crimes hit the headlines, people want to lash out at something, anything, and assign blame," said David Horowitz, Executive Director of the Media Coalition. "The media is too often that something, even though, as our report found, there is no causal link between the violent content in the media and real violence."

While the accessibility to violence depicted in various forms of the media, such as books, magazines, movies, music, TV and video games have risen during the 1990s, violent crime has, instead, fallen to its lowest level in nearly 30 years.

The survey also notes that even research linking media with violent content to an increase in aggressive play, such as children's wrestling, as opposed to actual violence, is contradictory.

It should also be considered that television viewers are watching out of their own accord. They have a choice of whether or not to watch. If someone feels that a program has inappropriate content, he can simply change the channel or shut off the television. It is ridiculous to accuse the media of corrupting society when people can fix the problem by this simple act of discretion, assuming they themselves are not corrupt. If we were to ignore the fact that the media is not an entity independent of human control and treat it as another being with the ability to corrupt, then the situation can be seen as a willing speaker conveying ideas to a willing listener, the keyword in this case being "willing". Is the speaker at fault for speaking, even though the listener has a choice that can be easily exercised to not listen to the speaker? Or should be listener be blamed instead, for actively listening so that he may be corrupted by the ideals put forward by the speaker?

Furthermore, most people blame the mass media for the increasingly violent nature of the society, which contributes to the corruption of our children. We believe that the media are not the sole or even the primary cause of those problems. Blaming media for changes in childhood and social problems has shifted our public conversation away from addressing the real problems that impact child’s lives.

The main reason is that politicians are using the media rather than budgeting the money to address these problems. Lower-income people ‘have more experiences with the reality of problems like violence’; they know the media are not a big part of the equation in their struggles to keep their children safe in troubled communities

Media does not reach children in a vacuum. Children process the messages they receive in the context of their value systems. By giving children the tools they need to understand what they are seeing and hearing, parents can help their children absorb a wide range of media and messages consistent with the positive values taught by parents, teachers and peers.

In conclusion, we have to note that the very idea of "media” is formed by the society. Thus, how is it that the knife is blamed for the murderer’s deed?

First of all, let me define censorship to start off the essay. Censorship is the removal and withholding of information from the public by a controlling group or body. It is usually used by government, religious groups, or the mass media to cover up some facts. In my opinion, I feel that there is a need for censorship in mass media to protect our society and not teach them the wrong life values.

Censorship is essential in a country as it filters out unnecessary and harmful information especially information on the government to the society. Hence, the society will not be split into different groups with each believing a different point of view. With the country being divided, there is a high possibility of conflicts surfacing and hence the country being united.

Censorship also stops the spreading of wrong moral values to the society. For example, movies that contain excessive violence have movie ratings that disallowed children to watch. This is because they are still young and are easily influenced by the movies and thus inculcating the wrong values in them. As they get older, they have the mind to differentiate what is right and wrong. Therefore, they are allowed to watch the movies as they all have their own stand.

However, censorship is not as effective as last time in the past as the world is getting more globalised. This has caused information to be spread around more easily and hence censorship is not able to fully withhold any information from the society anymore. Also with the advancement of technology, people can obtain information more easily through the usage of internet.

In conclusion, I feel that censorship is essential in the country as it protect the society from harmful information that can split the society into different groups. It also protects the children from learning the wrong life values and grow them into useful people that will contribute to the society.

Links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~kvander/censorship.html

The media is indeed corrupting our society. It provides us with inaccurate information or unsuitable information that influences us in the negative way. In this essay, I will show how the media has corrupted us in our daily life.

One main way where the media has corrupted us is the censorship that they employ. The initial purpose of censorship is to filter out information that is harmful to the society. Now the aim of it has changed drastically. It has become to influence the society with false information. The media conceal the truth from the society when they are in a disadvantage to report it and even create facts to cover it up. One example will be that the media favors the government and it only report good quality things about it and hide the bad things. In the case of the where the Vietnam veterans exposed the “real” Lt. Kerry, the media attacked them as “liars” to protect their own interests.

The media also uses propaganda to corrupt the society. It changes the mindset of the people and instill in them the way of thinking that it thinks that they should have. It is done by editing the information or creating false information. As a result, the society believes everything the media reports and they follow blindly. One example will be the case in Iran where the media favors Western programming over traditional religious content and it has caused much unhappiness from the people there. It has influenced the Iranians to follow the western culture rather than their own traditional culture.

In conclusion, the media is corrupting our society. The society has relied too much on the media for information and hence they are being corrupted by it without even realizing it.

Sources:

http://www.globalethics.org/newsline/members/issue.tmpl?articleid=03190020145571

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/opinion/2006/05/media_corruptio.php