“Today media, culture and society are truly inseparable and one cannot exist without the other.” Nowadays, the media have become complex institutions that shape and are in turn shaped by society. Media facilitate communication between sender and recipient and serve as a source of information and knowledge. When comparing ourselves to past generations, we, as people of the 21st century, have access to an enormous amount of information. Every day we see coverage of conflicts and disasters in places around the world and are exposed to information on thousands of topics ranging from politics to social issues to cultural issues and so on. We constantly ask ourselves: what is it that gives the media so much power that we live our daily lives influenced and dependent on the media? This essay will explore examples from South African media relating to how in today's times, media, culture and society are inseparable and how one cannot exist without the other. The story that has currently taken not only South Africa but the world by surprise is the story of South African Olympic and Paralympic star Oscar Pistorius, who shot and killed his girlfriend, former FHM model Reeva Steenkamp, ​​in her home in Pretoria on 14 February 2013 (Motsoeneng, 2013). Within hours of Reeva's killing, the world knew the story of what had happened. Every single form of media and social network, from television to newspapers to Twitter, reported the story of Oscar Pistorius. “The Oscar Pistorius Trial” is the name of the 24-hour carte blanche channel that has been dedicated to the Oscar Pistorius trial so that audiences in South Africa and around the world can get live coverage and… half of newspaper ......political culture (Rivero, Kotze, & Du Toit, 2002). We can therefore see that in today's time and society, technology has become the main source of information for the public and the media must act as a father figure in order to inform, influence and speak for the public. Taking sides is a problematic situation for the media as people will be offended no matter which side you take. The media has a great ability to manipulate and persuade the public whether for selfish reasons or simply on behalf of the public. The media has the power of both the government and the public, which is a tool they use to advantage or disadvantage their audience. Thus looking at the three examples from South African media, we can conclude that nowadays media, culture and society are interconnected and interdependent and one cannot exist without the other..