The influence of the media on the formation of public opinion

The article considers of what influence does the media have in shaping public opinion.

Keywords: media, society, psychology, social environment, public opinion, sociology.

В статье рассматривается, какое влияние оказывают СМИ на формирование общественного мнения.

Ключевые слова: СМИ, общество, психология, социальная среда, общественное мнение, социология.

Introduction

Public opinion has always been an important social institution that had to be reckoned with. The peculiarity of this concept is that it is almost impossible to fully predict, analyze, and control it. It is thanks to the inconsistency of public opinion that every year more and more effort and resources are allocated to its study, but even more resources are allocated to an attempt to curb this force and subordinate it to the will of the minority.

Basic concepts

For a more complete understanding of the essence of the article, it is worth starting with the basic concepts used in it.

Public opinion is a state of mass consciousness, which expresses the attitude, which can be hidden or explicit, of various groups of people, called the public, to phenomena, events and facts of social reality that affect their needs and interests.

Media is a system for communicating visual and audio information on the principle of a broadcast channel, which covers the mass audience and has a periodic form of distribution [1].

Information has become one of the most important resources these days. Society is one of the main consumers of information. From year to year, the consumption of information, and hence the demand for it, is steadily growing. Information is required in many areas of our daily life, thus the one who owns the information, and most importantly distributes it, has control over people's lives.

Information, on the other hand, is often not distributed randomly, but has methods that have been quite well-established over many years, with the help of which it gets to the end user.

The media use it in two main ways:

— Sequential. Method is more often used by the press, consistently and comprehensively covering a particular political problem in articles and other publications.

— Fragmented. This is especially common on television. It creates a number of difficulties for listeners in understanding the essence of this or that event or process [2].

Using such fragmentation of information, an unprepared person has difficulties in forming a holistic image of the described events and phenomena. Due to this, the owner of the source of information receives a wide range of opportunities to manipulate the audience, changing the real picture of the world to a more suitable self, keeping silent about some events or, on the contrary, elevating others. Due to the fragmentation of information, the consumer of information can be disoriented, lose interest in really important things and events, relying on subjective data, which can lead to complete informational apathy and indifference.

For this reason, the fragmented method is most often associated with television. The specificity inherent in the transmission of audio-visual content is the best fit for the desire to convey superficial, one-sided information, the veracity of which is difficult to confirm, but which, in turn, has a clear emotional response. That is why more accurate and scientific information is transmitted through printed communications.

The influence rendered by the visualized content is higher before due to the fact that the human psychology is arranged in such a way that the information seen by means of telecommunications is perceived as more truthful than the information read or heard. This fact is actively used in most countries of the world by promoting the necessary ideas through state or state-funded channels. This is also facilitated by the fact that with the development of the Internet, most people still continue to watch TV in spite of everything [3].

The influence of the media positive and negative sides

The mass media, for all their ambiguity, have a huge impact on the life of almost any modern society, taking part in all current events and forming attitudes towards them.

Even if the influence of the media is often viewed as a negative trend, at its core, the media, like any other tool for transmitting information, is initially emotionally neutral, it is already given one direction or another by the activities of specific people with specific goals.

If you delve into the very essence of the media, you will see the boundless potential that they carry in themselves. So, the use of the media as an endless source of useful information about any area makes them a powerful tool for educating thepopulation. Correctly, the policy of educating the younger generation, broadcast through the media, is able to instill in a large number of young people those qualities that will later help them form into a self-sufficient and self-fulfilling personality.

Also, do not forget about the cultural influence, which, if properly formulated and developed, can form a positive image not only for citizens within the state, but also for people living in other countries.

Negative influence

But like any phenomenon in the world, the media can also have the opposite effect. A population deprived of freedom in receiving information sooner or later begins moral and political decay.

Propaganda of hatred and intolerance can cause horrific consequences that often end in bloodshed.

Deliberate stupefaction of the population also leads to grave consequences, during which the best minds of the state are not able to conduct their activities normally, which is fraught with decline in all areas of science-intensive activity.

And the lack of clear moral guidelines negatively affects the formation of behavioral patterns among young people, increasing the level of child mortality and crime [4].

Conclusion

Summing up all the above, it becomes clear that the media is the most powerful tool for controlling the population, directed in the right direction, public opinion is capable of making truly historical events, elevating the inhabitants of one country above the rest of the world. However, once in the wrong hands, the media becomes a terrible weapon, the result of which cannot be predicted and controlled. It is this duality that gives the media an almost unlimited potential that can change the reality around us.

1. Robert M. Entman How the Media Affect What People Think: An Information Processing Approach// DUKE UNIVERSITY, Textbook. Chicago, 2020. p. 40–62.
2. Mikheeva, A. M. The influence of the media on modern society / A. M. Mikheeva // Scientific journal, 2016. No. 6. p. 137–138.
3. Ways to disseminate information 2016 [Electronic resource]. — https://studfile.net/preview/5826207/page:46 (date of the application 06.11.2022)
4. What tricks are used by the media 2019 [Electronic resource]. — https://lifehacker.ru/smi-i-obshhestvennoe-mnenie/(date of the application 07.11.2022)