CBSE Notes Class 7 Social Science Civics Chapter 6 – Understanding Media

Role of Media: This chapter explores the role and significance of media in our society. It discusses how media acts as a powerful tool for communication, information dissemination, and shaping public opinion.

Types of Media: The chapter introduces different types of media such as print media (newspapers, magazines), electronic media (television, radio), and digital media (internet, social media). It discusses the characteristics, advantages, and limitations of each type.

Functions of Media: The chapter examines the functions performed by media, including providing news and information, entertainment, education, and promoting public awareness. It emphasizes the responsibility of media in presenting unbiased and accurate information.

Media and Democracy: This section focuses on the relationship between media and democracy. It discusses how media plays a crucial role in promoting transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in democratic processes.

Media Ownership and Control: The chapter sheds light on media ownership and control, highlighting the concentration of media in the hands of a few powerful entities. It discusses the implications of media ownership on the diversity of content and freedom of expression.

Impact of Media: This section explores the impact of media on society, including its influence on public opinion, culture, and social change. It discusses the positive and negative aspects of media's impact and encourages critical thinking about media messages.

Media Ethics: The chapter also touches upon the importance of media ethics, highlighting the need for responsible and ethical media practices. It discusses issues such as media manipulation, sensationalism, and the importance of media literacy. 

Media: The word ‘media’ refers to all means of communication, everything ranging from a phone call to the news on television.

Public protest: When people collectively state their opposition to some issue by organizing a rally, starting a signature campaign, etc., it is known as a public protest.

Balanced report: A balanced report is one that discusses all points of view of a particular story and then leaves it to the leaders to make up their minds.

Censorship: The government has the power to disallow media from publishing or showing certain stories. This means that the government can censor the media.

Broadcast: A TV or radio programme that is widely transmitted.

Setting Agenda: One of the important functions of media is that it decides what stories should be focused on and thus decides on what is newsworthy. This is often said that the media sets the agenda.

Technology and the media

The naming of mass media is related to the various media technologies. Changing and modernizing technology allows the media to reach more people. It also improves the sound and image quality. Apart from that, it has altered the way we think about our lives.

Television has allowed us to see ourselves as part of a bigger global community. It has brought the rest of the world closer to us. We can now witness photographs of a storm that has reached the coast of Florida in the United States from Chennai or Jammu.

Money and the Media

The many technologies used by the media are costly. A TV studio has expensive lights, cameras, sound recorders, transmission satellites, and so on. As technology evolves, a lot of money is spent on acquiring the most recent technology. As a result, the mass media need a lot of money to execute its job.

The majority of television stations and newspapers are owned by large corporations. Nowadays, the media is continuously looking for new methods to make money. One approach to get money is to advertise various products such as cars, chocolates, clothing, mobile phones, and so on.

Democracy and the media

News reporting and discussion of national and international events are major functions of the media. As a result, it is crucial to a democratic nation. Citizens can analyze government activities with the aid of the media. Citizens can take action based on it. They can accomplish this by sending letters to the relevant minister, planning a public demonstration, beginning a petition drive, requesting that the government reconsider its agenda, etc.

Financial Report

A balanced report presents all sides of a particular story and then gives the readers the chance to form their own opinions. The ability to write a fair report depends on the media's independence.

unbiased media

No one should be able to restrict or sway independent media's reporting on the news. Nobody has the right to tell the media what belongs in a news report and what doesn't. 

In truth, there are two reasons why the media is far from impartial:

The power of government over the media is strong. It can stop a news story, movie sequences, or song lyrics from being broadcast to the general public. Censorship is the term used for this.

Creating schedules

What stories to emphasize is a decision that is heavily influenced by the media. It determines what is newsworthy as a result. The media influences our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors by emphasizing certain issues and drawing our attention to them. It is often argued that the media "sets the agenda" because of how much of an impact it has on our lives.

There are several occasions when the media ignores topics that are important to our daily life. Nowadays, it is challenging to present a balanced report due to the media's close ties to business. A news report's 'factual information' is frequently incomplete and may have biases. Therefore, it is imperative that you analyze the news before responding to it.