Journalism - Media Literacies Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Journalism - Media Literacies - Assignment Example In the recent, various forms of media including newspapers and magazines have covered various issues that arise from moral laxity. In the same way, televisions have been in the forefront in presenting documentaries that creates moral panic within the society. According to Baer and William (1997) the activities undertaken by the youth as well as the level of crimes have greatly contributed to the immorality and threats that are faced by members of the society. Contemporary moral panics are different from the earlier ones (Victor, 1993). For example, in the past the effects of the young people on the family values were seen as a major moral panic that undermined family values. In the contemporary world, Cohen (1980) noted that moral panics can be caused by an occurrence of any event. In the same way, he stipulates that there has been rapid succession of moral panics. This essay will argue that media has played a fundamental role in representing moral panic associated with climate chang e. Climate change has recently been represented by media with an aim of exposing the public on its role of contributing to the global warming and high temperatures that have been experienced in various parts of the world. One of the main duties of media is to mediate between the scientific approach on the climate change and the temperatures that have been recorded in various regions. Human activities that include production of electricity and combustion of fuel within the factories production facilities greatly contribute to the destruction of ozone layer thus leading to unsafe environment. In United States, English-speaking media has spearheaded the coverage of climate change as compared to media channels in other countries. Through the studies done on tabloid press in UK and US, 1995 and 2001 establishments of IPCC as far as the role of scientific consensus on climate is concerned, was not effectively covered by media. However, extensive media coverage was adopted in 2007 and in 2 009. In 2007, wide media coverage was evident from An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary that was initiated by Al-Gore as well as the fourth assessment reports that was prepared by IPCC. In 2009, wide media coverage of climate change was catapulted by the UN climate change conference and the email controversy that engulfed the Climatic Research Unit (Mike, 2009). Media and journalists have been poorly informed about climate change. As a result, members of the public have little know how about the global warming despite the fact that it is a major challenge facing the contemporary world. Due to poor reporting of scientific issues that relate to climate changes, media scholars and reporters argue that three key distortions may arise. First, instead of journalists allocating more of their time to cover scientific aspects that relate to global warming and changes in climate, they specialize in writing stories that have human-interest. Secondly, journalists fail to provide balance between reporting of climatic changes and other stories. Thirdly, lack of adequate understanding of climate changes results to making of scientific errors. It is worth to note that in order to make policies that are effective in curbing global warming and nuclear power, it is vital to make the public more informed about climate changes. This can only be achieved if media and journalis