Do you know the impact of media on school education nowadays? The media and the school are important to the learning process. They are forming a person and transforming society. The term media originates from the ‘plural of the medium’ in Latin. Media is any means through which some kind of knowledge reaches the people. Malcolm X, a human rights activist, said: “The media is the world’s most dominant force. The media has the right to accuse the innocent and to make the accused innocent, and that is its power. Because media controls the masses minds. There are important media styles which include print media, audio media, and audio-visual media.

Media is a resource of mass communication while education is the development for a person to understand and perceive things in a deeper way. According to McLuhan ‘Media is an extension of some human faculty-psychic or physical’. Marshall McLuhan said, “Whoever attempts to differentiate between education and entertainment does not discern the first thing about any.”

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Media is a blessing bestowed on mankind. Media has changed education, and media also strengthened education. There are two main approaches in the schools to use media and technology. First, students can learn from the media and technology, and second, they can learn with them i.e. media and technology.

The positive and negative impact of media on School education

Media has its benefits and drawbacks over school/schooling. The positive and negative effects on the school follow.

Positive media’s Impact of Media on School

Pope Francis said, “The digital world can be an area rich in humanity; it can be a network of people and no wires. This is something very sweet, a blessing from Heaven. “Media’s positive effect on education can be analyzed according to media forms such as print, radio, television, computers, internet, mobiles, and others. Below is the overview of the media’s positive impacts on the school.

1. Print media impacts on school:

P. D. Francis Arackal said: “Newspapers are the university of ordinary people.” It’s the oldest type of media which includes books, newspapers, magazines, journals, newsletters, and other printed content. Printed media impacts students’ and teachers’ minds profoundly.

2. Radio Impact:

Radio is a powerful mass medium used in education to disseminate knowledge, teach and offer entertainment. Radio has the ability to carry the world to the classroom, and it could introduce programs on the air as textbooks.

3. Television Impact:

TV can be a good instructor. Television program encourages zoo visits, libraries, bookshops, museums, and other active leisure environments, and instructional videos can definitely serve as effective teaching tools.

4. Internet Impact:

The Internet has tremendous potential to provide access to educational material for children and young people and can be contrasted with a large home library. Regardless of gender, sex, age, geographic place, language, or any disability, the internet offers everyone equal opportunities to advance in the education sector.

5. The Mobile Devices Impact:

The emergence of mobile apps has changed students ‘ learning methods. Students store and review all their notes on mobile phones because it is simple and convenient.

6. Effect of Social Media on School:

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn, MEETi n, WAYN, etc. help to boost student ability, motivation, and aptitude in education.

The Negative Impact of Media on School Education

The negative effect of the media on school is then illustrated below.

  1. Media makes students stubborn and lazy.
  2. There is no detailed learning and proper investigation. And
  3. No professional news media promote mass news.
  4. Teachers/students are Wikipedia duplicators.
  5. Students no longer believe in the notion of a master-disciple or teacher-student partnership, because the media has become their mentor, master, and instructor.
  6. The media threatens the learners in print or video formats with various immoral or indecent content.
  7. There is a connection between overuse of the Internet and depression, substance abuse, loneliness, and suicide.
  8. Come on. Many students rely specifically on the accessibility of social media knowledge, and the web in general to provide answers. That indicates a diminished emphasis on learning and knowledge retention.
  9. Students who seek to multi-task, search social networking sites while they research show reduced academic performance
  10. Their ability to focus on the task at hand is greatly diminished by the distractions that YouTube, Facebook, or Twitter are making.
  11. The more time students spend on networking media, the less time that they spend in-person socializing. Social networking sites are not an appropriate substitute for face-to-face communication due to the absence of body cues and other nonverbal signals, such as tone and inflection. Students who spend a large amount of time on social networking are less likely to connect effectively in person.
  12. The growth of social media has generated a lax attitude towards proper spelling and grammar, and the pace at which information is written.
  13. The degree to which private information is accessible online and the almost anonymous nature of the internet has made students neglect the need to filter the details they share.

Bottom line:

Media influences different stages of formal and informal education and school whether it is primary, academic, or science. Preference of media has a major impact on educational quality and distance education. Media is a gift of education that turns out to be a blessing to mankind while its detrimental application makes it the worst for mankind.