Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/Mass media is a cheap source of information, education and entertainment. It is not just a slogan that it broadens our mind - it really does. News provides you with information on current affairs in the world, numerous educational programmes bring closer the world in all its aspects with its strange phenomena, wonders but also problems. And finally there are a lot of films and programmes which keep you amused after your hard workday. Some people argue that it is us who influence mass media and not vice versa, meaning what we watch on TV, hear on the radio or read in a newspaper reflects our nature. Since we are just humans, this means we are both: good and bad, so we can experience both having access to mass media. On one hand, then, there are endless images of heroism, good, grandeur, charity and loving, but on the other hand mass media emulates darker side of our nature employing pictures of violence, unpleasentness, evil and cruelty. It is all right if pictures of hungry children in Ethiopia evoke in you sympathy and willingness to help. But what if a picture of a blood-thirsty warrior from one of these action movies will make some youngsters take a gun or a knife and follow him?