Some people think that news and media are affecting our lives in a positive way while others disagree. What is your opinion? Give reasons for your answer and include examples from your own experience.

40 minutes, 250 words at least.

Read sample answer to this question HERE.

Answer:

News and media are one of the most influential modes of communication today in today’s date and time (1). They are affecting the way we live, and the way we think. I would tend to go with the motion believe (2) that Media, in many ways, (3) is negatively affecting the way we think.

1. Keep the principle of BREVITY in mind. Writing a few words instead of many is always better. BUT, you must not dilute the message.

2. This is not a tendency. You actually believe it.

3. Note that ‘in many ways‘ and ‘most of the time‘ (below) are not part of the main sentence. They are modifiers. That is, they give a quality of the NOUN preceding them. In many ways gives the quality of MEDIA. Most of the time qualifies CHANNELS.

In the rat of race of for high viewer ratings, the news channels, most of the time, are only running stories which involve criminal activities or frauds. and with advancement of technology we are exposed to this negativity in today’s media even more and we have now started feeling that this is a way of life. (4) For instance today we are not surprised when we hear about a gruesome murder or big fraud, because with the media feeding us with so much information only about such incidents, we have started feeling that all these crimes are a way of life and somewhere inside we have accepted it. (Weak sentence structuring. You can break this into multiple sentences to communicate the idea clearly. Remember, IELTS gives bands for a variety of sentence lengths and structures. – 5) 

4. The sentence is too long. Please write a shorter sentence. This is a common misperception that writing long sentences will fetch more bands. This is WRONG. Instead, this will reduce our score since the reader will be unable to make a sense of the sentence. 

Read my article on SENTENCE STRUCTURING.

In the race for high viewer ratings, the news channels, most of the time, are only running stories which involve criminal activities or frauds. (explain how this impacts us) This negatively impacts the psychology of the people who stop trusting strangers and, sometimes, engage in crimes. We often refuse to help strangers simply because the media taught us that strangers can be dangerous.

5. Restructure your ideas into two sentences: Similarly, today we are not surprised to hear about a gruesome murder or a huge financial fraud. This is because the media keeps feeding us news about these events on a daily basis and we believe that these activities are normal.

This addiction for the thrill that today’s media has inculcated in people has gone to this such an extent (6) that today the audience or the readers do not want to consume positive news. as (The sentence is already too long) They feel that it does not have that entertainment which a negative news would provide. For instance, the people today prefer to watch the news on Zee TV or Aaj Tak, rather than preferring DD News which is known to show the positive side of our society. This builds a negative mindset which impacts all domains of life ranging from social relations to business. Consequently, people suffer from severe deterioration of relationships and lower economic productivity. (Explain how watching “negative news” is “negative”. That is, how does this news adversely impact the people?)

6. When you want to emphasize the extent of something, better write SUCH. You’re such an intelligent chap!

Two main areas of weakness: 1. You need to completely explain the ideas. Your approach is good. You write specifically (IELTS hates vagueness). However, the ideas are not completely elaborated. This impacts TASK RESPONSE score. 2. The sentence structuring is poor. I guess I’ve already written a lot on it.

To conclude, I would say that the Media today has the reach and power to move mountains. But with this power comes a responsibility of creating a conducive environment for encouraging positive vibes in the society, which media can very well do by giving the right positioning and more visibility to positive news rather than just concentrating and highlighting the negatives of the society. 

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