Does media reflect society?

In this essay i will be giving my point of view on whether the media merely reflects society or is it a instrument in constructing it?

The media such as newspapers , magazines and television has always been the source of imfomation for everybody. For example We hear about what is happening in the world in the news and newspapers or facts and secrets about celebrities and thier lives in magazines and television. All media has a desired viewer such as magazines , They target the younger generation depending on the title of the magazine. In my opinion i believe magazines such as ok or heat rarely reflects society, more what the audience wants to hear n will catch thier attention , but media like newspaper or the television i think are more likely to use completely true stories because although thats the magazines jobs too, they seem to go to great lenghs to get the story where magazines are just gossip. Another form of media and advertiment is the internet , now the internet can be very uesfull but can also be a very decieving. I think the internet is by far the worst when it comes to the media as it is full of gossip and rumours that are untrue. I think because of all the sites such as Facebook, bebo, hotmail, myspace and twitter we have no time to use the internet for news but more for talking to our friends and socialising with them , i believe that is the reason the internet is not used for its true purpose. The most reliable i think is the news on television , as there are real storys about real people such as " orphans " and " victoms of a crime " wich do reflect society and how modern life is being lived.
A good example of wheather the media is reliable is micheal jackson , over the news we have all heard about his untimely death and his large funeral , what everyone dosent know is all the rumours about him , for example he is still alive!, that he was murdered or that his nose was stolen from the autopsy table!.
There are litterally hundreds of media theorists who all have different views on the media. One is Laura kipnis who focusses mainly on gender issues and popular culture , She believes that the media is not only sexist but a complete sham. Another theorist is john david ebert who is interested with celebrities in the media. Most of these theorists have got somthing against a type of media and how its presented in the world , i think they understand the fact that the media is becoming more and more unreliable each day.

I beleive that titles of articles have a huge responsibility of attracting readers, but most are sinister and one sided wich makes up our mind on the subject before even reading the article and therefore is not reflecting society but being used as an instrument to create it. All different magazines and newspapers have different titles and different points of view so that means that everyone reading papers or magazines will have different opinions and therefore dissagree with one another. Another way in wich the media constructs society is programmes such as "big brother" wich is by far the most popular television programme at this time. What your watching is "fake" people acting in a different way than they normally do to win the prize, what you think your watching is 10 people live thier life as they normally would live on television, but this is all a lie as they pretend to be someone they are not. big brother is not as real as it once was , over the years it has become more and more fake. I recall watching big brother for the first time and remember people being excited about watching a documentary if u like of human life n how it is lived in the privacy of home.

One argument is that the public are their own people, with their own choices . The society have the ability to choose to believe what they want even if the imformation they have been givin is completely false.
In conclusion i beleive that although the media does reflect society in a way it is pretty much entirely an instument used in constructing it. i mean if u look at the basic news wich wil be about celebrities and how there living there lives. thats not society thats just a big lie. What we think is society is actually just the lives of celebrities.