The Media Strategies

All over the world, wherever you look, there is war. There was the terrorist attack in New York which happened in September last year, the strike to fight back against Afghanistan after that,as well as other wars in India, Israel, Pakistan and Palestine. Wars succeed one another and never seem to stop.

I have never experienced war or its true fear. However, I feel angry when I watch the scenes of war on television. Recently, I have wanted to be part of some kind of work which would help the helpless, innocent people affected by war, especially women and children. Various problems, related to historical relationships, race and religion are the reasons for war. I recently read that one of the biggest factors influencing war is the power of the media. Television and newspapers can have an affect on victory or defeat, determine the fate of one country, and have the power to disturb the social disorder.

 

As an example, in the 1990's Bosnia Herzegovina was under a Serbian military attack. Then, the Bosnian and herzegovina government made a contract with a PR company in the United States. As a result, the cruel nature of Serbia was reported all over the world, time after time. Japan was also targeted by negative PR, receiving a report which blamed the Serbian side. We must understand that this was a successful media strategy. I became very sad when I realized how public opinion could be so affected by the media. War is sold just like other products and people's lives are treated like goods.

 

However, there is another big problem. Until now in distant countries this kind of media coverage, unfortunately has been one sided. Therefore we should take more responsibility to assess for ourselves the things that we see or read are fair. I saw things which only showed how bad the Serbians were. Was it true, as reported by the media, that Bosnia Herzegovina was just a victim, or did they do bad things as well? It was the purpose of the media strategy to make us believe it was so.

 

The news coverage of the strikes against Afghanistan (all from U.S. stations) tries to convince us that there is no justification for any war. What should we do? Although it is very difficult there are a couple of things we can do. The first is that, we must think about it by ourselves. The other is that we should not just accept media coverage blindly and believe everything we see. We know that the media targets us and we should be careful and aware of this. The possibility of peace and truth becomes greater if we do these two things. It's my strong dream to realize peace. 

By : Me