Before the age of modern technology, media primarily consisted of books, newspapers, theater, etc., all of which played a huge role both in creating and reflecting the values of a society. In the 21st century we have much greater versatility of media but it still has the same function. Hence, i disagree with the statement above. I believe, that media plays equally important role in creating and reflecting the values of a society.
Furthermore, in today's society media is a primary source of information for most people. Whenever we have a need for new information, we can choose from variety of sources, television, internet, newspapers, magazines, etc. Therefore, all these choices give us an opportunity to be selective within the media that reflects our values. For example, being a liberal I prefer to watch CNN news vs. Fox, because CNN reflects my values much better, even if both of these news networks are covering the same story.
Media influences our values sometimes even more than we realize. This could be illustrated on the different countries' newspapers. For example, "BBC news" in United Kingdom will seem to have much more liberal views and opinions vs. "Prensa Libre" in Guatemala. Often each society and culture tries to create and preserve their values through media censure. Being born and raised in the former Soviet Union, gives me an opportunity to compare the differences in television broadcast in Ukraine and the United States. In the US you will not hear as many epithets and sexual references on the public network as you will in Russia.
Media could also have a negative influence on the society, it has a great potential to create negative values. Therefore censure of media is very important, especially for children and young adults, who do not have their values...