Brief history of mass media.
Media is the lens through which we view the world. We are bombarded with a plethora of information claiming to be facts from the media. The term ‘mass media’ evolved with the invention of the printing press, which gave rise to mass production of books to be circulated worldwide. Newspapers/Newsletters, though originated in 1612, took until the 19th century to reach a wider audience (the mass). 1920’s gave birth to the term ‘media’ and the idea of a mass media was primarily associated only to print. The aftermath of World War II saw the emergence of the radio, television and video that soared high as a result of their audio-visual components. This replaced active reading, with something where one could passively listen to the radio or watch television while doing a million others tasks. With the explosion of the internet, information could not be more accessible and easy to obtain. The wide reach of the internet has created a platform to not only share content in a global landscape, but to also question it and voice concerns at the same level.
There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion. – Winston Churchill
The Politics of News
Media has always aspired and succeeded in controlling our thoughts, and in turn, our actions. They are merely puppets in the hands of today’s Big Brothers and relish in playing a ritualistic ‘Simon Says’ with us. These Big Brothers include government authorities, multinational organisations and elite individuals, reinforcing that the ones with power and money are the prime determinants. News today is a unification of myriad services, across several media, working officially and unofficially to deliver information to the public. It presents itself as authentic statements by a group of people that claim to articulate events as they happened.
Most of us have a go-to source for daily news. A source we trust to deliver authentic information of an event as it happened. But what we fail to realise is that the source that propagates an official story, is not actually a free entity. We have no resources that can authenticate media today, and blindly trust these colossal organisations that provide us ‘facts’. Despite the Freedom of Press act, media in the United States of America is as corrupt as ever. In the 90's two dozen firms controlled the media experienced by the entire U.S., which has decreased to a meagre 6 today (Chomsky, 1988).
Today’s news has been shaped into a tool that serves politician as means to project their agenda. This sector, in any other form of government exudes totalitarianism. The government controls media in the name of national security, which doesn’t seem to affect either the press or the public. Their nonchalance towards the accuracy of news only encourages the power houses high up the chain to interfere. Another increasing concern today is the massive mergers in the media business, between news and entertainment organisations that disrupt the balance. As per 2015, Comcast Corporation emerged as the largest media conglomerate in the U.S. having acquired NBCUniversal, E! Entertainment, The Golf Channel, NBCSN, NBC news, Telemundo, Universal Pictures, parks and resorts. (Vanna Le, 2015)
Many media houses have started advocating ‘Infotainment’, material that serves both information and entertainment purposes. The sensationalism of headlines as clickbait entities, rather than getting to the crux of the issue is one of the outcomes of infotainment. This has only encouraged the public to use available resources to seek out entertainment rather than civic edification.
“ever-closer linkage of news making and policy making to the point that they are all but indistinguishable” (Cook, 2006)
Though censorship is a term intertwined with media, what is a bigger threat to journalism is the omnipresence of self-censorship today. Freedom of speech on one hand, and on the other, the fear of what might happen if they actually utilised it to the fullest. Journalists crumble under the pressure from our Big Brothers and serve as a mouthpiece to them to manufacture events and stories. NOW Lebanon published an article, “New Opinion: The Baby and the Bathwater.” In spite of being funded by the political party of previous prime minister, Saad Hariri, NOW’s article criticized him and the current prime minister. On the very day the article was published, the editors took the story down. When this was pointed out, NOW Lebanon reposted the article saying, “NOW Lebanon has intentionally removed this article from the site. It was not removed because of censorship, but rather because of the lack of proper arguments. We would like to repeat, again, that NOW is not owned, in whole or in part, by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, nor any other political party or figure.”
This incident is just one of many examples of self-censorship all around us.
It was recently brought to light that the Government of India has plans to set up a special media cell to track content on the internet and counter aspects of news and comments that it deems negative or provocative. This includes blogs, digital newspapers and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, among others. The purpose of it, according to them, is to avoid personal opinions turning into public protests that threaten the Government.
Daniel Boorstein in 1961 (The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-events in America) coined the term pseudo events which refers to events that have been staged with the sole purpose of media attention and publicity. There is an element of hyperrealism to it, which makes the entire news reporting industry seem fictional. Media Burn by Ant Farm (1975) critiqued the impact of mass media by staging a spectacle involving an automobile crashing into a pile of televisions.The magnificent clash of two cultural icons of that time, was recorded and juxtaposed with daily news of that time. What we perceive as political news, are just well orchestrated stunts to alter how we perceive events.
“Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups… So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing.” ― Philip K. Dick.
“In a time of universal deceit – telling the truth is a revolutionary act” – (Orwell, disputed)
“You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." – CIA operative discussing with Philip Graham, editor Washington Post, on the availability and prices of journalists willing to peddle CIA propaganda and cover stories. "Katherine The Great," by Deborah Davis (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1991)
Operation Mockingbird, a secret campaign by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which was started around the 1950’s was created with the sole purpose of influencing media. The operation recruited American journalists who were on top of their game to help propagate the CIA’s perception of matters. It financed student and cultural organisations and used magazines as fronts. Further, it grew to influence foreign media and political campaigns as well.
The media that we are exposed to today passes through a lot of filters before reaching us. It’s a rather un-amusing game of Chinese Whispers. Authorities and the Big Brothers of today prioritize their own judgement and advancement tactics to decide what is best for us. These censors achieve their desired results by framing, filtering and selecting content, to manipulating the tone and emphasis, while keeping the questions within bounds. Much like how models are photoshopped to propagate an ideal body image, information is word-shopped to make us look at things a certain way. Like how reality television is staged, news is too, strengthening the concept of a herd mentality that has been deeply rooted in our system for centuries. We are trained to recognise and identify a particular verbal and visual language that is associated with the official narrative. These cues, embedded by media over decades, trigger a certain response in us. We immediately shut down reasoning and critical aspects of our mind when we encounter these cues and inculcate the information merely by face value.
Orwell predicted our present media landscape in his then dystopian, now ever so true novel, 1984. He addresses key issues like totalitarianism, surveillance, public manipulation and restraining free thinking – things that soil the current media landscape. It shows how media is an agent that shapes thought, and spotlights one of Orwell’s prime concerns on media manipulation leading to an individual’s loss of critically, analytical thinking and self expression.
The internet, along with its new communication strategies are opening an avenue for interactive, democratic media that is explained by Noam Chomsky in his book, Propaganda And Control Of The Public Mind. However, the internet, which was an advocate for free thought and expression, is being actively used as an instrument in asserting the propaganda model. With most newspapers creating an online presence, the platform is being infiltrated by media manipulation.
Trust is a crucial entity in the news business. We believe a particular source because we trust it, and this trust of ours is what is taken advantage of. Jimbo Whales, the founder of Wikipedia says, ‘Fact is whatever people believe to be fact’. Oh, how the media attests to this statement! Around the 20th January 2016, a story of the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl in Germany by migrants in the area broke out. In spite of the story being debunked by the German authorities, the Russian media stuck to it and fabricated evidence, which was strengthened by a statement made by Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov. A majority of the population believed what the Russian media provided them, which resulted in violent riots across the country.
‘He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past’, said Orwell in 1984. What better way to describe the situation of political stranglehold. What we fail to understand, while being blindsided by the biggest farce ever, is the difference between opinion and fact. Though media claims to be factual, what they ultimately provide is one of many opinions on a particular issue. It is the role of the citizen to carefully assimilate the multiple opinions out there and take a stance for themselves. Media is supposed to enable people instead of numbing their minds to critical thought.
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
― Edward R. Murrow
As citizens get less vigilant with every passing day, authorities and power players of this game are able to assert their control even more. Guerrilla journalism, better known as citizen journalism is built upon public citizens actively participating in gathering, reporting, analysing and disseminating news and information. Courtney C. Radsch defines citizen journalism "as an alternative and activist form of news-gathering and reporting that functions outside mainstream media institutions, often as a response to shortcomings in the professional journalistic field, that uses similar journalistic practices but is driven by different objectives and ideals and relies on alternative sources of legitimacy than traditional or mainstream journalism.”
Citizen journalism is solely non-professional and amateur, supported by technology’s widespread connectivity around the world. It promotes democratic trust as opposed to the prevailing institutional trust. In this genre, public take to online platforms to report happenings immediately.
In 2013, the Turkish witnessed civil unrest in response to the government’s urban development plans in the Taksim Gezi Park. Apart from extreme violent protests against the State, the citizens resorted to a silent form of rebellion where they protested in public places by silently reading George Orwell’s 1984, amongst other powerful novels against the State. The local media houses abstained from reporting the happenings, while International media spotlighted it. A group of citizen-based journalists calling themselves 140 Journos took on the task of reporting the events to the world. They used social media platforms to source content, verified them and created a timeline of the events with images to paint a whole picture of the situation then.
This wave of journalism was under scrutiny, where it has been insinuated that public who participate in this might be associated with a particular movement and could propagate that line of thought. What we fail to do is draw a parallel between our institutionalised ‘official’ media banners that can potentially be doing what citizen journalists are accused of.
"Civic Journalism is a fresh label on an old idea — that journalism has an obligation to provide people with the news and information they need to make the decisions they are called upon to make. In a self-governing society, it helps people behave as citizens." – Ed Fouhy, Executive Director, Pew Center for Civic Journalism.
This concept provides a two way street to the existing one way approach that media preaches. It focuses on engaging citizens and creating a public debate, and talks about journalism having a responsibility to the public that goes beyond just reporting ‘facts’.
Critical reading and thinking is the need of the hour to combat this digital construction of trust by news media. Not imbibing information at face value, but analysing it with a deeper and discerning eye is what critical reading facilitates. This concept is widely known and followed in literary circles, but what if this concept is introduced to an activity we participate in everyday – reading the news.
Through my work, I strive to bridge the digital divide between the handful of people who are well informed and the large number of individuals who fail to keep themselves informed. My experiments focus on exploring ways to introduce the concept of critical reading to a particular line of media that we are exposed to everyday (news). Using counter-narratives that enable us to see multiple layers and not just polarise entities and by merely expressing the blur of what is truth and not.