The Media System

Justine Dain – d21212825

10/04/2014 – THE MEDIA SYSTEM

Medias are everywhere nowadays. More and more people get connected to the world by those ways of mass communication, and more than 88% of the American have affirmed that they could not live without the Medias. As a result, how the Medias can influence over the society, and more precisely over the American economy? In order to find an appropriate answer, I divided my work into two parts. Firstly, I searched what were the real components of the media system, to be able, in a second part, to understand the influence that exerts the Medias over economy.

Media are tools of communication. Their real role is to diffuse the information to a large public. They are communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated. The oldest media forms are the printed supports, the written press. The most famous newspapers in United States are The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Daily News, Wall Street Journal or USA Today… A study showed that the average American spends about twenty minutes per day reading the news on one of those newspapers. The radio is another media form. Here, the same survey demonstrated that the American listened the radio approximately one hour per day. WNYC, KSCO, Bloomberg Radio, Kiss FM Los Angeles are some of the most famous radio stations. The television with a lot of channels too (CNN, Fox News, BBC America, MTV…), is watched by the average American about five hours per day… Nevertheless, there is another way of communication that is more used nowadays: internet. People spend more time surfing on internet that watching television. A study published last year shows that American over 18 years old spend an average of six hours per day on the web. Nevertheless, this can be easily explained by the fact that new technologies become more accessible. Moreover, this is also due to the rise of the social networks… For instance, more than 1.2 billion persons are Facebook users, and 241 thousands persons use Twitter. That’s why social networks are influential in a lot of markets. Or even influential in others type of media. Indeed, the New York Times changed a biography, after publishing it, because of the pressure of Twitter, which thought it was not appropriate. Another event more meaningful:  the Arab Spring, which was born with the help of the social networks. Indeed, the demonstrators chose internet because it was the fastest way to communicate and act. So, it is obvious how powerful the social networks became.

Other types of communication also exist like books, cinema, advertisements…  The choice of media obviously depends on the type of communication sought. The mass media is more suitable for a certain type of communication used. For instance, the written press like newspapers seems more suitable to communicate unilaterally, that is to say without feed-back, whereas social networks seem more relevant to communicate multilaterally, with a trading of messages and information.

Even if it is said hereinabove that internet became more powerful than television, it is still one of the most used media. In general, each channel which diffuses information news is looking for the scoop which will catch the viewers’ attention. What will draw the audience attention will often be something extreme, in a positive of negative way. Therefore, if CNN, for instance, makes a report, saying that the global economy is going to fall into a recession or something similar, people would take fright and stop spending money, and remove their investments. The consumption is based on people feeling about economy. That fear can also trigger businesses to slow down on spending, which can also have an effect on other businesses. So it would lead to a vicious circle. I think that media take a real important place in that. Indeed, the First Amendment to the US Constitution, adopted in 1789, guarantees the freedom of the press. That’s why the media in USA are known as the fourth estate, or the fourth branch of the government, faced to the legislative, executive and judicial powers. Journalists can become opinion leaders of crowds’ minds. By the way, we can easily quote the Watergate Scandal to illustrate the powerful role of the mass communication in USA. This dark matter of political espionage, led in fact to the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1974, because of the investigation of two journalists working for the Washington Post. They found out this affair and applied pressure to the president through the Medias.

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