What is media and what are the positive and negative effects of the media?

Positives: Everyone is or can be in the know about a conversation topic. No one really HAS to be left out. Mass media allows everyone access to the same knowledge, putting everyone on pretty even ground.

Negatives: All news is biased, period. It was written by people, who may try to be unbiased, but they will subliminally put in some sort of remark making one side of the story look bad. It's human nature.