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(Wednesday, April 25, 2007-)
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Nowadays, the mass media do not report the news; they make the news. Discuss this with references to recent events.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/3702574.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3953693.stm
http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/essays/911terrorspectaclemedia.pdf
Mass media has also been one of the most powerful of tools for politicians, ever since the beginning of its existence. As the old saying goes, “knowledge is power” thus whoever controls the knowledge of the people, controls the people. Not only in recent years have mass media been manipulating the news that they report. Media manipulation may just been as old as politics itself. Politicians in Queen Anne's England, such as the Tory Robert Harley, were the first to realize the importance of political communication and thus giving rise to the practices such as manipulating news of state affairs to win the people’s hearts.
Without doubt, we live in an age where media manipulation is all around us. From recent events, occurrence that took place in the past few years, we could clearly see that not everything that is reported in our newspapers is true.
One clear example would the ‘democratic’ United States; the corporate news media loyally portray the dominant class ideology both in their reportage and commentary but cleverly gives an impression that they are free and independent. News and issues on the Vietnam in the 1950s to the recent Iraq war have all been twisted and turn to suit the government’s propagandas. The Bush administration have been often suggested to be the good of mankind, while the Iraq, Iran, North Korea and countries that oppose this supposing ‘good’ are labeled as the ‘axis of evil’.
However, I cannot deny that media manipulations in forms of censorships do have their uses and benefits. Some news and footages are just unsuitable to be revealed to the general public. This would be due to various reasons; one would be that the publics’ lack of understanding of the entire issue might lead to widespread of anxiety and misunderstandings. Take for example the recent Virginia Tech mass murder incident; the murderer, Cho Seung-Hui, a South Korean immigrant and Virginia Tech student, whose rambling diatribes and hateful videos were being broadcasting repeatedly on various news agencies, may had just lead to the stereotyping of Asians to be brutal and bloodthirsty monsters. Furthermore, this abusage of the media to broadcast gory images for higher ratings had instead glorified his actions and caused repercussions such as encouraging more of such bloody massacres.
Another instance would be the Al-Qaeda terrorists shooting their own videos of their kidnapping and murdering hostages. Their motive, instead of ransom money, is to be broadcasted to the world, to instill fear and to shake public opinion.
Thus it is important that a balance between truth and ‘cover-ups’ is strike when editors publish their news. Mass media can never simply report the entire truth. There are things that should be kept away to protect the safety and civility of the society but at the same times facts should never be manipulated for personal gains as well. People are entitled to know the truth, while the media’s job is to report the ‘right’ amount of it.
the story ends like this;
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