In our fast-paced world today, we get any information we need in an instant. News, gossips or even the latest trends spread like wildfire all because of media channels. Whether it is from a television, radio, newspaper, magazine, internet, social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, Youtube.... we are constantly being provided with information like it's always fresh out of the oven. But with all these information that we consume, are we critical enough to determine what is real from what is not? Or do we just accept everything because how the message is conveyed aligns with our own viewpoints?
Well, unfortunately for my part, I became one of those people who just accepted everything that the media conveys without critically assessing the meaning or agendas behind them. A perfect example of this would be the sudden boom of a propaganda against a certain African criminal through the use of social media. STOP Kony 2012 went viral around the world and its massive popularity made lots of people curious about it. And I am one of them. Since I wanted to know what the issue is all about and that its popularity is just too hard to ignore, I gave in to what everyone else did - watching the 30 minute video. And I must admit, I got so moved and teary-eyed by the story. I've let my emotions from the video manipulate me wherein I almost reached to the point of giving in to the advocacy - buying their $30 worth of Kony kit to help the children in Africa. I was so affected by the video that I hated Kony so much just like everyone else did. I even shared the video to my Facebook friends and encouraged them to watch it so they can also be informed and be inspired to help. There were many criticisms popping out against the video after it was released. I didn't bother to listen or even read about the criticisms because I thought they were just envious of the fact that the video had caught the attention of many people. It also didn't matter to me because I think that the video was for a good cause and that anybody hating about that is pathetic. But when the news came out about Jason Russel (filmmaker of the video) being arrested for masturbating in public, it got me thinking that maybe I was the one too pathetic believing in everything that was on the video. I felt like I had to know the news about Russel's arrest first before I realized that I should've been skeptic about the video in the first place. I felt so ashamed of myself because I didn't have the time to critically process the message being conveyed in the video and to verify the information coming from that video.
One of the lessons that I definitely learned from one of our GLOBDEV lectures is that media is always biased. They always try to lean to a particular view of a given issue (Burton 1997). And since our opinions on certain issues are always based on media representations, we must be then careful in analyzing and accepting the things that are produced by the media. Moreover, I've also learned that we solely depend on media about issues happening around us. We cannot say that in order to avoid any biases from the media portrayals, we must be in that actual key event to witness it. We cannot do that since it is impossible for us to be all journalists who should be all in the same place where an important event is taking place. Therefore, since we are all shaped by the information we receive from media, we must give ourselves the chance to filter the important things and be skeptic about everything we hear, see or read. We must also take this opportunity to look at both sides of the issue so that we may be able to clearly comprehend and take a stand on it. I've also realized that we must also be careful of how media uses emotions to capture our attention. It is possible that media is only manipulating our emotions for their own ends (which is in the case happened to me based on watching the Kony 2012 video). And by manipulating emotions, media can try to conceal their own agenda and encourage us to take a particular stand on the issue. This is not to say that we need to reject everything that the media gives us... or to assume that what the media tells us are all lies. What we need to do is to have an open mind about the issues around us and to carefully assess the information given to us by the media. We must use the media to create our own personal views by basing it on them but not solely depending our own viewpoints on them.
Reference:
Edkins, J. & Zehfuss, M. (eds.) (2009). Global Politics: A New Introduction. London: Routledge.
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