Media can be seen as a double-edged sword. On one hand, it delivers important news and keeps people updated about current events, but on the other hand, it can spread misinformation that skews public opinion. Henry David Thoreau, a visionary author and philosopher, who anticipated the future of media once said:“The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity”(Walden 98). However, the modern press now performs worse than Thoreau could ever imagine. To focus on thrills and excitement, the media now attempts to grab as much attention as it can to make profits regardless of its ethical standing. The coverage of Isla Vista mass shooting is an example, which the
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The media is becoming a shark, and it strikes when it manages to detect even the slightest hint of blood. From attention-grabbing headlines to exclusive interviews, mass media coverages on brutal violence turns viewers and readers into “thrill consumers” and the news loses what was its original intent: to broadcast unadulterated, accurate, and essential information to its viewers. The massing shooting in Isla Vista is only a tip of the iceberg, with the dramatic increase every year, mass shootings lead to enormous coverage on the major news networks, creating sensationalism and the glorification of murder which can result in a contagion …show more content…
On one hand, we love to hear about crimes and discuss them with vivid interest. From TV shows to movies, crime is an eternal theme that brings countless viewers and money to producers and screenwriters. On the other hand, we do not like it when crimes happen to us or close to us, and thus people spend much more money to live in safer neighborhoods or communities. To satisfy viewers’ interests, the major networks such as ABC, NBC, and CBS started to report more and more crimes rather than other topics and they also “frame crime news” to put crimes under a telescope in order to bring attention to societal problems, such as drug abuse or gang violence. For example, politicians can use news about certain types of crime as propaganda to help them to raise attention and support in order to pass certain bills. Katherine Beckett and Theodore Sasson, both are college professors, argue that crime coverages were often related to race and class in the early 1980s, and that they can send the wrong messages to the public causing labels to be placed on the perpetrators of the crime. In their piece Crime in the Media, Beckett and Sasson mention that cocaine-related crimes “focused on white recreational users who snorted the drug in its powder form”(Par. 12). The media kept stressing the possibilities of rehabilitation for white recreational users while
The media is becoming a shark, and it strikes when it manages to detect even the slightest hint of blood. From attention-grabbing headlines to exclusive interviews, mass media coverages on brutal violence turns viewers and readers into “thrill consumers” and the news loses what was its original intent: to broadcast unadulterated, accurate, and essential information to its viewers. The massing shooting in Isla Vista is only a tip of the iceberg, with the dramatic increase every year, mass shootings lead to enormous coverage on the major news networks, creating sensationalism and the glorification of murder which can result in a contagion …show more content…
On one hand, we love to hear about crimes and discuss them with vivid interest. From TV shows to movies, crime is an eternal theme that brings countless viewers and money to producers and screenwriters. On the other hand, we do not like it when crimes happen to us or close to us, and thus people spend much more money to live in safer neighborhoods or communities. To satisfy viewers’ interests, the major networks such as ABC, NBC, and CBS started to report more and more crimes rather than other topics and they also “frame crime news” to put crimes under a telescope in order to bring attention to societal problems, such as drug abuse or gang violence. For example, politicians can use news about certain types of crime as propaganda to help them to raise attention and support in order to pass certain bills. Katherine Beckett and Theodore Sasson, both are college professors, argue that crime coverages were often related to race and class in the early 1980s, and that they can send the wrong messages to the public causing labels to be placed on the perpetrators of the crime. In their piece Crime in the Media, Beckett and Sasson mention that cocaine-related crimes “focused on white recreational users who snorted the drug in its powder form”(Par. 12). The media kept stressing the possibilities of rehabilitation for white recreational users while