1.) -YELLOW JOURNALISM: Media for many people are a source of information on topics and news. The need to digest and keep abreast of important events is always in demand by the media consumer. But the current trend has showed how sensationalism in journalism are making headways among the media traditionalists. These sensational and scandalous stories are called "Yellow Journalism." Yellow Journalism is journalism that exploits, distorts, or exaggerates the news to create sensations and attract readers or viewers.
Tired of news on TV that exploit other people's misfortunes? In your speech, tell why it is unethical for journalists to make money from stories on victimizations, scandals, natural disasters, deaths, and war...persuade your audience to view this as unethical as you do. Start your speech out with a 30-second 'mock' news cast where you report on something that is outrageous or "newsworthy"...then once you finish, tell your audience that you just vamped up that story to sensationalize the message so they would be more intrigued and, therefore, more likely to listen. Use this attention grabber to lead you in to your speech. To read the article, "Reporting Gone Wrong: The Lack of Ethics in Journalism" type this into your browser.
2.) -Cultural Evolution:
Culture, it would seem, is a catalyst, speeding the course of evolution toward an uncertain future.
What’s more, not only does change on Earth continue, it has recently done so more rapidly than a lifeless Nature would have. Humankind itself has now become part of that change—altering it, selecting it, accelerating it.
If any one factor has characterized the evolution of culture, it’s probably an increasing ability to extract energy from Nature—but not merely to capture energy, rather to store it, to transfer it, to use it more efficiently. Over the course of the past 10,000 years, humans have steadily mastered wheels, agriculture, metallurgy, machines, electricity, and nuclear power. Soon, solar power will emerge in its turn. Each of these cultural innovations has channeled greater amounts of energy into society.
The ability to harness energy and thus order our daily lives are defining characteristics of modern society. But energy use is also a source of rising disorder in our surrounding environment—global pollution, waste heat, social tumult, among other societal ills. Ironically, the need for increased energy and natural resources so vital to our technological civilization is also a root cause of many of the sociopolitical problems now facing humankind at the dawn of the new millennium.
http://www.tufts.edu/as/wright_center/co…
3.) -Cyber-bullying: (cyberbullying is defined as "willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices.") Cyber-bullying has grown as a means of threatening, intimidating or harassing others over the past several years. It can take many forms, including posting private or embarrassing photos of someone, developing websites to rate people’s appearance, creating hateful blogs about someone, stealing electronic passwords, or spreading lies. This controversial issue explores the arguments of censorship, the freedom of speech, the definition of 'willful harm/harassment' and about whose responsibility it is, either the parents, teens, internet police, etc., to protect young on-line users from cyberbullying.
http://www.cyberbullying.us/index.php
4.) -The Pursuit of Perfection: This controversy is regarding the amount of pressure parents, schools, the media, and peers put on teens to be "perfect," successful, beautiful, etc. In addition to the potential for individual harm, there is an absolutely certain cultural harm related to the mass pursuit and glorification of physical perfection. In her 1992 bestseller, The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf describes a $33 billion "thinness industry", a $20 billion "youth industry", and a $300 million "cosmetic surgery industry" and admonishes the commercial forces propelling women towards never ending external improvements. The marketing of plastic surgery to a younger and younger clientele only intensifies a conspiracy that requires women to be evaluated by homogenized perceptions of beauty instead of more integrated and realistic virtues. Why would any of us want to live in a world that requires all of us —from 14-year-olds to 50-year-olds — to have Britney Spears' breasts, Reese Whiterspoon's nose and a 4-year-olds' crease free forehead? All women are the losers in this game and we are already in the fifth inning if 20-somethings are scheduling Botox injections and teens are requesting painful surgical procedures as presents.