The media provide access to and construct social problems for large numbers of audiences throughout the world and in turn themselves have become a social problem in view of their multiple and complex effects, many negative. The media have been blamed by a wide spectrum of theorists and critics for promoting violence and sexism, racism, homophobia, ageism, and other oppressive social phenomena. Social problems connected with the media also involve allegedly harmful media influence on children and youth; pornography and the degradation of women and sexuality; advertising manipulation; and the promotion of excessive consumerism and materialism.
Empirical research on media effects into these areas has been mixed and highly contested. Many studies have affirmed that media have negative social effects and help reproduce a number of social problems, while other studies assert skepticism toward claims of negative media effects or attempt to confirm positive aspects of the media.
1 Empirical studies are often funded by institutions who have interests in escaping or deflecting criticism, or they are constrained by bias and limitations of various kinds. Yet dominant theories of the media are equally contested on whether the media promote serious social problems or have a more benign influence.
Conflicting theories and research into media effects have intensified debates throughout the world about media as a social problem. Research into media effects and linking the media with social problems emerged for the most part in the United States following the rise of broadcasting and mass media in the 1920s and 1930s (Czitrom, 1983), but now the debate and literature is international in scope (McQuail, 1994). Likewise, in an increasingly interconnected world, there are wide spread concerns about the media and national culture and the ways that global media