 Dear students, in this module, we're going to talk about how media affects the culture and our class. So media plays a crucial role in shaping the cultural norms, beliefs and values. You all are perhaps very much acquainted with the modern media, which includes the social media as well, and perhaps you would have been watching your favorite dramas and movies, including Bollywood, Hollywood or Pakistani dramas and movies. So these all have very gigantic impact on your culture, on your identity and also on your thought process. However, it is so subtle and so unconscious that we absorb them without even noticing the difference that the influence and impact of media on our mindsets, we can't even realize and our preferences, our ideology and our belief system gradually start changing due to this media effect. In Pakistan, for example, the media has contributed to the growth of consumerism, particularly among the urban middle class. So you see that you find the commercials everywhere in almost every drama, almost every telecast that is being viewed by the viewers, because media's source of income is that commercialization. So that is why these commercials are having a very strong impact on your mindset, particularly with respect to the way, how you purchase the things, how you are required to buy certain commodities in the market. The effect of media, which is because of commercialization, in this, we change our ideology, our behavior and our practices in a way that we do not feel. So media has also been used for the reinforcement and perpetuation of traditional gender roles. For example, however, if you see that in the recent past, media have modern gender roles to promote or modernization, which actually creates a kind of contradiction between what your society traditionally believes and how the modern values are being portrayed in the media. For example, when you see that the difference are very clear difference between your attires or dressing patterns, media can that your dresses use or your real life can the dresses use, which are completely different than what actually in your real life, what you're actually practicing. So it also creates a sense of confusion, particularly within your life ideology that how should I be dressed up and then the media has been used to create the idealized image of perfect Pakistani, which often reinforces the class and ethnic biases and ignores the diversity of experiences within the country that who should be Pakistani and how a Pakistani should look like, how Pakistani should behave, how a Pakistani should speak. So these these are, you know, the idealized images or idealized reflections being portrayed by the media, which creates a sense of spontaneity in your in your behavior in a way that you are always desiring to become one like that to become a person like that. The media has also been used to create a sense of national identity and pride, which has been used to strengthen the social cohesion in this country. For example, if you're watching a match between India and Pakistan, it gives you a strong sense of identity, a strong sense of pride if your team is winning as compared to that if your team is losing, then you equally feel disappointed. So this in a nutshell, we can say that media has a very strong effect or impact on your culture, on your identity and on your class status.