Unit # 6. Modernization in Pakistan and its Effects:
Urbanization, Migration,
As larger and larger industrial cities spread outward in the early 1900s, they formed metropolises (large cities that include surrounding suburbs, which are lands outside the city limits, usually with separate governance). While some suburbs become distinct cities in and of themselves, they retain strong geographic, economic, and cultural ties to their “parent” city.
Many metropolitan areas house a million or more residents.
The upper and middle classes ultimately brought about the so‐called flight to the suburbs. As economic woes increasingly plagued cities in the latter half of the 1900s, many families decided to move out of their inner‐city neighborhoods and into the suburbs. The ability to afford an automobile also influenced this migration. Beginning in the 1970s, most suburbs were largely “bedroom communities,” which means that suburban residents commuted into the city to work and shop, and then returned to the suburb at night. Commuting presented a downside, but most people felt that escaping “urban ghettoization,” or the tendency for the quality of life in inner cities to decline, was well worth any hassles, given the fact that suburbs tended to offer nicer and larger homes, better schools, less crime, and less pollution than cities provided.
Today, suburbs continue to grow and develop. Many have become economic centers in their own right. Offices, hospitals, and factories coexist with shopping malls, sports complexes, and housing subdivisions. In this way, many suburbs have essentially become small (and, in some cases, not so small) cities. Demographically, suburbs tend to attract “whiter” and more affluent residents than do cities. Yet not all suburbs and suburbanites are alike. Even within a suburb, families of varying ethnic and religious backgrounds exist.
Because of all this growth, many suburbs have developed “urban” problems, such as air and water pollution, traffic congestion, and gangs. To escape these problems, some people have chosen to move to rural areas. Others have chosen to return to and revive their cities by renovating and remodeling buildings and neighborhoods. Such an interest in urban renewal (also called gentrification) has turned some slums into decent areas in which to live, work, and raise a family.
The vast urban complex known as a megalopolis was created as suburbs continued to grow and merge with other suburbs and metropolitan areas. That is, some suburbs and cities have grown so large that they end up merging with other suburbs and cities, forming a virtually continuous region. One example of a megalopolis is the hundreds of miles of almost uninterrupted urbanization from Boston to Washington, D.C. The typical megalopolis consists of literally millions of people. Modern Means of Communication, Information and Technology and Industrialization.
Much of the sociological perspective about how news is created comes from researchers with the culturalist theory perspective. Journalists themselves also remain keenly aware of these issues and carefully study them. The central problem comes from the fact that many more events occur than the media can ever report on. Journalists must look at all the information and events before them and make decisions about what they report and what they do not. Because newspapers go to press on strict deadlines to be delivered on time, and because news shows must air live at regular times, deadlines in the news business are absolute. This situation forces reporters and news editors to make difficult decisions under pressure and with limited time.
Journalists also face competition to sell their news product. Newspapers run stories with the widest appeal to sell more papers and to draw more advertising. Television, and increasingly Internet news sites, compete to draw advertisers as well, and again, must frame their news to address the needs, interests, tastes, and appeal of the audience. As journalists make decisions about what to include and exclude, they are making choices about what is newsworthy, and, in fact, what is news. If reporters and editors do not deem information or an event as “newsworthy,” then they do not report it, and it does not “become” news. In other words, journalists and media critics alike recognize that news reporters do as much to create the news as they do to report it, which means they also create reality as they report it. Even though reporters may report “only the facts,” the facts that they select to report create a reality that audiences then interpret based on their own perceptions. A principle espoused by many media experts adds to these issues.
These experts argue that the form of communication (the medium used) plays a role in what kind of information journalists select. For example, a newspaper journalist's medium differs significantly from a television journalist's medium. Whereas newspapers emphasize the written word, television relies upon visual images, which means that events or information that can be conveyed through visual images are routinely presented while more verbal information or events receive little or no airtime.
Critics refer to this as a tyranny of the image. They point to the shift in television news reporting that has taken place from the 1950s and 1960s to the 1990s. During the earlier decades, 15‐minute news broadcasts focused almost exclusively upon business and politics. Today, local newscasts can range anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, and although the evening news includes some business and political reporting, crime and disasters overwhelm the airwaves. News has shifted from reporting information to telling stories: The news covers information and events that have clear plot lines or riveting drama because these stories play well with visual images. Static analyses of economic or business trends do not have the same dramatic appeal and rarely appear on network or local TV news, even though such information may impact the audience to a greater degree.
Experts worry that too much reliance on visual images and television will distort reality and prevent the adequate reporting of vital information. They look in particular at economic news, which affects all people. The news generally confines such information to the stock market results and a few other key statistics, which it fails to fully explain or put into context.
Political and economic events are frequently reported through the eyes of one person, whose touching and sometimes uncommon experience then becomes the image of the results of a real or proposed policy regardless of that policy's other effects, which may be more positive or negative. People relate to people, and almost all television news stories including politics and governmental actions seek out a “people angle,” whether the people interviewed understand the issues involved or have any decision‐making power.
Defenders of televised news respond that the visual images in many cases recount events more accurately and more objectively than verbal communication. In addition, defenders note that unless people choose to read or watch news stories, the news will not get out, no matter how well it's covered. If the news is not relevant, interesting, and visual, people won't turn to it and newscasters may soon have no influence at all. Newspeople say that their process is now more democratic, giving people what market research shows that people want rather than making “elitist” decisions about what people “should” or “need to” know.
Mass media is communication—whether written, broadcast, or spoken—that reaches a large audience. This includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and so forth.
Mass media is a significant force in modern culture, particularly in America. Sociologists refer to this as a mediated culture where media reflects and creates the culture. Communities and individuals are bombarded constantly with messages from a multitude of sources including TV, billboards, and magazines, to name a few. These messages promote not only products, but moods, attitudes, and a sense of what is and is not important. Mass media makes possible the concept of celebrity: without the ability of movies, magazines, and news media to reach across thousands of miles, people could not become famous. In fact, only political and business leaders, as well as the few notorious outlaws, were famous in the past. Only in recent times have actors, singers, and other social elites become celebrities or “stars.”
The current level of media saturation has not always existed. As recently as the 1960s and 1970s, television, for example, consisted of primarily three networks, public broadcasting, and a few local independent stations. These channels aimed their programming primarily at two‐parent, middle‐class families. Even so, some middle‐class households did not even own a television. Today, one can find a television in the poorest of homes, and multiple TVs in most middle‐class homes. Not only has availability increased, but programming is increasingly diverse with shows aimed to please all ages, incomes, backgrounds, and attitudes. This widespread availability and exposure makes television the primary focus of most mass‐media discussions. More recently, the Internet has increased its role exponentially as more businesses and households “sign on.” Although TV and the Internet have dominated the mass media, movies and magazines—particularly those lining the aisles at grocery checkout stands—also play a powerful role in culture, as do other forms of media.
What role does mass media play? Legislatures, media executives, local school officials, and sociologists have all debated this controversial question. While opinions vary as to the extent and type of influence the mass media wields, all sides agree that mass media is a permanent part of modern culture. Three main sociological perspectives on the role of media exist: the limited‐effects theory, the class‐dominant theory, and the culturalist theory. Limited-effects theory
The limited‐effects theory argues that because people generally choose what to watch or read based on what they already believe, media exerts a negligible influence. This theory originated and was tested in the 1940s and 1950s. Studies that examined the ability of media to influence voting found that well‐informed people relied more on personal experience, prior knowledge, and their own reasoning. However, media “experts” more likely swayed those who were less informed. Critics point to two problems with this perspective. First, they claim that limited‐effects theory ignores the media's role in framing and limiting the discussion and debate of issues. How media frames the debate and what questions members of the media ask change the outcome of the discussion and the possible conclusions people may draw. Second, this theory came into existence when the availability and dominance of media was far less widespread.
Class-dominanttheory
The class‐dominant theory argues that the media reflects and projects the view of a minority elite, which controls it. Those people who own and control the corporations that produce media comprise this elite. Advocates of this view concern themselves particularly with massive corporate mergers of media organizations, which limit competition and put big business at the reins of media—especially news media. Their concern is that when ownership is restricted, a few people then have the ability to manipulate what people can see or hear. For example, owners can easily avoid or silence stories that expose unethical corporate behavior or hold corporations responsible for their actions.
The issue of sponsorship adds to this problem. Advertising dollars fund most media. Networks aim programming at the largest possible audience because the broader the appeal, the greater the potential purchasing audience and the easier selling air time to advertisers becomes. Thus, news organizations may shy away from negative stories about corporations (especially parent corporations) that finance large advertising campaigns in their newspaper or on their stations. Television networks receiving millions of dollars in advertising from companies like Nike and other textile manufacturers were slow to run stories on their news shows about possible human‐rights violations by these companies in foreign countries. Media watchers identify the same problem at the local level where city newspapers will not give new cars poor reviews or run stories on selling a home without an agent because the majority of their funding comes from auto and real estate advertising. This influence also extends to programming. In the 1990s a network cancelled a short‐run drama with clear religious sentiments, Christy, because, although highly popular and beloved in rural America, the program did not rate well among young city dwellers that advertisers were targeting in ads.
Critics of this theory counter these arguments by saying that local control of news media largely lies beyond the reach of large corporate offices elsewhere, and that the quality of news depends upon good journalists. They contend that those less powerful and not in control of media have often received full media coverage and subsequent support. As examples they name numerous environmental causes, the anti‐nuclear movement, the anti‐Vietnam movement, and the pro‐Gulf War movement.
While most people argue that a corporate elite controls media, a variation on this approach argues that a politically “liberal” elite controls media. They point to the fact that journalists, being more highly educated than the general population, hold more liberal political views, consider themselves “left of center,” and are more likely to register as Democrats. They further point to examples from the media itself and the statistical reality that the media more often labels conservative commentators or politicians as “conservative” than liberals as “liberal.”
Media language can be revealing, too. Media uses the terms “arch” or “ultra” conservative, but rarely or never the terms “arch” or “ultra” liberal. Those who argue that a political elite controls media also point out that the movements that have gained media attention—the environment, anti‐nuclear, and anti‐Vietnam—generally support liberal political issues. Predominantly conservative political issues have yet to gain prominent media attention, or have been opposed by the media. Advocates of this view point to the Strategic Arms Initiative of the 1980s Reagan administration. Media quickly characterized the defense program as “Star Wars,” linking it to an expensive fantasy. The public failed to support it, and the program did not get funding or congressional support.
Culturalist theory
The culturalist theory, developed in the 1980s and 1990s, combines the other two theories and claims that people interact with media to create their own meanings out of the images and messages they receive. This theory sees audiences as playing an active rather than passive role in relation to mass media. One strand of research focuses on the audiences and how they interact with media; the other strand of research focuses on those who produce the media, particularly the news.
Theorists emphasize that audiences choose what to watch among a wide range of options, choose how much to watch, and may choose the mute button or the VCR remote over the programming selected by the network or cable station. Studies of mass media done by sociologists parallel text‐reading and interpretation research completed by linguists (people who study language). Both groups of researchers find that when people approach material, whether written text or media images and messages, they interpret that material based on their own knowledge and experience. Thus, when researchers ask different groups to explain the meaning of a particular song or video, the groups produce widely divergent interpretations based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, and religious background. Therefore, culturalist theorists claim that, while a few elite in large corporations may exert significant control over what information media produces and distributes, personal perspective plays a more powerful role in how the audience members interpret those messages.
Prepared by H-M-ZAKRIA Lecturer GDC Parova, D.I.KHAN hmzakriakhan@gmail.com Youtuble Information point Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/?_rdc=1&_rdr
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