Assignment 2
ID: 118309
Date: May 31, 2020
Words: 1408
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Introduction
When we talk about media, we are talking about a major issue that has affected the formation of humankind since its existence. Since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1450, media activity has been constantly evolving. Newspapers have appeared followed by the telegraph, the radio, and the television, all the way to the world of the Internet and social media network that have emerged in our time. With this development and diversity, the influence of the media increased and people became more dependent on it, and it became a symbol of change, belief, and life in general.
The media has directly or indirectly affected people's lifestyles and influenced their beliefs, ideas, behaviors in a positively and negatively, as the media, like any advanced technology, is a double-edged sword. We had to shed light on this major issue for two reasons, firstly because the media is directly related to and influencing the public, and secondly because senior politicians and stakeholders use it to achieve their interests.
In this paper, I will talk about some issues related to the media, such as disinformation, hate speech, racism, etc. On the other hand, I will talk about the role of the media in educating people and improving their awareness. In addition to the challenges faced by the media, and how we can analyze the words and images of the media in a constructively and critically.
Submitted material
Politicians and stakeholders resort to influencing people's ideas and beliefs by spreading fake news, alternative facts, false images, and more. In other words, they resort to disinformation. And because people engage in the media not only with their minds but with their hearts, they become an easy target to mislead. It aims to achieve political, and sometimes economic goals through advertisements that exploit people's emotions and feelings with different strategies.
Cognitive strategies are that techniques used to achieve the disinformation goals, by using psychological aspects to manipulate the people and control their actions. For example, using experts or celebrities to talk about products knowing that people will believe them. Another example is using "bribery" strategy by discounts, buy one and get a gift. These strategies affected values and culture so we should care.
If we back to the history of wars around the world like World War I and II, Cold War, and Iraq's War, we will see many examples of communication strategies that used the weapon of emotion. For example, Hitler's speeches were influenced. Also, use slogans against the enemy like "better died than red" in the Cold War. Because media is the only way to get information in the time of wars, leaders use it to form the thinking of people.
The effects of the media extend to societies through labeling and classifying in the race, gender, and class. For the gender, media showing males strong, heroism, not emotional, and can face problems. On the other hand, it shows females in ways of sexist fashion (as in the covers of tabloid newspapers), their beauty, physical attributes, and objectifying them. And the 3rd gender is normal people, they follow what they want, and living in modern cities. For the race, media classified some individuals and minorities such as linking Arabs to terrorism. For the class, as we see in movies and ads that show and focus on high class, rich celebrities with their luxury products.
With the advent of social media, the socialization of media is increased. For people to obtain social acceptance, they change their behaviors and create a personality other than his reality. Selfie and fame-online is being fake more and more, just to get acceptance.
Hate speech is one of the most issues common in the media which targets a person or group because of color, religion, race, gender, disability, etc. It represented in words, nicknames, pictures, jokes, memes. For example, hate speech against China because of Coronavirus. Some people think that they have the right of expression so that they can say anything even their words harm others, and for those I say, stop, through your bad words you will destroy others.
Contrary to what was mentioned above, the media has a major educational role, especially in health education. Often there are media campaigns to raise awareness about smoking, diabetes, and other diseases. At a time of epidemics, the media creates videos and images that educate people about prevention. It also organizes interviews with experts and doctors, refutes rumors, teaches people about the disease, and shapes their behavior.
Comics is one of the most important methods of communication used by the media to educate people about scientist complex topics. It makes the information easier to understand, stayed at the mind, easy to remember, and catches attention. It also used to address sensitive political topics in deep meaning and objective way.
With so much information that we hear and see, the media face a challenge in balancing between displaying all information to the public and hiding some. The public has the right to know the information they want, but there is information that threatens national security, information related to the privacy of individuals, and information that the enemy may use against the country. Therefore, the media has the right to hide some information for the public interest in a balanced way.
There are other media ethical challenges like,
- Using incomplete, not correct messages, mistakes in words come from official sites of information, misleading headlines.
- No deep reporting in an issue not intimidate citizens or present the full facts.
- The same news everywhere with too much content.
- Emphasis on celebrates (real or fake).
- Financing challenges.
- The huge amount of rumors.
Analyses
The media contributes directly and indirectly to shaping society, either by shaping negative behaviors and beliefs, or positive behaviors such as giving the community different health habits.
It affects negatively as we saw above in terms of disinformation by using cognitive strategies and persuasion techniques like association, bribery, fear, humor, beautiful people, celebrities, experts, explicit, intensity, and name-calling through exploit people's emotions and psychology.
We also note that many media means are biased in their presentation of information. It passing errors, ignoring facts, highlighting news that coincide with an agenda, placing facts, selecting sources, adding opinions in the news, and labeling, all these are kinds of bias.
Not only that, but negative influences also abound in social media through the stereotyping of society and determining its characteristics and how it should be. In addition to widespread hate speech and bad comments. Change the many tiers of women, social classes, and more.
On the other hand, the media is linked to our lives, and its educational and awareness role cannot be dispensed with, especially in times of crisis and wars, as it directs people to act properly to preserve the security of the country.
But the question is how can we understand the media and be aware of its messages?
By media literacy, which developing us from being a passive receptacle to an active assimilator who disassembles the packed message and examines its contents and designs. We can understand the media and its hidden messages by strengthen our focus, decide the goals, filtering media by asking critical questions like,
- Where was this message placed?
- Who placed the message?
- How effectively is the message conveyed by the sound, color, lighting, composition, wording?
- What kind of lifestyle is presented?
- Who funds the media means?
- What tools of persuasions are used?
- What part of the story is not being told?
So all these questions can help you understand the media and become more aware of the values, beliefs (positively and negatively), and media messages.
Conclusion
The media is not a single issue based on itself. Rather, it is the engine of all other issues related to it, whether they are social, humanitarian, and economic issues. Therefore, the media must be properly directed to achieve its goal. The audience must not only be satisfied with the image and the word displayed, but rather go further and be able to see beyond the image. This can only be achieved by instilling critical thinking and media literacy in families first and then in children. The media should also be taught as basic courses in schools, for a generation to be aware of what is going on around it. Finally, the media is part of us and our identity so we must understand it well.