Лекция по английскому языку СМИ

Лекция по теме:

« Роль средств массовой информации в современном обществе».

Учитель: Дубянская В.А.

МОУ СОШ № 13

С.Апанасенковское

План лекции:

1. Mass Media.

2. Magazines.

3. Newspapers.

4. Cinema.

5. Television in our life.

6. Developing of Telecommunications.

Mass Media.

Mass Media are one of the most characteristic features of modern civilization. People are united into one global community with the help of mass media. People can learn about what is happening in the world very fast using mass media. The mass media include newspapers, magazines, radio and television.

The earliest kind of mass media was newspapers. The first newspaper was Roman handwritten newssheet called "Acta Diurna" started in 59 B.C. Magazines appeared in 1700's. They developed from newspapers and booksellers 'catalogs. Radio and TV appeared only in 20^th century.

The most exciting and entertaining kind of mass media is television. It brings moving pictures and sounds directly to people's homes. So one can see events in faraway places just sitting in his or her chair.

Radio and widespread for its portability. It means that radios can easily be carried around. People like listening to the radio on the beach or picnic, while driving a car or just walking down the street. The main kind of radio entertainment is music.

Newspapers can present and comment of the news in much detail in comparison to radio and TV newscasts. Newspapers can cover much more events and news.

Magazines do not focus on daily, rapidly changing events. They provide more profound analysis of events of preceeding week. Magazines are designed to be kept for a longer time so they have cover and binding and are printed on better paper.

Magazines.

Magazine is one of the major mass media. Magazine is a collection of articles and stories. Usually magazines also contain illustrations.

The earliest magazines developed from newspapers and booksellers 'catalogs. Such catalogs first appeared during the 1600's in France. In the 1700's pamphlets published at regular intervals appeared in England and America. They were literary publications. One of the first British magazines "The Gentleman's Magazine" was published from 1731 to 1914. The American magazine was called the "American Magazine", or "A Monthly View".

Magazines provide information on a wide range of topics such as business, culture, hobbies, medicine, religion, science and sport. Some magazines entertain their readers with fiction, poetry, photography or articles about TV, or movie stars.

Magazines are designed to be kept for a longer time in comparison to newspapers and that is why they are printed on better paper and have covers. Magazines, unlike newspapers, do not focus in daily, rapidly change.

There are specialized magazines intended for special business, industrial and professional groups, and consumer magazines intended for general public. There are several kinds of consumer magazines.

Children's magazines contain stories, jokes, and articles on subjects especially interesting for children and instructions for making games or useful items.

Hobby magazines are intended for collectors of coins, stamps, and other items; people interested in certain sports or games; photography enthusiasts.

Intellectual magazines provide analysis of current cultural and political events. Many of them publish fiction and poetry as well.

Men's magazines focus on such topics as adventure, entertainment, men's fashion and sports.

Women's magazines deal with child-raising, fashion trends, romance. They offer ideas on cooking and home decorating. Many of the monthlies with big circulations are women's magazines.

Newspapers.

Newspaper is a publication that presents comments on the news. Newspapers play an important role in shaping public opinion and informing people of current events.

The first newspapers were probably handwritten newssheets posted in public places. The earliest daily newssheet was "Acta Diurna" which started in Rome in 59 B. C. The first printed newspaper was Chinese publication called "Dibao" started in A.D. 700's. It was printed from carved wooden blocks. The first regularly published newspaper in Europe was "Avisa Relation" or "Zeitung", started in Germany in 1609.

Newspapers have certain advantages over other mass media - magazines, TV and radio. Newspaper can cover more news and in much detail than TV or radio newcast can do. Magazines focus on major national and international events of the preceeding week. But newspaper focuses on local news as well and provides information and comments faster than magazine can do.

There are about 1700 daily and 7500 weekly newspapers in the US. The circulation of some weeklies is no more than a few hundred of copies per issue and the circulation of some dailies is over a million of copies.

There are daily newspapers and weekly newspapers. Daily newspapers print world, national and local news. Many dailies are morning papers, others are afternoon papers. Sunday issues of the dailies are usually larger than the weekday ones. They may include special sections on such topics as entertainment, finance and travel or Sunday magazine, a guide to TV programmes, coloured comics. The major dailies in the US are "Christian Science Monitor", "New York Times", "USA Today", "Wall Street Journal", and "Washington Post".

Weekly newspapers serve usually for smaller areas. They are printed in small communities where people know each other and are interested in activities of their friends and neighbours. Weeklies report of weddings, births, deaths and news of local business and politics. Most weeklies do not print world or national news.

Cinema.

Cinema plays an important role in the life of any society. It is an available popular form of art. Lots of people find going to the cinema one of the best ways of spending their leisure time. The movie audience is predominantly a young one.

Due to numerous video facilities, cinema attendances have declined sharply. But there is no denying the fact that the cinema-going habit is still a strong one.

No matter how large the place you live in is (whether it's a big city or a small provincial town, or even a settlement) there's most likely to be a cinema there.

There are such genres of feature films as the western, the thriller, the musical, the drama and the comedy. The performance lasts for two or three hours and most cinemas have at least 4 performances a day. There is no doubt that a good cinema show is an excellent entertainment and quite cheap. Of late cinema screens in this country have been dominated by films produced in the USA. And this tendency is growing.

As for me, I'm a pity; I don't always have time for it. It's an open secret that we live in a very difficult time now. But people do need something amusing and pleasant, something to laugh at. That's why I give my preference to comedies. The last comedy, I saw, is "Crocodile Dandy". The film tells about amusing adventures of a young lovely woman - reporter and a strong and brave crocodile hunter. At first, their relations were not friendly. She even looked down on him and he in return neglected her. But after he rescued her out of some difficult situations, their relations became friendlier. A happy end is an essential feature of American films. The same is true of this comedy. The main characters fall in love with each other in the end of the film.

Television in our life.

Television now plays an important role in our life. It is difficult to say if it is good or bad for us. It is clear, that television has advantages and disadvantages.

But are there more advantages than disadvantages? In the first place, television is an entertainment. But it is not only a convenient entertainment. For a family of three, four or five, for example, it is more convenient and less expensive to sit comfortably at home that to go out to find entertainment in other places. They don't have to pay for expensive seats at the theatre or cinema. They turn on the TV-set and can watch interesting films, concerts, football matches.

But some people think that it's bad to watch TV. Those who watch TV need do nothing. We are passive when we watch TV. Television shows us many interesting programmes. But again there is disadvantage here: we watch TV every evening, and it begins to dominate our lives.

My friend told me that when his TV-set broke down, he and his family found that they had more time to do things and to talk to each other. There are other arguments for and against television.

Very often the programmes are bad. Sometimes they show too much violence in films and news programmes. There is also too much pop music and ads. Ads on the whole are convenient for grown-ups. But is it good for children to watch all those and where they show all kinds of underwear and what not?

Developing of telecommunications.

I would like to tell you about telecommunications and their developing.

We can not deny the role of telecommunications in our life. The Internet, phones, telegraph, cell phones, radio, television are all the means of communication or telecommunication. Nowadays we live in information era, when information is the key and engine of progress. Our society needs perfect means of information exchange that is why all types of telecommunication are under the permanent developing.

Currently hundreds of millions of people use wireless communication means. Cell phone is no longer a symbol of prestige but a tool, which lets to use working time more effectively. Considering that the main service of a mobile connection operator is providing high quality connection, much attention in the telecommunication market is paid to the spectrum of services that cell network subscriber may receive. Today we can easily connect to the Internet using our cell phone or to take a picture or to take a short movie, using our video cell phone.

Late in the nineteenth century, communication facilities were augmented by a new invention - telephone. In the USA its use expanded slowly and by 1900 the American Telephone and Telegraph Company controlled 855,000 telephones. After 1900, telephone installations extended much more rapidly in all the wealthier countries. The number of telephones in use in the world grew at almost 100 per cent decade. But long-distance telephone services gradually developed and began to compete with telegraphic business. A greater contribution to long-range communication came with the development of wire-less technology. Before the outbreak of the First World War wireless telegraphy was established as a means of regular communication with ships at sea and provided a valuable supplement to existing telegraph lines. In the next few years the telephone systems of all the chief countries were connected with each other by radio. Far more immediate was the influence that radio had through broadcasting and by television, which followed it at an interval of about twenty-five years.

Telephones are as much a part of infrastructure of our society as roads or electricity, and competition will make them cheaper. Losses from lower prices will be countered by higher usage. Most important of all, by cutting out the need to install costly cables and microwave transmitters, the new telephones could be a boon to the remote and poor regions of the earth. Even today, half the world's population lives more than two hours away from a telephone.

Satellite phones are not going to deliver all their benefits at once.

Lots of other new communication services - on-line film libraries, personal computers that can send video-clips and sound-bites as easily as they can be used for writing letters, terrestrial mobile-telephone system cheap enough to replace old sets - are already technically possible.