Media / Favorite Form Media. You Choose

¶ … media / favorite form media. You choose . Analysis

In my opinion, the most preferable form of mass media is the fairly conventional compact disc. CDs are an excellent sociological tool in learning about one's environment and the relevant issues that affect society today. Additionally, CD's allow for a highly limited form of intervention between the message that the music artist is attempting to convey and its reception by the listener. Conversely, I believe that one of the least preferable forms of media is the internet. Despite the fact that there are vast amounts of information accessible to users on it, there are a number of ways in which using the internet inherently impinges on the privacy of a particular user. Cookies and other sorts of intelligence metrics track the particular activity of people. Moreover, this capability of the internet, when combined with aspects of data governance, data stewardship, and business intelligence, can preserve this information for inordinate amounts of time, sell it or transfer it to other users, and effectively monitor the habits and activities of internet users.

CDs predominantly have a positive impact on the life of music consumers and aficionados such as myself. In addition to providing quality entertainment in the form of the actual music that artists put into them, they also are viable forms of media in the sense that they contain valuable information about a host of social issues, including those related to politics, economics, and religion. One of the most positive aspects about using CD's as mass media is that people can get exactly what it is they want. If there is a particular artist that someone appreciates, and is known for making music that contains relevant social commentary about current events (as some of the best artists routinely do), then someone can simply buy that person's CD. Although there are basic standards related to decency and obscenity that CDs and artists making music must adhere to, there is generally not a limit on most thought provoking commentary that artists are able to disseminate. Therefore, there is little intervention between the actual message and the medium of CDs and music. In other types of media that are relevant today, the medium selected inherently shapes the message. CDs and certain books are some of the only available type of media -- reach a mass audience -- in which this is not the case.

Of the four theories of the press that relate to mass communication, the one that applies most readily to the buying and selling of CDSs is social responsibility. Social responsibility posits the belief that media has a responsibility to the public (No author). CD's adhere to this theory because of the bevy of socio-political information that music artists put out through this medium. There are certainly artists who do not choose to include socially conscious messages in their music, however; some of these artists are the most popular ones on the market place today. But there is an intrinsic social message even in this sort of artist and his or her anti-social message, because it presents the fact that socially, there is a very viable market for and a wide number of people willing to hear repetitious music about the virtue of a certain sort of car, or about possessing excessive currency, or about certain facets relating to sex. In fact, one may successfully argue that it is this aspect of CD's that make them one of them most informative and vital forms of media still available in contemporary times, since in this respect, they undoubtedly reflect the desires of the people at large.

However, there are also a fair amount of artists who are producing conscious, thought-provoking commentary about society today. These sorts of artists actually are the ones that render CD distribution as a theory of press that pertains the most to social responsibility. Certain artists, as previously mentioned, reflect the needs and wants of the public. However, others can actually influence them by providing social commentary in their music, which is distributed via CDs. The whole purpose of the social responsibility theory is the notion that media's first allegiance is to the public for general edification purposes. The media then is responsible for keeping the public informed, aware, and current on the sort of social news that is the most meaningful. Oftentimes, artists may address social issues (in CDs) that are not given significant coverage in the mainstream media. Problems such as homelessness, drug addiction, and the debilitating effects of violence are routinely discussed within socially conscious music. Other messages are decidedly more political -- such as the outpouring of Southern based artists regarding the slow response and reaction to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 on the part of the federal government. This sort of outpouring -- again, which is fairly unmitigated by record companies and federal censorship -- is definitely in accordance with the goals of social responsibility theory.

It is also necessary to discuss the production and distribution of CDs on a wide scale in terms of libertarian theory, yet another of the four essential theories regarding the role of the media. In many respects, the libertarian theory is diametrically opposed to the authoritarian theory, the latter of which posits that the press should operate under the punishment of the government, primarily at a federal level but at a social level as well (No author). The libertarian view, however, contends that people have the right and the capability to think for themselves and that the government should recede its influence on the media as a result (Naveed). As this definition indicates, there is a fair amount of parallels between social responsibility and the libertarian theories of the media (Godwin). CDs conform to aspects of the latter for the simple fact that they do present alternative views of news and current events, providing 'food for thought'. Moreover, due to the selective nature and the low levels of censorship regarding the music released on CDs (the plethora of parental advisory explicit lyrics sticker notwithstanding) listeners truly must think for themselves about the information released through this media, and know which ones to absorb and which ones to eschew.