Mass Media
The media is really important for
people, they are our source of information, easily available, complex and
cheap. Through newspapers, radio and television we learn about the world around
us, important inventions, new technologies and unique achievements.
Press is divided into newspapers, journals and magazines.
Newspapers – people usually buy newspapers early in the morning.
They buy it because they want to be informed. We can find different sorts
of articles in a newspaper:
-
on
economics,
politics, social life, sports,
-
editorials – giving the personal opinion of the editors about
something in the news,
-
features – special reports about an interesting subject, place
or person.
Newspapers are published every day, some are published
at the weekends too.
There are two types of newspapers:
-
serious
newspapers – trying to
bring news that is objective and serious (The Pravda, The Sme, The Times – VB,
The New York Times - USA),
-
the
tabloids – usually
smaller in size and specialising in articles that are entertaining, mainly
stories and gossip about famous people (The Nový čas, The Plus jeden deň).
Tabloids generally have a larger circulation than
serious newspapers.
Magazines – published once a week/month and bring international
and national news, various articles and stories. There are special magazines
which are destined for target groups of people with special hobbies
(photography, gardening and many others) or for different ages or genders (for
teenagers, women and others).
Journals – serious magazines on a particular subject containing
articles written by experts in that field (for scientists, doctors, teachers
and others).
Radio – isn´t too expensive as newspapers. The news is read by presenter and
there is a lot of music too. There is usually a variety of radio programmes
to choose from: news programmes, weather forecasts, chat shows (famous people
talk about themselves and answer listeners´ questions), educational programmes, quiz
shows (individuals or teams of people compete by answering question),
breakfast/morning shows (programme broadcasts early in the morning and
includes news, songs, conversation with famous people), phone-in programmes (people
telephone in to give their opinion or to get advice), documentaries. We have
a lot of radio station too. They broadcast a variety of radio programs
(for example The Express radio, The Fun Radio). Radio is very popular and many
of us like listening to the radio throughout the day.
Television – is definitely the most popular source of
information for people, they spend a lot of free time watching TV programmes.
They have same or less TV programmes as radio. There are also soap
operas (TV series about group of people and their lives), sitcoms
(an amusing series in which there is a different story each week about
the same group of people), films and cartoons. There is a wide
selection of TV channels (The Markíza, The Joj, The STV 1, The BBC)
available and at any time of a day will certainly find a programme you feel
like watching.