The problem with the modern media is they do not have a sense of social justice. Do you agree?

I agree that modern media do not have a sense of social justice as nowadays real life examples suggests that monetary benefits are priority of the media. This is in the sense of publishing of risqué advertisements, fabricating news to attract readers to buy more newspapers for money and creating vulgar songs to attract the unsuspecting youths to support the production. This is due to the fact that media consumers thrive and are most attracted to provocative and controversial issues.

Firstly, the publishing of risqué advertisements like the “Kat Jes” healthy yoghurt sweet, are used to attract viewers to purchase more of the product. It shows Heidi Klum naked in a bath tub but with most of her body covered by their yoghurt sweet. Such type of visual appeal tends to motivate people to unnecessarily spend money to buy the product.

Secondly, fabricating of news to attract readers is also a ploy used by the media to gain more viewers and revenue. This can be seen especially from the paparazzi around the world. In Hong Kong, these false reports tend to cause superstars to feel insulted or disturbed. Two of the many incidences were that of the death of superstar Leslie Chung and Show. Both are popular Chinese music artists that are affected by the false reports of the media. For Leslie Chung, he was suffering from depression, which was contributed partially by the paparazzi. It resulted in his decision to commit suicide, leaving behind his family, friends and fans to mourn for him. In the case of Show, the paparazzi falsely accused him to be a drug abuser. This made him push for a lawsuit against the press for defamation and his innocence in the case.

Thirdly, the media has the tendency to create vulgar songs to attract youths. This is especially prominent in the United States of America, where free speech is entertained. Thus songs like “I wanna love you” by Akon and P.Diddy(If I am not wrong) is the corrected version of the actual song named “I wanna **** you”(no offence intended). Another song, called the “**** song” is also commonly circulated among mobile phones and music players. Such songs play on the lines of being provocative and controversial, thus bringing more attention to these singers, aiding them in their advertising and popularity.

In conclusion, we can tell from here that as long as monetary benefits can be reaped, the media would not hesitate to take any actions, even if it harms the society, in order to achieve the benefits.

The media is corrupting our society. Do you agree?

Yes, I fully agree that the media is corrupting our society. In my point of view, the evidences of these actions are prevalent in our everyday lives and can be seen almost anywhere.

One of the main aspects of media corruption is media censorship. The initial purpose of censorship was to filter out any fictitious news or information that harms the image and reputation of the countries. However nowadays, the role of censorship had been blurred. Examples would be governments using censorship to remove negative news and cast themselves in positive light while editors use censorship to prevent publishing any news that risk offending any important figures in the society, thus benefiting themselves. Unknowingly, the media has shrouded our points of view by doing so and this can be noted locally: how often do you see the local government broadcasts news about their achievements on catching illegal immigrants as compared to broadcasting the news on the number of illegal immigrants that slipped under their noses? How often do you see schools announcing the achievements of various student groups as compared to announcing that of the groups that had nearly made the mark? The answer will be there will be more focus on the former than the latter for both cases. From these, we can see that the media today is corrupted as the supposedly good censorship practice have become a weapon for people to self-benefit.

Another aspect would be the making up of stories just to gain more viewers and popularity. This is done so as to select the best news to put on the front page, such that people will be most attracted to follow up on. An example would be the reports the on Israeli air strike in year 2006 that had supposedly struck the city of Qana, which had suffered a similar fate in April 1996, as indicated by the media. However upon further investigation, it was found out that the strike had occurred at a ‘hamlet approximately a mile to the north of the village, called Khuraybah (also known as Al-Khariba)’. Due to the influence of the media, this city eventually became the ‘“Qana” in cotemporary accounts.’ This shows the affluence of the media and thus has the ability to corrupt the society. "http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/part-1-introduction.html"

Although these are just two points, the tip of the iceberg of this issue, however, I believe people can see the extent of corruption on the society the media is able to introduce.

Is technology as good as it seems in the world today?

In this 21st century, the age of technology have came and swept across the world in the waves of tsunami. Now, people in urban areas, regardless of rich or poor, inevitably find their lives closely intertwined with technology, be it in the form of mobile phones, computers or music players. It hooks onto the masses as if a widespread addiction had occurred, with people undergoing symptoms similar to those of drug withdrawn symptoms whenever they lose contact with technology.

However behind its beautiful facade, is a side of negativity of the technology we have at our fingertips, which people tend to be oblivious to; firstly, as stated above, technology may prove to become a drug-like entity, causing addiction among users. Next would be the ineffectiveness of information transfer and not forgetting the impacts of technology on our world.

First of all, the problem of game addiction is widespread, especially in countries like the United States and Japan, where technology advances very rapidly as compared to other countries. These game addictions are mainly associated with computers, be it arcade game machines or home computers, and there has been reported cases of people playing computers non-stop for several days, neglecting the fatigue of their mind and bodies and demand for energy. These cases eventually ended in these addicts losing either their lives or sanity.

As the saying goes, “there will always be two sides to a coin”. Thus when people say that information can be disseminated very fast with technology, there would be loopholes in the system that people overlook. A simple example would be the jamming of networks on major festive occasions like the Chinese New Year, when people send festive greetings in the forms of MMS or SMS. Another example would be the recent mass murder in Virginia Tech University. On the day of the shooting, alert messages that would have averted the disaster was sent out. However due to network failure, the message came too late at 9.50am, where students and tutors had already started lessons and was not able to check their mails over either the internet or Blackberrys, thus resulting in the massacre becoming reality. This is undoubtedly an ironic twist to all the tribute paid to the goodness and effectiveness of technology.

Regardless of anyone’s rebuttal, the undeniable bitter truth of technology is that it has impacted our world to a large extent. Take into view the American society; Due to the emphasis on human rights, the American youths can easily gain access to violent materials which are not suitable for their age. In this sense, there has been increasing proportions of aggressive youths in the population, resulting in more home violence and crimes committed by youths.

Thus I urge people out there to try and see the two sides of technology and understand that we should not rely too much on technology as it is not all good and as reliable as portrayed in the façade of technology we see.