It started by way of messengers and scribes, evolved through the newspapers and radio, brought us together with television, and now world-wide via the ever-popular Internet. It is the mass media, and evenfrom the earliest days of its existence, it has contributed greatly in ways that bothenlighten and enrich society, and ways that deteriorate and perplex it. It is not asurprise to learn, then, that the mass media is the most powerful source ofinformation we have, and nothing else in today’s world influences public perception quiteas heavily. Unfortunately, however, most of what is broadcast or transmitted in thenews today is with reference to the chaotic condition of our planet, orsomething else that society as a whole sees as detrimental or damaging. But the news ontelevision is not the only type of media taking the criticism of society. Other forms of mass media, specifically movies and television programs containing pornography and violence have been heavily criticized. The underliningconcept to be debated here is that society is negatively influenced, specifically, bythese images of pornography and the result is increased violence againstwomen. This assumption, and it is indeed only an assumption, is completely fallacious,however, as no concrete and completely conclusive evidence has ever beenformulated in support of the theory. The key premise here is that the mass media doesnot cause undesirable social behaviour and in actuality, the media peopleshould not be dubbed as the “bad guys”. They simply use their power in the most constructive ways possible in order to promote their ratings andpopularity. One way to do that is to concentrate on what sells: sex, violence and disaster. Having said this, why is it then, that many in society still believe otherwise;why do they continue to believe that pornography is “evil” and is a major causefor violence against women, specifically rape? There are ma...
