It is becoming more and more difficult to escape the influence of the media on our lives.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of living in a media rich society. It is undeniable that the presence of media is now further reaching than it has ever been. Because of this, it has become almost impossible to live a life free from its influence. While the ease of access to information is a clear benefit, there are also drawbacks in the form of reduced privacy. Machine translation (MT) is slower and less accurate than human translation and there is no immediate or predictable likelihood of machines taking over this role from humans. Do you agree or disagree? With globalisation has come a greater need for international communication. One way in which we successfully communicate with speakers of other languages is through computerised translation. However, this method has been criticised for its inaccuracy and there is a belief that human translation will supersede machine translation for the foreseeable future. That said, there are also those who believe the opposite to be true, due to rapid technological advances. Countries such as China India and !apan have unsustainable population growths. In fact many e"perts are of the opinion that the population #e"plosion$ which is now a very worrying concern is the most serious threat to life on this planet. %ive some suggestions to address this problem. In the Far East in recent times, there is a serious issue with rapidly increasing populations. It is believed by some that further increases could have implications for the continued existence of humanity. However, there are some tried and untried solutions such as child limits education and government incentive programmes which could provide a solution.

In summary, machine translation is clearly not a perfect tool yet. However, while humans are able to interpret certain aspects of language better, technology is developing very uickly. That said, I do not believe that machines will ever have the capability to understand everything about language. In conclusion, it is clear that the issue of growing populations needs to be tackled. Introducing legal family si!e limits or educating the public about the dangers of e"treme population densities may provide a solution. #ersonally, I believe that education would be more effective, as we can see that the alternative has not worked. To sum up, the media is clearly more powerful than ever, and we can find its influence everywhere. On the one hand, there are educational and communicative benefits, although privacy and addiction are negative issues. I believe that the positives outweigh the negatives, so I fully support international media growth.