Media Influence on Public Opinion and the Perceptions of Media Owners and Consumers about its Effects

The study was designed to examine the way media influence the formation of public opinion and the perceptions of local media owners and youth, about its influence, in Karachi. Major objectives of the study were to investigate if the media has really fulfilled its duty in protecting the public from political propaganda, to identify the significance of media effect on public opinion, to understand the views of media owners regarding their duty to be remain objective, and the determine perceptions of young consumers of Karachi about the international media. Keeping in view the findings, it was concluded that media has not fulfilled its duty of protecting the public from political propaganda which has a significant effect on the perceptions of the media consumers and on the public opinion in general. The news media depend on firms for content that is of interest to their audiences, and oftentimes they rely on firms to make revenues from advertising. Furthermore, media owners believe that objectivity is a mirage and it’s important for journalists to think about the possible impact of their work on the families and individuals they are reporting about as well as on national security issues. However, eight out of ten journalists felt that the journalists of Pakistan have not performed their job in a just way and there have been instances when they didn’t remain objective. Of the 300 questionnaires distributed, all 300 were correctly filled. The study revealed that the majority of the youth are regularly in touch with the international media. The results clearly showed that only 15.6 percent of the youth relies on the media completely while the remaining 84.3 percent do not rely on the media in every case. Therefore, the youth perceive international media to be biased and unreliable but it should be noted the more than 50% of the youth of Karachi does not want the international media to be regulated by any international body, despite media discrepancies. They consider that media should do their job without any laws or regulations being imposed upon them. Thus, our first hypothesis was proven to be correct. Furthermore, the chi-square results proved our second hypothesis to be true provided that x2=0.04, hence x2