Social Sciences And Media's Effect On Societies

SOCIAL SCIENCE:

The study through which we can help improve our lives, one can study society or one’s behavior in society, they learn about their own identity, the way they interact, their customs, activities all includes in social science. In this we study how people impact society and how society can run with the decisions of people for a healthy society. It is a fascinating subject that applies on every one and it is immensely helpful, where you get to know about human behavior, psychology, communication study anthropology, linguistic, sociology, economics etc. You try to know why people do what they do though you can never know but you can possibly understand it. The study provides you insight to all types of social issues whether raising children, improve interaction, how society and relationship works, better understanding of society or our lives. It is ultimately aiming towards understanding of the society so we can solve its problems. Through social science we get to know about our rights and laws, we have our own opinion; it promotes us to properly and effectively participate in public life. Thus, there are somewhat related field to social sciences as arts, liberal arts and humanities then why don’t we study them instead of Social sciences? Following are the definition of these disciplines:

ARTS

Arts are specifically performing visual arts, anything that people create like music, theatre, painting, graphic design, literature, dance etc. Fine arts also refer to the practice in various fields.

LIBERAL ARTS

Liberal arts include science and humanities; we can also say liberal arts are a set of academic discipline. However, it covers almost all areas of education such as mathematics, arts, literature, philosophy, psychology, religious studies and social sciences. It helps you to examine the world, observe things around you, critically analyses also increases your ability to communicate more effectively and how to adjust in any changing situation.

HUMANITIES

On the other hand humanity is the deep understanding of human behavior, culture, society and surroundings. It’s a branch of science that questions that what makes us human? It helps us to investigate more about human mind. It deals with ancient and modern language, philosophy, history, religion. It deals with the affairs of people related to the human world, how they can give particular attention to our diverse heritage, traditions, and history and to the relevance of the humanities to the current conditions of national life. By understanding the nature we can envision ourselves to where we are going.

ANTRHOPOLOGY:

It’s the study of human behavior and human evolution; it helps us to understand different aspects of human experience. Through archeology, it provides us with the history of human that how man was thousand years ago and how are they transformed. Anthropologist relates humans with other animals as monkey and chimpanzees. They try to understand how people try to communicate by different ways, how societies interacts by their dress or food. Anthropology basically deals with biology, types of communication, history of mankind and culture. Through Anthropology we get to know the roots of our culture. We also get to know about the history and roots of human kind, where the concept of lifestyle, custom food has arrived, we also learn how ancestors used to live.

As in result, all four (arts, liberal arts, humanities and anthropology) are related to each other. So what makes them different from social sciences?

• As compare to Social science (with many different branches) humanity has less.
• Social science provides us with better outlook on all aspects of life.
• It includes interaction with media through different types of communication.
• Where social sciences help us to understand human behavior, anthropology let us know about the roots of our culture.
• It is considered to have a more analytical and critical approach as social science is more about scientific approach.
• Social sciences help us to get better understanding of all issues whether related to politics or society.
• Psychology tells us about the human mind.

SOCIAL SCIENCES HELP US TO BE A BETTER MEDIA:

Social sciences is a catchall term, it has many branches which include Anthropology, geography, history, archeology, jurisprudence, economics, linguistic, political science, psychology, public health and sociology. All these branches help us to improve our lives. In order to convey the message we first need to understand our audience, their interest, their problems, we need to know how they are influenced by different fields.

It all starts with communication as social itself means interaction so how social sciences could not be important? Social sciences play a major role in escalating media. Here we want to know how social science is helping us to make a better media. The interaction between people, societies, governments are all on the basis of strong communication. Psychology teaches us to deal with human mind; we also see how people are manipulated by others. Sociology tells us how this world works, how to deal with problems, awareness on public health, laws and judiciary. Everything comes under the umbrella of social science from communicating to understanding, how to solve social affairs and to improve our society. Media is now considered as the core of society as it transmits messages and all type of information to the masses. For example: Whenever there’s any crime reporting so the reporter always tries to get into the roots of the incident by raising question as, why he committed that crime? What made him do that? He tries to know his background and the psychic of that person so that he can meet the ends.

In every aspect of life social sciences helps us to get through it. For example, the early levels talk about relationships, social responsibility in terms of helping others, and then understanding how the individual affects the group. A good understanding of how history has influenced the modern world gives people knowledge that they can apply to other subjects and everyday life.

In this way social science helps us to improve our lives. It makes us question why we exist, why we do what we do, what is the main cause of society, what is our history, how we can communicate more effectively and provides us with solutions for social problems. Not only this, every field of science related to social science so social science plays a major learning subject for students.

COMMUNICATION:

For becoming a better communicator we need to learn human behavior, mind and nature, how they think, what they tend to do and it provides us with a better understanding of personality. Psychology plays a major role in society as well as media. As we discussed communication is the major key for knowing a person as well as perception. It tells us how we make our prediction so strong that it becomes reality, how we assume things and want it to be as we assumed. Social sciences help us to communicate more effectively, to interact with people in more effective way, how to be a great speaker as well as a listener. It guides us about human history and its evolution. How to embrace our culture and much more, all this plays a major role in making a better media.

For example; if you are a good communicator then you would probably listen carefully and avoid interrupting. If you are taking an interview you would listen more carefully than you actually do because you don’t want to miss anything. You’ll assure them with gestures that you are listening your attitude will be more friendly so the speaker can be comfortable with you and answer your questions.

MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY:

When we put these two terms together, media and psychology what does it actually mean? So media is the mass media what you see on television or the device in your hand or on a black screen or something you could see on a newspaper. And psychology the study of human emotion, cognition and behavior, it just not help us to understand media such as facebook, twitter, snapchat etc but it also help us to understand how we are interacting through different mediums. How media is affecting our behavior, how it is impacting our learning and how we are adopting things that we see on media. It’s the relation of psychology and technology. Psychology is the study of people of all ages however; technology is mostly used by youngsters. Media psychology is the continual loop between technology, content, users response.

If we go through history then from early men to present day people have somehow invented ways to communicate. Now people are using media psychology for communicating in a different way. They use psychology for marketing and to target their audience. For example: You don’t even know when you are scrolling down to your news feed you are there as a customer, going through different advertisement of different brands. Most probably you are watching those advertisements as they are per your interest because they are suggested on the basis of your liked pages and when you click on it you are giving them what they want. So, it’s a psychological marketing.

Because of media psychology the applications that we are using today are so advanced and easily reachable. How we have moved from radio, television, newspaper to facebook and instagram. Now, people tend to obey those who are in authority or whom they like. For example: if Taylor swift uploads her picture wearing beats headphones then almost all her followers want that brand too.

So this is the kind of marketing we are in today, the brand hire people of higher authority so that they can promote their brand through them.

So, the media psychology is to grab the attention of the audience. Today people are getting influenced by media than any other thing, the kind of material they want rather entertainment, information, news or anything they have easily access to it.

Media has influenced children more through cartoons a researched proved that those children who watches cartoon in which there is aggressive and violent behavior, they tend to adopt it and do exactly as they see. So as in result they try to be the character in that cartoon and act more aggressively without any such reason.

For example: if you observe children who watches aggressive cartoons they are more likely to fight with others and have aggression, where as those who don’t watch such cartoons will most probably less violent.

MEDIA SOCIOLOGY:

By the term media sociology, it clears that it is about the relation between media and society. Media serves the society to transmit information and the communication varies from people to people. Some communicate through interpersonal communication (face to face between two or more people) that happens in your daily life. Others communicate through different forms of media, it works as a bridge between two. The culture and norms that media portraits represent its society and audience get influenced so most of them adopt it even if media is showing western culture more. Audience plays a major role in any kind of communication; the power of media is in the hands of the receiver.

The society is known for its cultural values and if one is losing it then it would be likely because of media. As media is the source of information through which people get to know about everything and that’s where different cultures could collide. Talking about Pakistani society and its culture, people have been influenced here more by media than any other source. The way media shows everything as rainbows and sunshine the way it attract its audience is the reason why we see more of western culture here. For example: As India’s culture has always been celebrated as fun activity here such as holi now we can also see colors of western culture as Black Friday, Halloween and Christmas.

SOCIAL SCIENCES AND MASS COMMUNICATION:

The term mass communication means a person, group of people or organization sends a message through any channel to the audience. The message is any kind of news, information, education or entertainment. Channels include electronic media (television), radio, social media or print media (newspaper, magazines). Mass communication includes public relation (understanding of public), Journalism (news), advertising, politics. As all terms of mass communication is related to social sciences. The main role of mass communication is to provide the masses with information.

People look for news or information for various reasons, on one hand it can be used to socialize and on the other to make decisions and formulate opinions. Entertainment would be the other function of the mass media where it is mostly used by the masses. Educating the masses about their rights, moral, social and religious obligations is another important function of mass media, which needs no emphasis.

If we relate both, mass communication and social science then mass communication can be count as a field of social science as social science teaches us all the aspects that are needed for mass communication. It teaches you about the human behavior and how to interact with people more effectively, it also deal with the social issue of people, it helps you to have better communication skills as well as helps you to know about your own self. Fields as Anthropology, psychology and economics helps a media person to get the most information out of the matter.

Mass communication is the field of journalist and for journalist it is important to know the basic leanings and behavior of the society. If a person is getting its news through television or social media then he want the news to be accurate without any errors so for that better knowledge regarding human behavior, communication, social issues and their solutions, Understanding of human mind, it requires all these to have a better access on the news. Perhaps social sciences give us all that is required if you study social science carefully then you will know that it is a never ending loop. Once you start learning about social science then you will get to know about your own self and your surroundings that how interaction happens, how to be a better communicator and a listener, how to observe your surroundings, to know about different cultures all that is related is related to human provided by social sciences.

For example, more people have excess to television in order to get news, in Pakistan paid advertisement on news channels is a common trend then every other news channel is getting into. So, do you know that these advertisers play with your psychic; the basic time of news is in between 9 to 11 where most of the people are at home sitting in front of television. So, in this particular time news channels are paid more for advertisements as they know that their content will be seen by the people.

MEDIA’S EFFECT ON SOCIETIES:

By now we know that media has huge impact on our society in shaping one’s opinion. Social media has changed the way people think, dress and communicate. We all are aware that how social media has influenced our lives, the way it's impacting our society. It has tremendous impact on our culture and tradition. Mass media has influenced more kids and teenagers. Almost billions of dollars is been made by media through advertisement that we see every day and get influenced by it. We buy what we are told to buy by the media. After seeing thousands of advertising’s we make our buying decisions based on what we saw on television, newspapers or magazines. These are the effects of mass media especially in teenagers, they buy what they see on television, what their favorite celebrity advertise and what is acceptable by society based on the fashion that the media has imposed on them.

When media is making such hype then the outcome is always positive and negative. Young people are getting more influenced by these campaigns. Here is a positive influence for example, if your friends are taking part in some online social campaign that is going to help needy and poor and that campaign is gaining a lot of attention then you will also participate. These kinds of activities are helpful for society and people too especially youth. However if we come to the negative side then teenagers are getting more towards fights as it is shown in movies, they also try to replicate that aggressive behavior in the real life.

While watching movies we see fights and violence, children are more influenced by what they see as in young age they try to adopt whatever attracts them so it can become traumatic as they see more and more even cartoons they show such violence that Kids actually try to replicate them and do things that fictional character do. Kids that are in age of shaping their personality and growth seeing such things can make them aggressive.

Media all over always shows a happy man and a woman and has created such categories of a good looking man and good looking woman. Back then in USA only tall, thin, fear and blues eyes would consider as beautiful even man with good looks were considered handsome. Median created an ideal image of such people that people now wants to be like them. Such advertisement of fairness creams gives a look as all the ingredients to be beautiful is in that cream. Products marketing are usually done in a way to persuade the masses to buy that product so you will look better.

Media plays a huge role in making one’s opinion. Eventually whatever the media portrays audience believes it. Same as western media portrays Pakistan as a terrorist so in the eyes of most people it has become so. Media has a power of building up an opinion as well as provoking someone to take action. The incident of kidnapping and sexual assaults of children were hype by the media and that’s why people recognized it and came forward to report.

For example, Pakistani media influenced the public opinion against the Taliban in Swat by repeated telecast of a video clip showing whipping of a woman by a Taliban.

Before that the public opinion over the military action against the Taliban in Swat was divided, but repeated telecast of this short video clip changed the public opinion over night in the favor of the government to take action. Other ways to influence are with polls and trends, especially in political campaigns. The candidates that can pay for more television and media exposure have more influence on public opinion and thus can receive more votes.

Due to social sites cyber bullying has also increased in teenagers, sites like facebook, instagram has allowed people freedom of speech but with that it has also made people insecure about themselves. For example, when a girl post her pictures on any of the site people bombard her comment section with harsh comments and due to this cyber bullying 1 in 3 teenager commits suicide in USA.