It’s quite obvious that the fundamentals of media lie in the spreading of ideas, information and knowledge. Media basically comes from the word medium which implies media is a mere transporter of already existing ideas and thoughts. It is not a creator or source of the message that it carries. That being said, media can also (may not) modify the message and its impact on the public.
Media plays a crucial role in culture shaping and development. So it’s quite a debate whether it’s just a transporter, or does it affect the opinions of society as well. To make things more clear there is a need to differentiate between media and the message it carries. It’s not the media that builds an opinion but it’s message that is being disseminated which does the job. So it’s safe to say that media is just a disseminator and it plays no part in influencing or changing people’s opinion. Media is just a tool which can be used in a million different ways, both good and bad, depending upon the definition of good and bad.
Message and media work in conjunction, neither one can survive without the other. There’s no use of media if there is no proper message, just like there is no use of a message if we cannot spread it. So to sum it up, the combination of these two becomes a potential influencer or opinion builder. The biggest industry benefiting from this collaboration is the advertising industry which uses media in a very smart way to propagate their ideas and values to people. Nike is one of the best examples of this. In the 1980s Nike faced fierce competition from Reebok while trying to establish themselves in the fitness world. They changed their advertising approach and started capitalising on people’s emotions. Instead of marketing their product, which in this case was sports shoes they started selling the idea of fitness.
They coined a slogan in 1988 “Just Do It” which is by far one of the most profitable taglines in history. They introduced a culture of fitness and training to take care of the body, in Nike’s of course. They urged people to “Just Do it “, and to just do it Nike’s. As long as media and advertising live, Nike’s use of media and its understanding of a powerful message shall be lessons to learn from. When media is paired to a powerful message, its opinion shaping potential is truly utilized.
