Otázka: Mass Media
Jazyk: Angličtina
Přidal(a): FeatherFlame
The term mass media refers to TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet. It is the way of communication and getting information about news, celebrities and other things you like.
The media are everywhere. There is no single day when we would not be in some way confronted by television, newspapers or interned. The good site of it is that we have always access to information from world. The bad thing is, that sometimes it is just too much and never-mind that some information can be false. We have to choose carefully which type of media is reliable.
My favourite type of mass media is internet. I like, that I can find there everything I want, well at least if I spend some time looking for it.
Newspapers
Other way called as the press is the oldest way of distributing information. History of them goes as far as 1455, when the print was invented by Johannes Gutenberg. Newspapers as we know them were invented in 17th century. The earliest newspapers date to 17th centuryEurope when printed periodicals began rapidly to replace the practice of hand-writing newssheets.
London’s first newspapers, The Daily Courant, were first published in 1702, but it went out of business in 1732.
Nowadays we buy newspapers, magazines, tabloids and other kinds of press.
We can classify newspapers in several ways. We can divide them into national and local papers. The former are distributed all over the country, while the latter are distributed only in particular area, for example one town or region.
Another division is between morning and evening papers or dailies, weeklies and Sunday newspapers.
But the most common way to classify newspapers is by the differences between the quality and popular press.
The quality papers, other way known as broadsheets, are the more credible ones. These newspapers are mainly old, some with more than a hundred-year tradition. They have editorials which comment on important issues and reflect the political views of the paper’s editor. They contain political, industrial and cultural news and they devote pages to finance matters and international news. The articles are mostly long and they have not very large headlines. In the Czech Republic, the most important daily broad-sheets are Lidové Noviny, Mladá Fronta Dnes or Právo. The quality papers in Britain are The Times, The Guardian or The Daily Telegraph.
The popular papers, often known as tabloids, are newer than the broadsheets. They are printed on smaller papers and they use colours. They contain sensational stories about famous people, violent crimes and other topics that attract people. You can’t find much information in there but there are lots of pictures. The most popular tabloid in Czech Republic is Blesk. In Britain it is for example The Daily Mirror.
Magazines are distributed weekly or monthly. They contain information about hobbies. There are many types of magazines. Every magazine refers to different topic: Science, weapons, fishing, animals, sport, cars…
I don’t subscribe any magazine or newspapers. But I regularly buy one magazine about horses – Jezdectví.
Much news is now published online. With access to internet you can get information about everything and you don’t have to go buy some newspapers. But I don’t think that online news will replace newspapers. Well, not in the foreseeable future.
Radio
Radio was invented at the beginning of 19th century and it is another means of communication. It gives us a lot of information from the world and local recent events and also music. In 1922 started the regular broadcasting of the BBC, and only a year later, on 13th May 1923, there was a first Czech radio station – Radiožurnál.
We have access to radio nearly everywhere. There are news, music, information about hobbies and many other things.
Radio was broadly used in World War II as a way of communication and getting information about war.
British radio stations: BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3…
Czech radio stations: Rádio čas, Impuls, Frekvence 1, Český rozhlas, Kiss Morava…
TV
It is probably the most common kind of media. Commercially is TV available since the late 1930s, it has become a common household equipment, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
There are two types of TV channels:
First are financed from licence fees, these channels are public. For example public channels in Britain are BBC1 and BBC2. In Czech Republic they are ČT1 and ČT2.
Second are financed from advertisement, which means there are many commercial breaks, these channels are private. Private channels in Britain are ITV and Channel 4. In Czech Republic we can choose few examples like Nova, Prima and TV Barandov.
I don’t watch TV very much. But in that rare occasion when I actually spend some time watching TV I watch some movies or TV series.
An interesting question arises – Is dubbing of movies a good or a bad choice for us?
I personally do not like dubbing very much, but it also depends if I’ve seen that movie in English before. If I have, than dubbing is terrible for me because of changed quotes and different voices but if I haven’t then I don’t know original version and the dubbing is not so bad. In my opinion the best option is to watch movies in English and with subtitles.
The Internet
It is an international network of computers. These computers are all linked together and they are sharing information. Computer connected to the Internet can connect to millions of other computers in many different parts of the world.
On the Internet are many web pages which contain a lot of different kinds of information, entertainment and ways of communication.
The internet has many advantages over traditional media. Information is first on the internet. It is the quickest way to get news. We can get that information at every time and it is updated all the time, we can also find there comments from other peoples and read their opinions.
But there are disadvantages too. On the Internet is bigger chance that information that we get is false and unreliable. Sometimes, while we are looking for particular information, we can find something that has nothing to do with information we seek. Next thing is that we have not access to internet all the time. Other thing is that we are dependant on electric power, which cannot happen in case of newspapers.
We can see that many small children are using internet. I don’t say that it is bad thing. Internet can be great source of new information and children can learn that way many things. But we should warn children about dangers of the internet. Make sure, that they do not give some private data to strangers. Next thing is, that in the internet is so much violence and many sites which are not meant for small children. We should make sure that they visit only sites that are secure. If necessary we should block some websites.
Advertisement
We can see it everywhere. Adverts have influence on our lives. We can see them as commercials on TV or as some banners on the internet. We can hear them in radio or read them in newspapers.
Through advertisement we can get very useful information about product of daily use or other things. But they can be very annoying too – for example commercial breaks in the middle of films. I personally don’t like commercials very much which is also a reason I do not watch TV very much. If I want to see some film I rather download it to my computer than watch it on TV.
