News and Media: the good and the Bad
News and media in general play a very important role for every single one of us. In fact, it is the media that defines much of how we perceive the world around us. Without news and media groups, we will be constantly left out in the blue on a lot of information—both the important ones and the inane trivialities that we enjoy reading anyway. For this very reason alone, news and media groups carry an immense amount of responsibility to deliver unadulterated information to the general public.
Throughout history, we have seen classic examples of the misuse of media. From the World Wars to the Cold war, from Russia to Iraq and from countless other instances from all around the globe, the rampant media and news censorship grows grave each year. The consequences of such misuse is the misinformation of the public, leaving them believing in something that is far from the truth thus resulting in their being manipulated by whoever controls the media.
Such blatant perversion of the media however is not the only misuse of the media committed towards the people. Most of the time, people are subtly brainwashed by the news and media into actions that benefit differing parties. For example, commercials, magazines and movies all portray women as beautiful by virtue of their height, their complexion, their figure—all of which result in mass consumption of beauty products and the like. Such slight manipulation of the public is an outrage equal to the aforementioned explicit misuse since no matter the means, the effect would be the same—compelling the general populace into action that, most of the time, they do not even benefit from.
Understanding the dangers the news and media poses; one must understand that no single source holds the truth in its entirety. Sometimes an omission, be it intentional or not, is committed. And such seemingly small things build up into information that is not necessarily the whole truth. Being critical is key. When we hear something from a certain source, it is always wise to not entirely believe in it. After all, most of the great inventions and theories have been conceptualized through challenging what was then the accepted truth. We must understand that the truth is a very dynamic entity and as such, we must be able to choose wisely which “truth” we accept.
In a world where information is acquired through a simple click of a button, the dangers of the misuse of news and media loom even bigger. Everyday, we see countless numbers of rumors and false news circulates over the Internet. This is an even greater danger since the Internet is accessible to virtually everyone which means that false news and rumors are given a very huge audience—many of which do not know how to dissect the truths from the rumors. This problem however is not without a cure, but the cure is no easy one. The best way to solve this problem is to inform the masses of such a problem. And indeed, slowly but surely as time goes by, information drives have been conducted to educate the people of the growing dangers of misinformation. And in the end, as to the severity of the effects of such a problem, it all boils down to the individual. So beware and be vigilant, you not only owe it to yourself but also to the whole world.
