Does the media influence society or reflect it?

I think the media influences society, because people read things from the media, such as newspapers & the news and they stir things. The media influences the society because it makes people known for what they did, such as a serial killer is in the paper and people see it and copy what the news paper have said they have done. the media in a way makes un-necessary publicity, they over exaggerate about things which they shouldn't. 

      

   The media also portray something that isn't true, such as models how people like to copy them because they make them look 'perfect' which isn't true as the media edit the girls/boys until they do look so airbrushed that it doesn't look like them, so teenage girls/boys want to look like that which can be a really bad thing as models are normally stick thin, which girls want to be as they want to look as 'perfect' as the people they see as they think its the look. The media mainly influence teens and young adults because they look up to people in the media such as celebrities and basically famous people.

i think the media should not be in control of what we see and hear as it can cause trouble. And i think they shouldnt be allowed to choose what were allowed to see and what were not and i also dont think they should edit some stories because they do, make it worse.

    The media reflects society because if we and a society didn't do what we did they wouldn't have a story to cover or to exaggerate into things totally different. An example of this would be the riots that happened as it started off with a peaceful protest and the media found out and made things a lot worse and the riots spread by the media's influence, which at first it started out as the media reflecting it but then changed into the media influencing it. the media shouldn't have made things worse and it got u out of control, all because the media.

     

 All in all i think the media does both, it influences people to do worse things and makes everything worse, as it over exaggerates and people then copy the media, or the people in the media. but the public shouldn't do what they do to give the media the stories in the first place. its mirroring us, so its reflecting us.  the media gives people ideas on what to do, such as copy cats that is because of the media and what it does and says about things, in a what it does, it gives people motivation to do it.