Portrayals within the media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Portrayals within the media - Essay Example Under the above mentioned, the presentation of issues or images related with drugs should be more limited both to its content and to its time and it should be focused to the methods of the problem's resolution and to the risk related with them trying to avoid to become a kind of advertisement on their usage (Kay, 2002). Mostly the last years, the behavior of media towards the issue of drugs can be characterized as having 'two-aspects'. The first aspect is characterized from the existence of emissions and advertisements that have as a target to show that drugs are the 'killers' of the body and the mind as well as of discussions transmitted through the radio in which the experiences of people that have passed from this condition are analyzed in order to prove the danger related with the specific problem as well as the possible methods to face it when occurs in terms of reality. In this context, the portrayals of the drugs and the drug users are characterized mainly by the detailed analysis of the negative aspects of the situation as well as of its direct and indirect results on peoples' lives. On the other hand, the so-called 'lifestyle' of modern society, which is presented continuously through the media, refers mostly to the 'easy life', the 'easy money' through the 'easy dreams' and - on purpose or no - creates the need for the acquisition of a series of products and of a certain style of life which is not achievable to the majority of people. Under these terms the people are influenced that this way of life (the easy one) is the perfect situation and the ideal acquaintance. Very often people that live in such a style of life are presented as ideally happy even if it is known that they have drug addiction. In the worst situations, this use is just mentioned as an aspect of a person's life as not a really bad or negative condition and the drug usage is indirectly presented as the normal consequence (even a requirement') of this way of life. Greene and Krcmar (2005, 71, 72) made a research on the influence of media to the human behavior. They found that 'argumentativeness is positively related to violent movie exposure, real crime television exposure and violent television exposure'. Moreover, they stated that 'argumentativeness and verbal aggressiveness' have been found to be 'better predictors of violent media exposure than they are of violent media linking'. Furthermore, 'violent movie exposure was found to be positively related to risk taking, whereas horror movie viewing was negatively related to risk taking'. Their research did not refer specifically to the drugs and the drug users. However, their influence to the human behavior could be analogous if considering that in real terms the drug use is a 'violation of health' especially when considering the results and to that point the effects of images of such a content could have the same effect to the human behavior as the movies that contain violence. To the above direction Gutwill and Hollander (2002, 263) examined the issue of the interaction between the human behavio