Writing task 2 the news media please review my essay

The news media have too much influence on people’s lives today and this is a negative development. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Over the past few decades, the influence of the mass media has grown exponentially with the advances in technologies. In fact, it has changed the public’s behaviour and ways of living. For many people, this is a negative development. However, I only partly agree with this as there are some benefits that this development can bring.

To begin with, the mass media helps people to keep abreast of current affairs and other information that are more trustworthy compared to the past. Indeed, barely a hundred years ago, if we wanted to keep informed about what was happening in the world, we had to rely on word of mouth which tend to be exaggerated and unreliable. As a result, many people were misunderstanding some concepts. For example, in the past, many assert that touching people who got HIV/AIDS could make them infected, isolating groups of people from society. For people living in rural areas, the news media has promoted those people’s medical and educational awareness, raising the standard of living in these places.

However, the mass media also pressurises some groups of people, especially celebrities. In fact, famous personalities frequent accuse the gutter press or even respectable papers of invasion of privacy and libel. Many of them even had their career ruined because of unscrupulous exporters. Additionally, the sexual and violent scenes on the media have a detrimental impact on children’s mentality. According to a recent study, there are a large number of children who display behavioural problems after watching these scenes.

In conclusions, although many believe that the increasing influence of the news media is a negative development, I partly agree with this because this development keeps people informed and raise the standard of living.