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Thursday, December 4

blockquote

Tuesday, September 2

"The media is our best teacher". How valid is this view?

We expect a good educator to guide us and provide us with knowledge - is the media able to do so as well? That is something we ought to question ourselves as we debate about the pros and cons of the mass media. Therefore, we have to subject the validity of this view to the desired objectives of education in today's society and whether the media is able to aid us in acheiving that.

With technology improving in leaps and bounds, the media is able to provide us with current affairs and news at a much faster rate, which essentially translates to that we can acquire knowledge more easily. This is what we expect from a good teacher - a reliable source that we can always sought and acquire knowledge from. In today's fast paced society, majority of the people no longer have the time and patience to spend hours on books just to gain knowledge. This is where the media comes into the picture - it's efficiency at providing us information that we require is justified. This is through the numerous search engines, like "Google" or "Yahoo" where we can easily research about anything that we have doubts about. Also, through posting our opinions and engaging in discussion forums, we inevitably learn and discover new things. Through documentaries, we are also more aware of the happenings around the world. This is one reason why the media has been associated with being our teacher, which we can hardly refute, but yet, we can still hardly justify that it is the "best" untill further discussion.

Another fact that can be taken into consideration is that since the mass media has a wide outreach, it is often used as a platform for dissemination of important information. This is in the case of emergency, such as the September 11 World Trade Centre bombing incident where the rest of the world are well informed about the entire event. The individual countries are thus able to take the necessary measures and precautions to deal with it. This reemphasizes the importance of the mass media, way exceeding the requirements of just a teacher, but a good one as we are constantly being instructed and guided on the path of life.

However, if we were to look back to the entire argument, the validity of it cannot be justified entirely due to the presence of near-absolute word "best. While we define "best" as the greatest choice, and that there are no other alternative choice which is of the same quality, we inevitably discover the flaw of the media today that we can hardly classify and deem it as the best.

The greatest flaw of the media itself, as a educator lies in the lack of regulation. Some sources of the mass media, like the Internet enables people to publish information without any vetting procedures. Also, there are some information available on the net that is deem improper, which is not removed or modulated, like for example, the makings of a bomb. Presence of these harmful information may well harm some expalins why it cannot be claimed as the best. Also, on television, shows that may have been "cleared" or deemed appropriate by the panel at the Media Development Authority (MDA) may prove to be otherwise, as it contains sex, gore or violence, to the impressionable and the children. The argument of 'media literacy" may be brought in, but as the view claims "the exemplary educator ought not corrupt young minds with expletives". An example would be the movie '15' by Royston Tan which even though was censored heavily and not broadcasted due to it's excessive amount of vulgarities and scenes pertaining to pornography and violence, but yet was still posted on a popular online video sharing portal called "Youtube" for public viewing. Coupled with the fact that pornography is so easily available on the net, can we still classify the media as the best teacher?

Having the contentions in mind, it is important to consider what exactly the media can provide before validating the view that it is the best teacher. As justified, the media can be said to be a good teacher, for it is guides us in life, and provide us with information. However, we can never consider it enough as the best educator would be one that protect us from the vices of life. And with the media, having the potential to expose us to all this information, we definitely cannot claim it as the best.

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Hahaha, current affair-ed is a blog opened by yours truly so that I can hone my GP essay skills by publishing essays here periodically. I kind of have a "LMHBF" syndrome, which simply means I like to do things last minute, "burn the midnight oil" if you wish to call it. Since it's like... 5 days away from my GP Promo Paper, here it is!