Good essay on television vs radio

Merits of Television use

Since the invention of the Television as one of the media source to spread information, it has set itself apart from other media with it distinct capability to offer the viewer’s sight, sound and motion. All these forms of characteristic features contribute to the development of emotional responses from the viewer while watching TV. This contributes to its spontaneous popularity after the invention. Apart from the fact that it was expensive during the early periods of creation, the fact is that information were spread much more easily for viewers. This is simply because people were able to recall information better than other sources. People remain more attentive to the information from the television when compared to other media sources like radio. This is simply because you have to watch and listen at the same time to television. It gives an opportunity to learn information and cultures easily since you are opportune to see what transpired within the other cultural heritages. People remember more of what they see than what they merely hear. Another merit that could be linked with the use of television is that which relates to the benefits advertisers derive from the use of the television as a tool to advertise their products and services. This is because it creates a form of long and lasting memorable brands in the lives of the viewers. It is an engaging medium that helps people to create new products that are easily spread across to the consumers on time.

Merits of Radio use

Radio creates a somewhat cheap source of information for users. This is simply because of the ability of people to find radio within their reach easily. Radio is easier to operate for more and gives both the young and elderly to have information needed easily. Radio can easily be moved around for usage simply because of the size in which most are created as. You find the radio on phones, cars, wrist watches these days.

Demerits of both

The major demerits that could be linked with the use of television as a source of media is that which relates to cost of purchasing when it was initially introduced to the market, can’t be used all the time and everywhere. Another major demerit that could be linked with the television is the problem of easy access in terms of availability. When there is a problem of electricity, television remains difficult to use. You can’t also have the ability of moving television around because of the size and complexity in usage. The time people spend watching television is more. This can serve as a source of distraction especially to the younger ones. Considering the radio use and the associated demerits, in terms of the characteristics, it is of lesser quality when we consider the information people derived with the use of radio and the rate at which they forget such information. Sometimes the radio transmitter becomes intermittent with the signal.
Radio creates noise for most users simply because most are otherwise engaged with some other things while the radio is on and it appears they are listening to it. Radio also makes it difficult for the user to create any physical action and reaction while they are listening to it hence makes information such as adverts achieve less when compared to benefits of adverts with the use of television. Since the radio only spread information by audio sources, people retain less of that information because most people retain more information especially when they listen and see such.

Work Cited

Liz Thomas, (2011). Why listening to the radio gives us more pleasure than watching TV or using a laptop. News. MailOnline.
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