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The Purpose of News in American Society

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Submitted By Melnsfah211
Words 1620
Pages 7
Morgan Lenhert
Professor Philip Benoit
The Press and Society
February 9, 2012
News in American Society News is defined as “a report of recent events” or “previously unknown information” (Websters Dictionary). News should be something that has a specified influence of effect. For instance, good news would be the end of a war and bad news would be the beginning of a war, and so forth. “News has two priorities: it must be current, and it must mean something to people” (Media Awareness Network). What is the purpose of this news though? There are many objectives of news, but the main objective of news is to inform the audience (Media Awareness Network). This is because of the notion “Intrinsic Human”, better said as a need to know society. We live in a society that definitely needs to know what is going on around them; whether it is locally or half way across the world. Without news, people tend to stress and sometimes are faced with anxiety (Philip Benoit, Powerpoint). With that said, informing the people of such “news” is the job of the news media. The media inform people locally, nationally, and globally about what is going on around them and the important events that have happened in the past, present, and are going to be happening in the future. If we cannot directly observe everything that is going on around us, we must have another way to observe; and the only other option is for a person(s) to find that news for us and make us, as a society, aware. “For much of American history the mass media have been the center of controversy. . .” (Abel, Preface). This goes all the way back to journalism when it first came into play. At the beginning there were just paintings on stone, carvings in stone, and symbols written on cloth. Now there are all kinds of media, and rather than those paintings or carvings only being available to those in the area, the media

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