For our ordinary life are very important informations. We need informations about local, home and international political, social and sporst events. The biggets and most important sources of information are mass media. To mass media belong nawspapers, radio,television and internet.
Newspaper
In Britiain the national newspapers are very important. There are some very good local newspapers, but most people read one of the main national newspapers.
The most popular newspapers are the tabloids. They usually have a lots of big pictures, the articles are not very long, they use strip-cartoons and humorous drawnings reacting to some political events. Tabloid papers don´t have many serious articles, but have lots of stories about sex, scandals, famous people and the royal family. They also have big sports sections, lot of information about TV programmes, advertisements, competitions about pop stars and some home news. The two best-selling tabloid newspapers are the Sun and the Mirror. They sell around four or five million copies a day. Another tabloid is the Daily Mail, which is more serious than the other two papers.
There are four main quality papers or ´broadsheets´. Fewer people read these. Quality newspapers contain a great variety of national and international news, reports from parliamentary debates, reviews of the arts, features about fashion, sport and businnes news. The articles are longer and more serious and they have fewer pictures. The oldest and most famous quality newspaper is The Times. It is not a governmet newspaper as many foreingers believe. It is an independent paper, which brings long, serious editorials presenting independent views on politics. The Times has three weekly supplements which are published and sold separately: The Times Literary Supplement, The Times Education Supplement and The Times Higher Education Supplement. There is the Financial Times, which publishes businnes news, stock exchange news and also famous art reviews. The best selling broadsheets nowadays, though, are the Telegraph and the Guardian.
In Britain beside these, there are many weekly and monthly magazines for women and teenage girls, for people interested in various kinds of sports and hobbies, such as yachting, tennis, football, hockey, model railways, gardening, cars, etc.
Radio
The first radio was discovered in 1886 by an German physicst Henrich Herty. In those times was the quality of broadcasting very low and there were no more than two radios in the country. But now, broadcasting in U.K. is provided by BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), the quality of broadcasting is very high and there are more than 20 000 radios around the world.
In slovak republic we have approximate 20 radios. The radios have their own transmitter and with help of satelite in space they can broadcast. There are different kinds of radios: 1. state radios (Slovensko 1, Rebecca,…) 2. private independent radios (Fun radio, Okej, Twist, Express,…) 3. local radios (Tatry, Trenčan,…)
Radios are broadcasting a lot of different programmes: education and entertaiment programmes, quizes, dicussions, commentaries, music charts, competitions, etc. Some programmes consist only of music, that the listeners wish. The proportion of broadcastet music and spoken word in programmes is 70 %-30 %. The radios are broadcasting every day in the same time the most important news in shortcuts. The style of them on state radios is very formal, on private radios their style is not so formal (Twist) and they are given by funny way (on Fun radio). The private radios have got a lot of advertisements. The state radios don´t broadcast so much advertisements.
The broadcasting in U.K. is provided by BBC, which has 4 TV and 4 radio channels. 1st channel presents almost news and information programmes, 2nd and 3rd are for light programmes like radio soap operas, competitions, entertainig programmes, etc, and the last one presents cultural programmes. In Great Britain are nation and independent radios. The radio broadcasting structure is similar with that one in Slovakia.
A lot of people listen to radio. I think, that listening to radio is not so big waste of time like watching TV, because you can do many things while you are listening. Radio is a very good source of music and various information, too. But what I don´t like is enormous number of adverisements.
Television
The first television transmission was mad ein England in 1926 by the scotman John Logie Baird. The great progress was only after war. Television soon appeared in our homes and came to occupy an important place there.
A large number of people are concerned with television every day – technicians, cameramen, programmers and of course artists. Thus television plays important role in our society. This role is sometimes positive, but it can also at time be unhealthy. Through television we receive images from all parts of the world and our knowledge is better. But not all of televisions effect are beneficial. Whereas people spend the evenings working or studying, many now spend a large part of evening watching TV programmes.
Many people say, that watching Tv is a waste of time. Some adults also say, that TV has bad influence on kids. There are lot of especially foreign films on TV, which are about men, who are kiling each other for money. If you look aroud, you can see it. People are very violent and also children are aggressive. The actors became heroes throught their violence to inocent people. Also even cartoons are full of violence. Just try to watch the famous Ninja Turtles or Tom and Jerry. This cartoons are supposed to be for children. It is normal?
Soap operas
They are called ́soaṕ because the very first ones made for commercial TV and sponsored by companies that made soap powder. American soaps are about rich and attractive people who live their exotic lives, they have a lot of expensive clothes, cars, houses and dramatic problems. English soaps are quite different, they are about ordinary and normal characters and everyday situations. But it doesn’t mean that they aren´t dramatic. There are three famous english soap operas – Coronation Street, Eastenders and Brookside.
Coronation street
It´s set in an un-named town which looks a lot like a Manchester. The drama comes from changing relationships, problems of teengers, foolish arguments and jealousies. It is shown on ITV (first British commercial station – Independent TV)
Eastenders
This soap is made by BBC 1. It´s set in London, so it´s more fashionable and attracts more young TV viewrs. The problems are more current, unemployment, unmarried mothers, homosexuality, homelessness. These problems are too adventurous for Coronation Street and these topics are educational.
Brookside
It is set in Midland (somewhere near Birmingham), it´s characters live on a quite modern housing estate. These houses were build espacially for this soap.
In Australia is very succesfull soap Neighbours. We can see there some famous people like Jason Donovan and Kylie Minogue.
And why people watch soap operas? When we watch these soaps, we escape from our ordinary everyday world to the soap opera´s fantasy. Everyone likes sharing etusiasm and TV soaps offer these opportunity. People have a lack of drama in their lives and they feel happier about their own real problems when they can watch someone else´s problems.
Internet
Internet has become the most popular source of information. Nowadays many people started using internet for it´s imformational character. That gives you the opportunity to find the information you need. Internet become an important part of international communication. The first communication net was created in 1979 beteen US Army bases. It was called Arphanet. In 90´s of 20th century was this net modernized – Internet – informational communication net was created. Now professionals use internet for work. They create new servers and web pages. Young people use internet to communicate by using chat. On chat they can online see on their monitor what the partner is writing and can answer his questions. We use internet for education, working (e-banking) or for fun (game servers). Internet is the future of communication.
