Social Groups and their Media?

Everyone in this world uses some form of media to get across their communication to one another. Without media, there won’t be communication, and without communication, there won’t be progress. As time went by, the media forms have evolved into much more advanced devices which are easier to access and use. However, the type of media forms used is according to the preferences of social groups classified into age, gender, profession and even ethnicity.

The most obvious I can find in the society these days, are the younger generations between the young age of thirteen to the ripe age of early twenties. This group is the one most obsessed of connecting with their friends and telling stories of their lives and showing every detail. They commonly use the Internet and handphones with Internet capabilities. The most popular sites to be utilized for the very purpose of their communication with each other are Facebook and Twitter, as well as Youtube and MySpace. The reason that this method is more appealing to the younger generations is that how easily they can display information about themselves to their friends and even strangers. It’s the desire in us when we are young to grab attention and become famous. That’s why you can see a lot of young, aspiring musicians and comedians on sites like Youtube.

A common sight at home, at the library and even the toilet.

In the working life however, things are a little bit different, but more or less, these two groups use almost similar media forms to communicate. In a company, communication is important between employers and their workers to achieve progress and work through the problems that they might encounter. Fax machines, computers with Internet and letters are the most used media forms I observe workers in office use. I think it’s the policy of writing what they discuss face-to-face or in meetings in black and white to avoid confusion. In another way, telephones are pretty important as well because it allows the employees of the company to contact clients to discuss about their products. Emails are used more often now, but I still see that telephones are an important part of communication between producer and consumer because hearing the voices of who you’re dealing with is more reassuring than just reading text on the screen.

"Hello? Is this Apple? No, this is Windows!"

The older generations, such as the group aged above 60, tends to use the more traditional methods of communicating, aside from talking face-to-face. More specifically, they tend to prefer using hand-written letters and telephones to talk instead of the standard mobile phones you can just use to text the other person. Perhaps this is because they believe in putting effort in everything they do, including connecting with family and friends, instead of using the more convenient way, and this is a respectable way of life that I can look up to. Although nowadays, the older generations are starting to become more computer-literate and open up into newer methods of communication the youth use on a daily basis.

Look how happy he is to be learning new things at that age.

The mass communication field, that covers aspects of communicating like news reporting depends heavily on satellite broadcast and television network to provide the entire world with news and updates about the current situation happening globally, whether it is the politics, social news, weather reports and even entertainment. It is quite frightening to think that they can control information and mould them into false news that could deceive a lot of people. There have been a few news stations that took advantage of this power and gave wrong information to cause a different reaction in the society, especially regarding politics.

I wonder how long he had to sit there to achieve that uncomfortable grin on his face.