It is said that media affects our social lives in various forms. There are many different opinions expressed about these effects dimensions and limits. Marshall McLuhan is one of those philosophers who has the most striking discourses about the effects of the media on people. He says that the mass media has completely taken over our individuality. The mass media affects our personal, economic and political lives in such an extensive way that there is nothing left the media has touched and changed.
Referring to McLuhan’s discourse, there are dozens of questions that may be asked. How and how much we are directed? Are we independent in our preferences? How liberal are we in the society that we live in? and so on. The questions can be expanded ever more. What is important here is; whether or not the media degenerates the societies’ freedom of understanding and comprehension. The modern media tools are thought that they provide people to reach freely to the opinions. But the reality is not like that. We are facing a mechanism that determines what we love and how we love it, instead of us.
McLuhan says that the visual culture is one of the most important ground, which constitutes the paradigm of Western civilization. According to him; the visual space is monotype, perpetual and consistent. In our Western culture, a rational person means a visual person. The Westerners do not comprehend the things that are not visual and cannot experience them consciously. Media is a reality which is based on visuality. The fact that it is fictional, eases the manipulation of the societies. Especially the news and entertainment programs affect the way of comprehension of the masses. The reason why there is a new discipline called perception management is the reform and conversion capability of the mass media.
It is difficult to say that the mass media has entirely become a control mechanism. But, it is a truth that the developed countries use mass media in the construction of social life and politics. Thus it is a real fact that, much more fundamental arguments should be made about the principles of the media which produces new life styles and surround our lives in different ways. As mass media improves, the comprehension capability of reality weakens. As the societies become masses, it is getting easy to manipulate and orient them.
Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the mass media is the ability to change our perception and transform us into a person outside of us. In particular, television with its structure that appeals to all senses, has a very favorable potential to produce lifestyles and life models or realities. According to McLuhan; television requires that we participate in the event with our whole self. Television does not function as a background, it connects you as an audience.
The rapid development in communication technologies bring with the development of globalization. The fast communication facilities make up a chaotic environment by lowering the information to data level. The speed of the circulation of the information reduces the perception level of the societies and make things impossible to comprehend. Even if we know or feel the truth, we behave in accordance with what is said as our senses are dulled by the media. For this reason, the development of critical thinking is highly important otherwise it is not possible for a society to get rid of the drug effect of the media.
In brief, media is a highly important colonization mechanism which have the ability to change or direct peoples’ and societies’ perceptions.
Although the media industry is in such a crucial point for societies, everyone can easily become a journalist, a reporter, an actor or an actress etc. if they want, regardless of their education background. This irregularity causes the biggest problems in the media sector. The media is an important force as it influences and shapes individuals’ emotions, thoughts and consciousness. If the broadcasting policies of the media organizations are appropriate for the profits of education, science and public, in other words if they do their part in the effort of the society to think freely, the media frees itself as well. Instead of dulling individuals’ brains, if a one can show and teach something new, something accurate and rescue the society from the known mistakes and enlightens the society in some way, the one is doing the right thing.
Media workers must have been well educated so that the accurate information can reach to the public. The media sector needs qualified employees with theoretical knowledge. Especially the local media industry is suffering from the unqualified employees as in most of the countries there are 1 or 2 big cities that manages all the media sector for that country. Thus the big media organizations in these metropolises always triumph or direct the other ones.
To mention concisely, the education of communication sciences in a contemporary sense has begun for the first time in 1908 in USA. Until the mid of the 20th century, the number of journalism schools, which provide professional education, has reached to a hundred, and between the years 1970 – 1990 the number of communication graduates has increased by 35%.
The situation in Turkey however, only the professional journalism education among the communication sciences has started in 1950 in the University of İstanbul. Today, there are more than twenty universities that provide communication training. Except the state and foundation universities, there are communication sciences training programs in special education institutions as well. Especially the number of organizations providing communication training has been steadily increasing since the late 1990s. And İstanbul is the heading city with its number of communication faculties.
Even if there are many universities that give communication training today, this does not mean that the training is a decisive factor to work in the media sector. Most of the graduates of communication faculties cannot use their bargaining power to work in the media sector, even they are victimized in the trio of fund, media and technology, due to the increasing monopolies in recent years. Although the media companies are willing employees with good communication training, receiving education in communication is not desirable for them and they are making difficulties in hiring the communication graduates.
In this thesis study, the development of communication faculties in Turkey and the media education provided at university level in İzmir will be examined in detail and the graduates’ employment status in the media sector will be analyzed in a comparative manner. The questions like; is the media education in Turkey compatible with the world context? Why do not the communication graduates work in their own fields? Does this situation arise from themselves or is it because of the market? The working status of the communication graduates is the same in all cities in Turkey? Or the situation is only specific to the local media? is going to be answered.