Media is not corrupting our society.

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?

The reputation of anyone who is subjected to media scrutiny will eventually be diminished in this age of intensive media coverage.

The media gives us a convenient way to obtain information. As time went on, the media grows quickly and has formed the forth pole of power in our society. Many things hidden before are exposable to the public and the reputation of public figures are diminished. The portraits of the public figures are weakened, or even destroyed by the facts or rumors given by medias.
Admittedly, in this open and democratic society, the medias have the right that is also the obligation of them to provide us not only the positive aspect but also the negative aspect of the public figures. Since most medias are profit-oriented and they regard that the public care the scandals of the celebrities more than their contribution to society, they maybe pool their energy and time to search or even frame up some scandals to cater for the interest of the public. By doing so, many famous people who were once honored ‘hero’ of the society lost their reputation and even became the negative representative reproached by history. For example, Nixon, the former president of the United States, was a hero in many American' minds until the water-gate scandal was disclosed by the media. And soon later, people lost their confidence in him and he had to resign form the historic stage of American.
After all, most medias tell the facts. When we find some dark side exposed to us, we feel disappointed because we see the public figure as a perfect person. In addition, they are just ordinary people like us and nobody is perfect. If we change our standard for them into a more tolerant one, which take the nature of human beings into account, we will find the positive side of them again.

Censorship can never be justified,do you agree?

Censorship is the removal and withholding of information from the public mainly by governments or other official organisations .Whether censorship is justified is always a controversial issue that attracts public’s attention.
Censorship often forbids publishing something, but not everything is suitable to be published. Mass media intend to see things in a commercial way, and want report almost every thing that can attract the attention of the people and hence earning money from them. The mass media like to make everything into "news" that many people have bad impression to the censorship. Some reporters have spent much time and money, and even in condition that their lives were threaded, and got some valuable information that can make an explosive effect; but they were forbidden by the censorship. In that case, they will definitely feel disappointed and claim that the order that their news can't be published is how unjustified.

Censorship is everywhere in all sorts of media, TV, newspaper, magazine, Internet, etc. It is necessary for government to use censorship to prevent illegal or harmful information contaminating the minds of the people, especially those teenagers. One example will be the famous band,the Rolling Stones ,who faced censorship by the china government

(http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-04-07-stones-china-censorship_x.htm?POE=LIFISVA)

. Five of their songs were not allowed to play during their concert in Shanghai. The government is trying to protect the moral of their citizens and prevent people from accessing to harmful information.In conclusion, censorship is really needed to keep us from vulgar expressions on the media, make sure everyone's rights and protect the security of a nation even though it is hard to justify it.

Virginia Tech Shooting

The tragedy on 16th April morning at Virginia Tech University in the United States has shocked the entire world. It was really shocking news to see young people who would have had bright days in their future were killed by the gun. What had made the gunman did such a senseless act?
The shooting rampage at the Virginia Tech university has left 33 people dead. There were two incidents two hours apart, at a student dorm where two were killed and at an engineering building where 30 died and the gunman pointed gun at himself. Eyewitnesses said some students jumped from classroom windows to escape the gunfire, which triggered panic on campus.
His diatribes may have come as a shock to many of his peers, who have described him as a quiet and unassuming loner - though many were aware of his violent side. Many people who know him could not believe that he did this,so what made such a ‘well-behaved’ young man did such a senseless act? It seems that he had been a loner since he moved to America at the age of 10, but why his family did not notice and do something about it. Moreover, he received discrimination in school from his schoolmates, which in my opinion, filled him with anger and spite.He has revealed himself as a deeply disturbed individual, obsessed with violence and harboring profound. And unexplained grievances, apparently against his fellow students.The schools should learn the lesson and make efforts to make mental health care readily available for everyone, not only in the United States. For every individual, we should care more about everyone who is around us.