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Student: Cristian Titu


Teacher: Ileana Jitaru
Class: Mass Media Studies
On the Social Effects of Television
Manipulation, exploitation, vulnerability. The keywords describing mass media in early
times. It was considered that mass media had the ability to persuade the spectators to think
whatever the communicator wanted. Some of these ideas are dead nowadays, but there are still
people who think the same way. Television is still considered one powerful means of influence,
good or bad, pessimistic or optimistic.
During the years social science has undergone serious changes since the times of instinct
theory and primal theories about mass media: models of society, concepts of human nature and
images of man, all has changed and are still changing.
The danger today is that we dont pay the interest to the actual source of danger, the
center of our work, which is television. In general, the idea was away from the fact of
manipulation, but nowadays we are aware that the television can influence us in various ways
depending on each individuals past and present and futures hopes. Another risk is to get a false
image of no influence of the media, instead of the equally false image of an all-powerful media.
Even if the social science has evolved so much, we cannot afford to consider the image as
the final product. We have to do sth; even if the human being is no longer considered a mere
individual in front of a TV set and his experience, thoughts and hopes are considered, in some

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research exercises he is still seen as a simple individual in correlation with no other entities, but
only the TV.
Attitude has been the main concept of influence when talking about Television, but there
is much more when talking about this. Television doesnt manipulate only via attitude changes,
but also by providing models for people, conferring status on behavior, providing stereotypes,
etc.
By analyzing the background of a certain individual we can presume what the effects of
the Television could be on that particular individual after being exposed to it.
According to a research made in Czechoslovakia, the same TV programme may have
different effects on various people depending on each individuals age, social, economic and
even political status, as Ive said above.
When talking about the impact of the TV, the programme was trying to send a message
about the good life in the country, and in a sense of short-time effects, it did accomplish its
objectives. After the programme was over, many people had a better knowledge about the life in
the country and were more optimistic about their own lives, but the programmes effects didnt
go to a higher level (government, state).
Keeping these facts in mind, we can say that the TV influence is questionable in terms of
sending the proper message/the message that the communicator really wants to be delivered.
There was another programme called Rainbow City, a TV Series from BBC which tried
to rub off the discrimination between racial traits. The programme succeeded in vanishing some

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peoples discrimination when it came to minorities, but it didnt eradicate the general thought of
population.
The boomerang effect: when sending a message that is found as repulsive by a large
majority of population, the actual message can be of bad effect for the communicator, even if the
objective of the sender wasnt meant to do bad to the people.
It is considered that TV may find it easier to impart knowledge on people on a certain
topic, rather than change their attitudes. It might modify them, but not change them entirely,
because of the ignorance of the people on that certain subject.
Several points about the lack of effects:
-it is unreasonable to consider a single programme, or a series of programmes to change the
attitude of people. The change doesnt happen so easily.
-it is a mistake to equate the lack of change with the overall lack of influence of that certain
programme.
-the communicators have confined their attention on changing someones attitude from a pro to a
con or vice-versa, which is undoubtedly wrong.
Conclusively, it is clear that media has its influence on people even if the TV doesnt
have the influence that some people would want us to think it has and at the same time, influence
should certainly not be equated with the narrow definitions of change.

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