Journal of Mass Communication & Journalism

The study of this research aims to create an immense level of awareness among the youth exposed to such social networking sites and findings will not only bear results as to how adversely and positively is the youth affected by the usage of these sites but also will help the youth to understand the usage of these networking sites efficiently. Facebook, My Space, Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype and Ning are a few such sites that attract maximum of the youth to tune in to them and thereby embodies their own merits and demerits that desperately need to create an actual picture among the youth. It has now become an evident and usual sight to face individuals being insensitive to chat in worshipping places, homes when relatives and guests are around, highways, schools, colleges and social gatherings wherein they are so preoccupied and engrossed into their phones that they do not even bother to look up as to where they are which results in their inability to prioritize as to what is important and what isn’t. Attention has thus been shifted from real to virtual world and visible to invisible friends.

This article comments the cultural exception concerning the medium used for communication by the media especially in newspapers in Mauritius. From a global standpoint, all former colonies of Great Britain have adopted English language as the medium used to communicate to their audiences. The cultural exception exists in Mauritius where despite one and a half century of British rule from 1810 to 1968, French language is consistently being used more nearly two and a half centuries and this trend is not likely to change in the near future. This paper examines why the Mauritian press has been successful in using French language and what are the key factors that have allowed the situation to persist since such a long time. The other aspect of the research briefly addresses the difficulties encountered to make English a medium for communication in the local press and why it remains more an official language than a spoken and currently used language. The use of French language in the Mauritian written press confirms the strength of that particular language by explaining how such cultural exception that prevails in the small island nation of Mauritius.