How many of you out there think that it is the media’s responsibility to go beyond what is happening today in order to predict future conflicts?

The political situation in our country is getting more and more disturbed. Every day we hear in the news about the chaos and turbulence being caused in the public. We are being attacked not just by terrorist activities but also by natural calamities. In the realm of such circumstances, the government needs to be more proactive in handling the situation. Every citizen should accept the responsibility to start thinking about the welfare of the community. When it comes to the media, we are lagging far behind how we are supposed to be making use of this source. How many of you out there think that it is the media’s responsibility to go beyond what is happening today in order to predict future conflicts that have become inevitable for our nation?

Ethical Issues in Media

Ethical questions are always there. Should a photographer save a life or just take pictures as the life slips away? Most will say they are there to reflect reality and not to change it. This was Horst Faas' answer when he leaned in close with a 21-mm wide-angle lens, for the AP, to photograph Bengalis torturing suspected traitors in 1972. The victims died. Faas and Michel Laurent, the AP colleague who was with him, won a Pulitzer Prize. They do not think they could have stopped the executions. If they could have, both said at the time, they were not sure what they would have done. Photographers and reporters are supposed to cover news, not shape it. But this can be a very tough call.Nothing can define that set of responses that leads to a picture person's choices. One afternoon in Vietnam, Faas was in the darkroom when Nick Ut brought back film from up the road. South Vietnamese had accidently dropped napalm on civilians. The photos were compelling: a mother cradling a singed child, weeping victims, dramatic close-ups of a fireball. Horst went straight to a picture of a little girl running in panic ahead of the flames.Correspondents tried to talk him out of it. The girl's pubic hairs were visible, and no one would print it; the photo was blurred. "This one," Faas said, ending the discussion. The picture, yet another Pulitzer winner, was the one eveyone remembers from the Vietnam War.The issues are never clear-cut. The presence of a lens, especially on a television camera, can create the news. When Iranian hotheads besieged the U.S. embassy in Tehran, they spent most of the time hanging around in good spirits. The moment anyone raised a camera, they were a chanting, angry mob.With competition so fierce, there is pressure to deliver, to squeeze the most from a story and get it back before anyone else. In Haiti, journalists flew into mayhem in a back corner of the island. An Italian correspondent watched as a group of photographers clustered around one victim who was battered but still alive. She tried to convince them to take him to a doctor. It was too late, they argued; he was beyond hope. But she knew that he could have been saved. Their concern was catching the flight back to dispatch their film.Television camera crews face the same problems as photographers, with the added complications of their medium. The gear is bulkier; the demand is greater to stand there and keep shooting; and if someone does better, everyone else knows it that night when the evening newscasts are put together. As a result, competition blots out other emotions.

Ethical Issues In Advertising Communication

Business Communication is communication used to promote a product, service, or organization; relay information within the business; or deal with legal and similar issues. Business Communication encompasses a variety of topics, including Marketing, Branding, Customer relations, Consumer behaviour, Advertising, Public relations, Media relations, Corporate communication, Community engagement, Research & Measurement, Reputation management, Interpersonal communication, Employee engagement, Online communication, and Event management .

Advertising is the most widely known weapon in the marketing armory. This is a paid medium involving radio, TV, poster-sites, press, or direct mail. Each medium offers several advantages and disadvantages. Advertising communication is business - the way account managers and creative talent work together in an advertising agency to create commercials and ads that help sell the client’s products to the target audience .On average, advertisements take approximately sixty percent of the printed space in American newspapers. In 2004, almost 34 billion dollars was spent on newspaper advertising. In the same year, newspapers hauled in about 9 million dollars from subscription and single use buyers. Advertising Exist to solve two problems :

1. Too many goods or materials - If there was not enough of an item, there would be no need to advertise it.

2. Advertising is also a way of reaching your consumers who would otherwise be unfamiliar with your product.Many ads work by providing information: what is the product? what are its characteristics, qualities, functions?

Most of us admit that advertising industry is a „necessary evil”. In spite of certain questionable practices, advertising meets the consumer needs for information about the goods and services which are offered on the market.The essential ethical issues raised in advertising industry are that advertisements should be legal, honest and truthful.

Subliminal effet of Media

The media makes billions of dollars with the advertising they sell and that we are exposed to. We buy what we are told to be good, after seeing thousands of advertisings we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on Tv, newspapers or magazines to be a product we can trust and also based on what everyone else that we know is buying and their decision are also base don the media.These are the effects of mass media in teenagers, they buy what they see on Tv, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion that the media has imposed them.There are some positive and negative influences in young people.Here is a positive influence example, if there is a sport that is getting a lot of attention by the media and gains popularity among your friends and society, you will more likely want to practice the sport and be cool with all your friends. The result is that you will have fun with your friends and be more healthy because of the exercise your are doing.

However a negative influence in teenagers is the use of cigars by celebrity movie stars, the constant exposure of sex images, the excessive images of violence and exposure to thousands of junk food ads.Young people are in a stage of life where they want to be accepted by their peers, they want to be loved and be successful. The media creates the ideal image of a beautiful men and women and tells you what are the characteristics of a successful person, you can see it in movies and tv. Its a subliminal way to tell you that if you are not like them you are not cool yet so its time to buy the stuff they buy and look like they look.Another negative influence in teenagers that has grown over the last years are anorexia and obesity. There are millions of adolescents fighting obesity, but at the same time they are exposed to thousands of advertisements of junk food, while the ideas image of a successful person is told to be thin and wealthy.Also more women are obsessive with losing weight even when they are not obese, there are many thin women that want to look like the super models and thin celebrities so they engage in eating disorders which leads to severe health issues and even death.

Effecting minds of the people-Subliminal effect of Media

I can see that some media probably affects how people think about and act toward nursing, like maybe a respected newspaper or current affairs show on TV. But how can some TV drama, sitcom or commercial affect people that way? People know enough not to take that stuff seriously!
A Actually, the effect of that stuff on the audience's views and actions is taken very seriously indeed by the public health community, physicians, the news and advertising industries--and even Hollywood itself. In the field of public health, the growing efforts to influence the public's health-related views and actions through entertainment media are called "entertainment education."
The mass media is in the business of affecting how and what people think. To believe that people are able to disregard everything they perceive in the entertainment media because the scenarios presented aren't literally "true," or because they are loosely staged simulations of reality (as in "reality" shows), we would also have to believe that people disregard all messages in advertising, since ads commonly present actors and models in simulated situations. But that is simply not how the human mind works. In order for an entertainment show or commercial to be effective, the audience must identify in some way with the characters and what they are doing, even if some aspects of the situation are "unrealistic."

Social and Ethical Responsibilites in Media: It is undoubtedly true that the position of media or journalism is not that of a mission but of a commercial industry.

Social and Ethical Responsibilites in Media: It is undoubtedly true that the position of media or journalism is not that of a mission but of a commercial industry.

Negative impact of media on our youth

Nowadays every single channel is talking about war on terrorism, government issues, economic crisis etc. Such happenings and horrifying news is having a bad impact on children’s mind due to which they are under much mental stress eventually affecting their studies and normal lives.

Secondly, if we look at this issue with different perspective like Pakistani channels are promoting western culture more than Pakistani culture. Youth is more influenced by it and is adopting their ways and few of which are actually unethical and against our religious values and morals. Other than this, Pakistani movies and stage dramas are depicting a negative image of Pakistani culture. The stage dramas in the name of comedy are exploiting women’s image in a worse way and humiliating their existence.


The question which need to be answered is why our youth is more influenced by media in a negative way and forgetting their moral values and  identity?