¶ … media is an extremely powerful tool which can be used to change people's opinions regarding issues. However the effectiveness of media generally depends on how people use it. The two stories given to the news director are on completely diverse subjects. Both of the stories hold relevance to the society. The one about the celebrity death holds people's interest while enlightening the public about the park story is crucial to creating awareness in people's minds. In today's world, media ratings have become the most important part to media producers (Croteau & Honyes, 2001). Channels don't show news items for public welfare rather they concentrate on stories that make higher profits for them (Daily Source Org, 2005-2012). Keeping in mind the current media landscape, the news director should choose to air the park story as the lead story.
The role of media in the contemporary society has been restricted to the market model presented by Croteau and Hoynes. The market model says that media should be treated like any other commodity i.e. It should follow the same trends of demand and supply that all other products in the market follow (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001). The public sphere model however is completely opposite to the market model. The public sphere model says that the sole purpose of media is to educate the masses and therefore provide them with information that is crucial to their well being (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001). One can safely say that the park story is more important because it educates people of about something important happening in their community. The public sphere model (Croteau & Honyes, 2001) is much needed in today's society. If the news director features the story on the celebrity death as his lead story he would be undermining the power of media and using the important air time to feature futile stories.
Media is a citizen resource because it provides all of us the tools of handling certain social and political situations (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001), especially in a country like USA which holds citizens that come from diverse nationalities. People here may have conflicting opinions regarding issues hence all issues must be presented in an unbiased manner to them.
There have been high levels of inaccuracies, uncorrected mistakes, lack of coverage of important issues and widespread sensationalism (Daily Source Org, 2005-2012). According to statistics 85% of the public believes that "newspapers frequently over-dramatize some news stories just to sell more papers (Daily Source Org, 2005-2012). Another study by the American Society of Newspaper Editors conducted in 1999 said that, 23% of the public find wrong facts in the news stories of their daily newspaper at least once a week (Daily Source Org, 2005-2012). If an important medium of information such as newspaper leaves such errors unchecked how can one expect the public to not be doubtful about the news?
The advent of technology has bought new ways to deliver information to the audience. Blogs websites and social networking websites are a few of them. The reliability of data in from these sources is not very high either, but they often influence the opinion of people who use these resources regularly (Daily Source Org, 2005-2012).
The media delivery today is quick and swift. The public can easily receive news from around the globe in minutes. The current model of media promotes efficiency i.e. every media organization wants to sell their product to the public at the lowest possible cost (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001).One huge advantage of modern media delivery is that it pushes the organization towards innovation (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001). Like every other commodity media is also updating itself to remain in demand, this has led to the floatation of new ideas in the marketplace.
From the above stated examples it is obvious that the trends in media have shifted significantly. The older forms of media such television and radio broadcast and newspaper are not the only sources in today's world rather new sources have also cropped up. The accessibility of media has become high (Croteau & Hoynes, 2001). We can now access media from our laptops, and PDAs where ever we are. Since the penetration of media has increased so significantly the news editors should focus on important stories that educate and inform the people and help them in…
