MASS MEDIA
For our ordinary life are very important informations. We need informations about local,
home and international political, social and sporst events. The biggets and most important
sources of information are mass media. To mass media belong nawspapers, radio,television
and internet.
Newspaper
In Britiain the national newspapers are very important. There are some very good local
newspapers, but most people read one of the main national newspapers.
The most popular newspapers are the tabloids. They usually have a lots of big pictures, the
articles are not very long, they use strip-cartoons and humorous drawnings reacting to some
political events. Tabloid papers don´t have many serious articles, but have lots of stories
about sex, scandals, famous people and the royal family. They also have big sports sections,
lot of information about TV programmes, advertisements, competitions about pop stars and
some home news. The two best-selling tabloid newspapers are the Sun and the Mirror. They
sell around four or five million copies a day. Another tabloid is the Daily Mail, which is more
serious than the other two papers.
There are four main quality papers or ´broadsheets´. Fewer people read these. Quality
newspapers contain a great variety of national and international news, reports from
parliamentary debates, reviews of the arts, features about fashion, sport and businnes news.
The articles are longer and more serious and they have fewer pictures. The oldest and most
famous quality newspaper is The Times. It is not a governmet newspaper as many foreingers
believe. It is an independent paper, which brings long, serious editorials presenting
independent views on politics. The Times has three weekly supplements which are published
and sold separately: The Times Literary Supplement, The Times Education Supplement and
The Times Higher Education Supplement. There is the Financial Times, which publishes
businnes news, stock exchange news and also famous art reviews. The best selling
broadsheets nowadays, though, are the Telegraph and the Guardian.
In Britain beside these, there are many weekly and monthly magazines for women and
teenage girls, for people interested in various kinds of sports and hobbies, such as yachting,
tennis, football, hockey, model railways, gardening, cars, etc.
Radio
The first radio was discovered in 1886 by an German physicst Henrich Herty. In those times
was the quality of broadcasting very low and there were no more than two radios in the
country. But now, broadcasting in U.K. is provided by BBC (British Broadcasting
Corporation), the quality of broadcasting is very high and there are more than 20 000 radios
around the world.
In slovak republic we have approximate 20 radios. The radios have their own transmitter and
with help of satelite in space they can broadcast. There are different kinds of radios: 1. state
radios (Slovensko 1, Rebecca,…) 2. private independent radios (Fun radio, Okej, Twist,
Express,…) 3. local radios (Tatry, Trenčan,…)
Radios are broadcasting a lot of different programmes: education and entertaiment
programmes, quizes, dicussions, commentaries, music charts, competitions, etc. Some
programmes consist only of music, that the listeners wish. The proportion of broadcastet
music and spoken word in programmes is 70 %-30 %. The radios are broadcasting every day
in the same time the most important news in shortcuts. The style of them on state radios is
very formal, on private radios their style is not so formal (Twist) and they are given by funny
way (on Fun radio). The private radios have got a lot of advertisements. The state radios
don´t broadcast so much advertisements.
The broadcasting in U.K. is provided by BBC, which has 4 TV and 4 radio channels. 1st
channel presents almost news and information programmes, 2nd and 3rd are for light
programmes like radio soap operas, competitions, entertainig programmes, etc, and the last
one presents cultural programmes. In Great Britain are nation and independent radios. The
radio broadcasting structure is similar with that one in Slovakia.
A lot of people listen to radio. I think, that listening to radio is not so big waste of time like
watching TV, because you can do many things while you are listening. Radio is a very good
source of music and various information, too. But what I don´t like is enormous number of
adverisements.
Television
The first television transmission was mad ein England in 1926 by the scotman John Logie
Baird. The great progress was only after war. Television soon appeared in our homes and
came to occupy an important place there.
A large number of people are concerned with television every day – technicians, cameramen,
programmers and of course artists. Thus television plays important role in our society. This
role is sometimes positive, but it can also at time be unhealthy. Through television we receive
images from all parts of the world and our knowledge is better. But not all of televisions
effect are beneficial. Whereas people spend the evenings working or studying, many now
spend a large part of evening watching TV programmes.
Many people say, that watching Tv is a waste of time. Some adults also say, that TV has bad
influence on kids. There are lot of especially foreign films on TV, which are about men, who
are kiling each other for money. If you look aroud, you can see it. People are very violent and
also children are aggressive. The actors became heroes throught their violence to inocent
people. Also even cartoons are full of violence. Just try to watch the famous Ninja Turtles or
Tom and Jerry. This cartoons are supposed to be for children. It is normal?
Soap operas
T ey are called soap because t e very first ones made for commercial T and sponsored by
companies that made soap powder. American soaps are about rich and attractive people who
live their exotic lives, they have a lot of expensive clothes, cars, houses and dramatic
problems. English soaps are quite different, they are about ordinary and normal characters and
everyday situations. But it doesn’t mean t at t ey aren´t dramatic. T ere are t ree famous
english soap operas – Coronation Street, Eastenders and Brookside.
Coronation street
It´s set in an un-named town which looks a lot like a Manchester. The drama comes from
changing relationships, problems of teengers, foolish arguments and jealousies. It is shown on
ITV (first British commercial station – Independent TV)
Eastenders
This soap is made by BBC 1. It´s set in London, so it´s more fashionable and attracts more
young TV viewrs. The problems are more current, unemployment, unmarried mothers,
homosexuality, homelessness. These problems are too adventurous for Coronation Street and
these topics are educational.
Brookside
It is set in Midland (somewhere near Birmingham), it´s characters live on a quite modern
housing estate. These houses were build espacially for this soap.
In Australia is very succesfull soap Neighbours. We can see there some famous people like
Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue.
And why people watch soap operas? When we watch these soaps, we escape from our
ordinary everyday world to the soap opera´s fantasy. Everyone likes sharing etusiasm and TV
soaps offer these opportunity. People have a lack of drama in their lives and they feel happier
about their own real problems when they can watch someone else´s problems.
Internet
Internet has become the most popular source of information. Nowadays many people started
using internet for it´s imformational character. That gives you the opportunity to find the
information you need. Internet become an important part of international communication. The
first communication net was created in 1979 beteen US Army bases. It was called Arphanet.
In 90´s of 20th century was this net modernized – Internet – informational communication net
was created. Now professionals use internet for work. They create new servers and web
pages. Young people use internet to communicate by using chat. On chat they can online see
on their monitor what the partner is writing and can answer his questions. We use internet for
education, working (e-banking) or for fun (game servers). Internet is the future of
communication.