Each and every day we receive information from our society about our society. This information, or culture comes from many different sources. We are taught, or socialized, to be members of our society by our family, in school, by our peer group and mass media. These four groups are known as agents of socialization. By it’s very nature society adapts and changes and so does the structure of and the influence of the four agents. Of the four agents, mass media has been the fastest changing and has grown most in its influence. We are, after all, living in the information age. At any given moment, we can access information on over 400 cable channels, newspapers and magazines by the dozens and millions of printed pages on the Internet. At no other time in the history of man have we had as many sources of information. This does bring up one very interesting question: Are the mass media sources providing accurate, unbiased information? Or is it possible that some of these purveyors of information are hyping up or perhaps even inventing their messages? One of the most entertaining sources of “information” is the evening news. Of course, the actual news program is only half the entertainment. The other part of the “show” is the various teasers that serve as the advertisements for the “main event”. Syndicated columnist Dave Berry reported in one of his Sunday columns the best example of these teasers: “Brassieres of death… news at 6:00pm.” Teasers are those snippets of information that start with phrases like “Are Your children drinking contaminated milk at school,” “Watch our report tonight: Your health may depend on it”, or “our special report could save you thousands’. If the stories are so important why are the new stations withholding the information and endangering lives? The reason is simple. The stories are probably not going to save my life...
