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

The recent Virginia Tech shooting massacre has stirred up much strong emotions among the people and has raised up many issues that are close to our hearts. Besides the significant number of deaths caused in the massacre, there are also other issues that are hot in discussion among the people. The two main issues are about the gun control and the security of the schools.

It has reignited the gun control debate in the United States. Is the control too loose that it should have more restriction on the people who are allowed to buy a gun? Even a mentally unsound individual like Cho who was the killer for Virginia Tech shooting was able to purchase two pistols that cost several deaths.

The reason for allowing people to purchase guns is that the guns are a form of self-protection for them. There have been many cases whereby guns are used as a form of self-defense to protect themselves. Even though, guns are used for a good purpose, some people can abuse the right and misuse the guns for something that is harmful. In the society, there are not only many cases of self-defense using guns but also many cases for abuse of guns for killings.

In my opinion, the gun control should be stricter where only authorized people can buy the guns so as to reduce the abuse of the guns to the minimum. The lesser number of guns purchased, the lesser chance of killings using guns. In this way, lesser people can have access to guns and more killings can be avoided.

Another issue discussed is about the security of schools. The image portrayed of a school is a sanctuary for the students and yet a massacre could happen in a college. The safety of the students is at danger when a school is not secure to study. I feel that the schools should have tighter security inside the school compound so that the guards can do something fast when they feel that something is suspicious so as to prevent tragedy from happening again.

In conclusion, the Virginia Tech shooting massacre has stirred different types of emotions among the people and caused quite a lot of discussions where many of them concerned us a lot.

I agree that YouTube has no ethics and it's been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money.

For the purpose of entertainment, it allows anyone to upload any videos on the site for viewing purposes except for pornographic materials that are unhealthy. As a result, some videos that are offensive or discriminating are shown to the rest of the world. People may feel unhappy or even angry when they see these videos. One recent example will be the film that shows feet being placed over the Thailand king's face. This is seen as insulting to the Thai people as feet are considered dirty. It has shown us to the video may seems funny to some people and offensive to the others. People who upload these videos do not think about the consequences that they may lead to. The producers of YouTube also do not consider the consequences of the videos as important as the entertainment value of the videos.

People also upload popular drama series on YouTube to allow other people to enjoy them too. This has broken the law on copyrights issues that is illegal. This lead to everyone being able to watch the shows without having to buy the video cds. The actors will not be able to earn much when their shows do not sell. They put in so much effort and to realize that it has not paid off in the end.

YouTube also upload movie previews for people to know more about the recent movies that are going to be put up. It serves as a purpose for the media industry that wants to showcase their movie first. Advertisements are also put up at YouTube to publicize the company’s products. From the movie previews and advertisements, YouTube will able to earn money from there.

However, YouTube provide a medium to the people to have the freedom of uploading videos for other people to enjoy. It is a form of way to interact with other people and spread around the joy of some videos. Information can be spread through this medium too and hence people are more updated to new information.

Therefore, YouTube has been created for the sole purpose of entertainment and money. It does not really care about the consequences of the videos uploaded onto the site.