Do media divert or direct youth?

media sensationalism is confined mostly to routine stories, the ones that need some sensationalizing to get editors and audiences interested. In a real crisis the media, in lockstep with their principal sources, tend to downplay the seriousness of the situation.Like any high-outrage story, a serious crisis gets lots of coverage – but when the hazard is also high, the coverage tends to be sober and reassuring, not sensational.

At an early age books, movies, television, and the Internet influence how our children think and act in a variety of ways. As children grow these media influences become even more powerful. The media influences on children is not always a good influence and parents need to counteract this influence by discussing and monitoring what their children are exposed to.

There are so many forms to media.Arguably media could be taken as diversion,sleeze sells big time but we can't discredit the direction it gives.
Consider media in print.There is direction given to youth today...in form of awareness through papers.Education guidance,daily updates and social and political awareness is on its all time high.Everyone is aware of the latest scams,the latest trends and latest options.
The radio and television.Yes,alot of advertisements do come along but the programs aired that encourage discussions of various topics like youth participation,history of our nation and general knowledge as well.
Our all time favorite,the electronic media.I do agree there is loads and loads of junk available here,but so is constructive information.It depends on the individual to participate and choose wisely.There is a dearth of information available here just at a simple click if one really wants to learn.What better example can be given than this discussion on Boddunan it self that aims to develop our skills.
I believe there is a directive side to media ,we should give it some credit.

The media is a reflection of society. The entire media is not youth specific. However, youth is not ignored by media. In most journals, there are articles and news catering to the need of youth. Employment opportunities, sports, cultural events etc. are normally youth oriented.

The media just reflects society and contains healthy as well as unhealthy contents. It is for youth to pick the positive and reject the negative aspects. Media is like a mirror. This will display the events and views irrespective of positive or negative influence.

The media also contains pornographic material and other undesirable contents. It is for youth to use the contents of media to their advantage. They may enjoy the spicy entertainment and may be even pornographic material but to a very limited extent like spice in food. Too much spice will spoil health and too less spoil the taste.

Youth should treat media just as resource and pick that which will boost their personality and career. It s for youth to be diverted in right direction. Media leads both ways as roads do. It is for us to chose the right road.

It is really an interesting topic for discussion and i am not sure whether to appose or support the topic.

It depends how the youth takes and we cannot tell whether media is diversion or directs the youth.

If media is diversion then it is a diversion and if media is a direction then it is a direction for youth.

Nowadays youth follow what they see in media like young kids follow what they see in cartoon network.

Many kids like do the same stunts what they see in power rangers and also because of that many accidents have occur.

The role of media is to give news and views and also entertain. All healthy news and comments as well as various entertainment channels that have positive content can be said to leading the youth to right direction. On the other hand, there are many channels promoting superstition and evil practices. These are misguiding and misdirecting.

The media contains topics of interest specifically for youth viz. education and employment, entertainment. But most of the content is for all segments of society inclusive of youth.

The spiritual and religious channels promote superstition and personality cult more and these actually spoil the youth. Formerly, only aged and elderly were attracted to the spirituality oriented channels but now more youth are attracted towards these. This is dangerous and misleading. The youth should be aware of these and devote their time and energy in acquiring good health, skill and training and concentrate on job. The media has both positive and negative content and cannot be expected to give a direction. Media should be considered as a resource that may be used in any way: for advancement as well as the other way.

I would just request to free the title from its grammatical incorrectness by retitling it as "Do media divert or direct youth?".

Media shows what is happening around us .It is a reflection of our society . But only showing reflection is not enough. Media is diverting the youth sometimes .It should show the right path of living . Rather it sometimes shows violence and support vulgarisim, which is a threat to a civilized society.
media often exxagarates things and serves news in a complecated form which often depress or destructs the peace of mind of the youth. Thanks

I agree with you sir . There is a little confusion of the title , it should be corrected.

Media, as of today, has an awesome range of components and so its effects on the youth are also diversified.It must be accepted unambiguously that the media has a very significant role on the adolescent minds. Ideally the role of media for the youth must be one of immense responsibility. Youth unleashing their constructive powers may take an entire nation to an unprecedented glory and at the same time they may so get lost in the lust that their might may negatively work like misguided missiles destroying the very infra structure of prosperity in a society.Media being a big transformative force has embedded powers up its sleeve to bring about revolutionary changes in the mindsets of the young generation.It is up to media to EDIT if so required, present the UNEDITED if so required and not to present the unrequired if so required.

There are some shows in past which were stopped from being broadcasting like Shakthiman, WWE, Power Rangers and so on and our young generations tried to fly like shakthiman and many of them got injured and then the court gave a stay order for that show for few days and asked the shakthiman's crew to explain to the world that those are not real and only computer graphics.

World Wrestling Entertainment was once named as World Wrestling Federation and many accidents and injured occurred and as a result the broadcasting for this show was suspended for few days and after some interviews by the wrestler's and the change of name of the organization and it was given clearance for broadcasting with caution message being telecasting before advertisement.

chinmoymukherjee wrote:
[quote]I would just request to free the title from its grammatical incorrectness by retitling it as "Do media divert or direct youth?".[/quote]

Thanks for correction.Initially I also felt some grammatical mistake, but was not able to correct.

Many kids still follow some moves from wrestling and they do it in schools and get injured and moreover many kids play these games in play-station for fun and late they involve themselves in real fight for losing and some times they even bet on few things and it is really sad at this young age itself our young generations being spoiled like this.

Media,agreed is a reflection of society,youth included.This provides youth a platform to voice out.Youth has always had a voice that had been overlooked for years together.Be it in several issues like anti-terrorism,political awakening against corruption or social issues like murders of Jesica Lall and Arushi,now their opinion is heard and it reaches a larger chunk of society through media..
There have been destructive facets as well mentioned in above comments but it is through media only the rectification of mistakes and debating of such issues takes place.To choose to be directed or diverted is again a personal choice.
There are so many campaigns that now stir the minds of youth to be productive and aware.Media Campaigns like Jaago re,Lead India, VoteIndia,NYKS campaign against terrorism are a few of the many other efforts to develop youth today.Media forces youth to debate,it brings out their voice to the many to take this strata for granted.
Apart from just awareness,look at the creativity,the dynamic potential of enterprising and the power to encourage youth of our nation to think beyond that comes majorly from media.
Call it a voice,a nudge ,a push or simple force-it impacts our youth alot.Diversions are always going to be there,and yes,again media is a platform that offers that too.But we cannot discredit the efforts made by the numerous people who work in media to reform our youth strata to make it productive.

It seems to be gripped with a fear of children, blaming them for much of society's ills: crime, vandalism, drugs, drink, sex, teenage pregnancy.
The list goes on. But if these theories are true, where do these rebellious attitudes stem from? The obvious answer would be from the upbringing of children, but in my opinion the media also plays a substantial role in the attitudes, behaviour and physical aspects of youth today, in particularly that of young women.

We are constantly being bombarded with advertising, opinions, images and stories which appear to be forcing us to conform to a specific image of how we are supposed to be, whether it be thinner, more intelligent or prettier, and no matter how much we try to persuade ourselves we are strongly reccomended by media

Nowadays media is not helping youngster's it is spoiling them only. Like many films we have only adultsome and they try to experiment that themselves and as a result they involve in some prostitutes and also start using more and more pornographic websites and you will not believe guys a few months earlier i read an article about these websites are the highest earning websites and they even top in earnings also. Even in boddunan itself we had a group discussion on that topic i hope people remember.

Consider for a while the following programs on various TV channels:
WARDAT, SANSANI, CRIME REPORTER, CRIME PATROL, JURM... etc.
My question is what do the youth learn from these? The answer will perhaps unanimously be unethical values,unsocial attitudes and other things which are detrimental to the formation of character in the youth.
There was a program in a TV channel which interviewed Abhay Anand Kumar of SUPER 30 fame. He talked about how he prepares his students for IIT joint entrance examination and what is the secret of his success.
There is another soap in a channel with the name MUKTIBANDHAN which depicts the life story of a person who has a rags to riches story.
Such inspirational stories have enormous effect on the minds of young people and they inspire them to achieve impossible goals. I once read about a successful civil services candidate who disclosed that he had derived his inspiration for IAS having read a regular feature IAS TOPPER TALKS TO YOU in COMPETITION SUCCESS REVIEW. Such should be the role of media which entirely changes an individual and motivates him/her to venture horizons previously unknown.