The relationship between the media and society is...

The relationship between the media and society is regularly changingas media technologies are constantly developing, and its audiences are continuously adapting. ]Therelationship has been constant since the beginning of the 20th century, so inevitably it has certain effectson the people it has been reaching out to for so many years. The communicators of media messages can hold power over their audiences by uses of agenda setting, which is the media’s ability to raise importance of issues through repetitive news reporting (Severin and Tankard 2010) and propaganda techniques, but audiences also sometimes play an active role in its reception and selection of messages they receive. Elihu Katz says that effects of media are related to†¦show more content†¦It says that media messages have universal effects on its audiences that receive them (Severin and Tankard 2010), signifying a weak and passive audience that is easily susceptible to persuasion. This persuasion can be e ither negative or positive, and the theory claims that the audience will believe anything they see or hear. The bullet theory has less research than other theories, because of the fact that it categorizes audiences broadly, and it is more difficult to conduct studies on a general claim. However, a study was done that examined how the bullet theory may have applied to society by usage of propaganda in World War I (Severin and Tankard 2010). The US nation was collectivelyterrified of the power that Adolf Hitler had in his control over his country, and media messages at the time enhanced this fear by constantly stating that Hitler could have the same type of effective influence on the American people in forthcoming years (Severin and Tankard 2010). Influential figures such as Walt Disney, made propaganda pieces like cartoons detailing the horrible ways of the Nazi Germans at the time, shaping the way in which audiences looked at the issues of the war (Shale 1982). The example is vali d, butalso relatively weak feared perceptions of the actions of Hitler during WWII and after were widely held globally. It is difficult to measure such an extreme