Mass media

Media is something that influences our lives a lot, because all information that we get are usually from some sort of media. The thing is, that we can never know if this information is true (it doesn’t have to be a lie, just a little bit modified truth)
Usually we can guess the credibility of each source, no one can be hundred percent sure.
In this presentation I would like to mention the main types of media (such as the newspapers, TV or internet).

The print media (newspaper, magazines)
The press is the oldest way of distributing information. It history goes as far as 1455, when the print was founded by Johannes Gutenberg.
Press can be divided into several groups. Most common are newspapers, which are issued daily. In second group, there are magazines and they are issued weekly, monthly or in another period.
The Daily newspapers can be divided into two large groups. The first are the quality papers and the second are the tabloids. The only common thing for these newspapers is usually sport and the weather forecast.
•    The quality papers are the more credible ones.
o    These newspapers are mainly old, some with more than a hundred-year tradition.
o    They contain political, industrial and cultural news and they devote pages to finance matters and international news.
o    The articles are mostly long and they have not very large headlines.
o    In the Czech Republic, the most important daily broad-sheets are Lidové Noviny, Mladá Fronta Dnes or Právo.
o    In the UK: The Times, The Guardian or The Daily Telegraph belong to the quality papers.
•    The tabloids are newer than the quality papers
o    the most popular in our country is Blesk (British equivalent would be The Sun).
o    They are printed on papers twice smaller than broadsheets and they use colours.
o    Word ‘tabloid’ was originally a pharmaceutical term, used for substances which were compressed into pills. So tabloids try to say information in minimal words.
o    They contain sensational stories about famous people. Sometimes they exaggerate a lot to just to make the story interesting. They are less informative and more emotional than quality papers and they use large headlines and many pictures.
o    In our country we call tabloids “bulvár”- this derived from the French word “boulevard”, because at the beginning of the 19th century when this kind of newspaper began to spread, these newspapers were sold by news-boys in the street – in boulevards.
•    The hoax, is some information that is not really true and is meant to confuse people’s opinion. It usually appears in the newspaper (both quality and tabloids) on the April’s Fools Day (1st April). The origin of the English word hoax is based on a hoax. Hoax derives from hocus, as in hocus pocus. Hocus pocus is not real Latin, it is imitation Latin, used by travelling illusionists and jugglers to make their tricks look real. In Czech we call this “the journalistic duck”. This derived from German expression NT, which is a shortcut that was written under articles that were hoax. It was a shortcut for non testatum= not verified. If you spell this NT in German, you get Ente, which is in German a duck. 

Well I think that tabloids have changed the shape of credible information a lot, when you read a quality paper, it is very hard to determine if it is true or not, but in tabloids you can’t believe anything except the sport news and weather forecast. And celebrities have become more important due to this fact, because tabloids try to publish their scandals, shameful photos and any details from their lives. On one hand, it brings them an amount of popularity, but behaviour of paparazzi is sometimes unbelievably rude (we can mention the case of Lady Diana).

Magazines
Magazines are usually issued a week or a fortnight. Our oldest one is Květy (issued weekly) established by J. K. Tyl in 1804. They have been a very popular family magazine together with Vlasta magazine. Some magazines are for whole family, some are just for woman, they are about cosmetics and fashion, some are about famous people and their lives and some give you advice how to improve your household. There are also many magazines for teenagers where they can read about their popular singers and actors (with attached posters).
The broadcast media (- radio stations, television stations)
Radio
The radio is the oldest media in broadcast media. In 1922 started the regular broadcasting of the BBC, and only a year later, on 13th May 1923, there was a first Czech radio station - Radiožurnál. The Czech word “rozhlas” is very young; it was created in 1924, when Radiožurnál announced a contest for a name how we should call the radio. It was first used in an article in Národní Listy Newspaper, until that day the word “radiožurnál” was used when talking about radio in general.

TV
The word derived from mixed Latin and Greek roots, meaning "far sight": Greek tele - far, and Latin vision, sight. Commercially is TV available since the late 1930s, it has become a common household equipment, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s, video recordings and later, digital playback systems such as DVDs, have enabled the television to be used to view recorded movies and other programs.
Usual broadcasting in TV isn’t restricted by censorship (except "programme with a star" after 10 p.m.). But I think that not every film or programme is suitable for viewers of all ages; I mean the children, of course. It should be parents who control the programmes which their children watch, but parents can not guard them night and day.
But it goes with our an instant lifestyle - children spend more time in front of TV and it influences them so much, that they often consider situations and lives shown in television as normal, so they become more violent.
But TV isn’t absolutely bad, it can educate us, give us new information, news and knowledge. Watching news in TV is a very good example on the differences of our broadcasting companies. Talking about the news, I usually watch the Czech TV, because I get more information that are interesting for me, but when the Czech TV extended the time for news (now it is like an hour long) I was disappointed, because the result of it is, that even though they said important information, they also need some crappy ones to fill the remaining time up. And due to this they got closer to Nova TV.
TV is a mass medium which is accessible to a big amount of people. This advantage is suitable for charity programmes or volunteer campaigns.
The Internet
The Internet has taken over advertising, commerce, sending messages. Only twenty years ago, the Internet was available only to programmers, college professors and military persons. But now the Internet is available to almost everyone. The Internet has created a whole new way of communicating, advertising, finding work, finding out about news. 20 years ago parents and teachers were concerned that children were losing the ability to write. E-mail has brought writing back as young people write to their parents and other friends on e-mail. It has taken over the radio station (you can listen to them online), it has taken over the post services (why should we use the snail mail, if we can send a message that will be delivered in few seconds?), over the printed newspaper (why should I buy them, if they are available on the web?). It is a very wide source of information, but this is maybe its disadvantage – the credibility of the information is only up to you.