As the world is changing faster than ever before, the role of mass media as information providers became more important. Many people believe that the mass media offer fact-based information. However, in my opinion, the information that they give is biased. This is because it is affected by shareholders as well as governments.
First of all, the shareholder of mass media company prevent it from offering unbiased information. Because most of the shareholders of the mass media are commercial companies, they won't let the media make an article that is unadvantageous to them. For example, the sales of fast food company will drastically decrease if an article that argue fast foods cause the obesity is published. So they will threat them to cancel the article by arguing that they will cut their ads on the media. Although mass media have a public obligation to provide unbiased news, they cannot neglect the demand of advertiser to cover the managerial costs and the salary of the employees.
In addition, the government, especially in developing contries, have the incentives to control the mass media to win on election. Because they have authorities to regulate and purnish the mass media, they can order them to make an articles that praise govenrments' policy. That is why some notorious dictotors can have higher rate of public support and are reelected despite their cruel acts.
In conclusion, I believe that the mass media might not be able to offer unbiased informations due to the influence of sharehloder and governments. So people should develop an ability to distinguish distorted informations from facts and interpret an article on mass media with a critical eye. |