I believe that the Five Cornerstones of Media all are meant to be in good nature. Some of the cornerstones have become misconstrued in a negative light in some cases, though. People have overgeneralized the public media and only focused on the downfalls and shortcomings of the five cornerstones.
Journalism has always been essential to the public knowledge of our world. Although some people say that journalism is a dying career field, I believe journalists will always be a critical part of our everyday lives. Journalism is how we know what is going on in the world and how we know what to predict in the future. Without journalism, the entire public would be left in the dark, without a voice and forced to accept whatever a higher authority presses upon them.
The practice of propaganda is especially a victim of this negative light put on media today. Propaganda has been used before in war efforts, government decisions, and public interest to sway opinions, but that doesn’t mean that it is all in a bad way. Some information needs to be made public for the greater good, and people need to know that spreading propaganda doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes propaganda can be the difference between an informed decision and an imposed decision.
Public relations are not usually thought of to be in a negative light, but I think their usefulness has been ignored. Companies’ relationships with their customers are arguably the most important aspects of a business. One cannot expect a client to trust in their company if they have given them no reason to. I think that if corporations and businesses need to rethink their whole look on public relations if they want to stay around.
One of the most vital parts of media today is advertising. Everyone is worried about which product is better, which source is more reliable. The only way to get people to believe what you’re selling is better than what everybody else has is through advertising. Advertising has become a huge part of today’s culture. Now, it’s nearly impossible to go through the day without some form of advertising being forced on you.
Ethics is a part of the public media that needs to be revisited I think. No matter what you say, no matter how right you think you are, if what you say goes against your listener’s personal beliefs, you’re going to have a harder time convincing them. The ethics of today’s world are no longer as shared as they used to be. With speech becoming freer and freer every day, the question of ethics rises. People develop their own ideas of right and wrong and it’s become vital to understand what your audience believes rather than what you do.
