Media Study Homework

1. It was quite hard for me to understand this first question. Inception? What does this mean by during the inception of the U.S.? If the start of U.S. can be considered as settlement and independence, only paper media existed at that time. Maybe I can consider the commercials as one type of media. Commercials encouraged people to move to the new world. Or, newspapers might have existed. News papers at that time were mostly used at giving informations and sometimes persuading people to participate in some actions. Therefore, mass media was largely focused on factual events and sometimes opinions.

2. In the film, that we watched last class, media is used as a tool to inform, stimulate, and sometimes even deceive normal people. Through media, the main character could alter people's thinkings and pretend as a good and justifiable person. He could advertise tobaccos effectively through media. Media can always be biased because the producers are humans. Today, media act as persuading machine to people.

3. The roles of media have changed from informative to persuasive and decisive. Like what Noam Chomsky concluded, media nowadays act as emperors. Media can control people's minds and actions. Media has power. How to use that power effectively is the main questions that we need to ask and think about.