Effects Of Media On Personality Media Essay

Media is said to affect our personalities greatly and there are a great many myths relating the influence of mass media on our minds. This research primarily focuses on the effects caused by the media on our personality whether through electronic or printable media. The media has a way of sending subliminal messages through television and magazines. Mass media has affected our way of lifestyle, socialization, living patterns and has altered our point of view regarding certain issues tremendously. It has not only affected us personally, but our society as well.

INTRODUCTION:

It is said that a person’s perception of reality is a result of his beliefs. In modern society, a lot of those beliefs are in some ways formed through the media. It is hence useful to look at what the media presents, how it does so, and what are the factors affecting it. The media known as the fourth pillar of democracy has a huge impact on society. Media is such a powerful tool that it literally governs the direction of our actions today. The media today is responsible for body image, and self-worth, and this is where we see several teenagers suffer from inferiority complex, thus resorting to unhealthy eating habits and weight loss. We live in a society that depends on information and communication to function and do our daily activities.It is the propeller as well as the direction provider of the society. Media is said to have the power to form and alter opinion.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Many studies have been conducted to find out how much media influences our mind and they have all showed that media in one way or another affects our personality. Several decades of research have focused on the relative impact of violent media (definitions of which vary widely), including television, video games, movies, and music on aggressive behavior in both children and adults. And they show a number of unnatural side effects of exposure to different kinds of media, like it has been observed that people incorporate a behavior they have seen on the media. Media also affects the personality of people in many other ways research shows that long term exposure to media creates insensitivity in the person and they are less affected by an incident that in the past may have greatly affected them, like long term exposure to violence on the media makes a person treat violence in real life as a trivial matter also resistivity to the fight or flight response has been observed in people who have experienced it many times while watching television. Some portrayals are presented so often we can no longer treat them with wonder and awe. Things that used to horrify or upset us no longer do. Long term exposure to violence can lead to a lack of remorse. High levels of watching media leaves no time for reflection. A British psychology professor proposed a theory that human brains are genetically designed to enjoy watching television. Geoffrey Beattie of Manchester University says that television is such an effective medium because it provides form of communication firmly imbedded in our evolutionary past; a brain has after all clearly evolved to deal with speech in the context of the spontaneous images created by human hand.

METHODOLOGY:

There are many methods of collecting data for a research paper this may be done by:

Online form submission

Interview

Survey

Multiple choice questionnaire

Of the many methods used for data collection the researcher opted for passable multiple choice questionnaire and distributed them among the students and the staff of the IST, This method was effective, cheap and easy and because of the limited time and resources this method was the most viable. To analyze the data we assigned marks to each answer in respect to their degree of intensity, and then we calculated the percentage of people’s opinion regarding the question. Any research project and dissertations demand the collection of primary data from individuals. Questionnaires are often the best way to gather standardized information and views because we can get a clear cut answer to our questions and the analysis of data is made very easy. It’s another advantage is that questionnaire can be administered simultaneously to a large group of people.

DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS:

A lot of data was collected by the questionnaires and the answers of the people show that:

Television has a moderate effect in relaxation of mind so people do not particularly turn towards media for relaxation.

Influence of media on the people regarding their choices on material objects is considerable so this means that people’s choices are somehow affected by what they observe on media.

People’s dependence of communication through networking sites is high. This means that people use the electronic media in interacting with other people and their personalities have evolved such that they can satisfy their social needs from the media.

Awareness distributed through media is an effective portion of the total knowledge gained through all the educational sources.

People’s mind are susceptible to the constant jingles on the electronic media this shows that there is a part of our mind greatly affected by constant audio input from our surroundings.

People agree that media has a considerable role in development of behaviors and personality but it is not the largest factor, as per the analysis done by the researcher.

The answers of some of the questions suggest that people are inclined to reproduce what they see on the media this shows that people tend to follow the trends.

According to the data obtained people think that children are affected by the violence in media and their minds are sensitive to the contents shown in the media as a result aggression tendencies develop which adversely affects their personality as well as the society.

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CONCLUSION:

Data was collected by the questionnaire and analysis of data shows that the people in our coverage are moderately affected by the mass media and there seems to be only a minute effect of the mass media on their personality but our research did not cover enough people due to the lack of resources and time and people greatly affected by the mass media were not observed. Generalization of this data can show that the personality of students currently enrolled in under graduation is not much affected by the mass media. One of the positive effects of media on personality could be the increase in the knowledge off the individual and relaxation, but in our subjects of study these positive effects are very little. So we can conclude that the individuals under our study did not have a large effect of media on their personalities may it be the positive effect or negative.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

By the analysis of the research we can provide a few recommendations like there should be less violence shown on the media also people should limit their exposure to negative media also the children should be protected from the violent media as they are much more sensitive to it. We should use the advantages of media more like the gain of knowledge and information.

REFERENCES:

Perse.E. (2001). Media effects and society. L. Erlbaum Associates. USA.

Berger.A. (2007). Media and society: a critical perspective. Rowman & Littlefield. USA.

Bryant.J & Oliver.M. (2009). Media effects: advances in theory and research. Taylor & Francis. UK.

http://www.newswriting.org/100/100xeffects.pdf

http://rayuso.hubpages.com/hub/Mass-Media-Influence-on-Society