Media Limitation and Manipulation
There have been many studies that have analysed the political biases in the mass media, which are relevant to today’s political climate. IResearch-based publication, Bad News from Israel (2004) by Greg Philo and Mike Berry, showed that the reporting of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was biased towards Israel, which had a significant effect on the attitudes and beliefs of Western audiences. The study showed, for example, that Israelis were interviewed or reported on more than twice as much as Palestinians, and Israeli casualties were strongly emphasised relative to Palestinians despite Palestinian casualties being greater in number. Even the language of news reports was used in such a way that favoured Israel. Words like ‘hit-back’ and ‘retaliate’ were used to describe Israeli action, while words like ‘murder’ and ‘cold blood’ was used for Palestinian action. There was also a lack of coverage on the context of the situation. That is, the forced mass evacuation of Palestinians from their homes, and a history of ethnic occupation, which, when not mentioned, makes the Palestinians appear to be initiating attacks for no reason.
Contextual details are typically neglected in such reports because essential root causes are seen to be far less interesting than more shocking superficial symptoms. French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu captures this point well when he describes news as “a series of apparently absurd stories that all end up looking the same, endless parades of poverty-stricken countries, sequences of events that, having appeared with no explanation, will disappear with no solution – Zaire today, Bosnia yesterday, the Congo tomorrow.” Needless to say, such social and political simplification or manipulation works contrary to the democratic goal of educating people.
Biased narratives in the film industry are far less subtle. In his book and documentary Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2004), Jack Shaheen shows that Hollywood has vilified and portrayed Arabs as sub-human, militant, and barbaric to the masses since the beginning of film. In his research of over 1000 films that involved Arab characters or references, he found that around 90% were negative, 1% were positive, and the rest were neutral. For Shaheen, such ‘stereotyping has become so wide-spread that it has become invisible.’ Similarly, Social Psychologist Sam Keen, creator of Faces of the Enemy claims, “you can hit an Arab free; they are free enemies, free villains – where you couldn’t do it to a Jew or you can’t do it to a black anymore.” Such social scientists never fail to mention the clear political manipulation, which, throughout history, has been used by a variety of political regimes to construct vile, sub-human representations of their enemies to justify invasion, occupation, killing, torture, and social exclusion. The phenomenon of Islamophobia is a current case in point.
We may not be physically forced to comply with state interests as is the case in a dictatorship, though the result is not dissimilar. The corporate race for mass media consumption is a phenomenon that we, as citizens, pay the price for, both financially and psychologically, producing news that is generally negative, superficial, and punchy; as opposed to constructive, beneficial, or thought provoking. Of course, not every item within the media is necessarily shaped by such interests and sound, honest journalism does exist. But the relentless prevalence of social and political misrepresentation on our TVs, newspapers, on-line, and on the big screen, is certainly enough for us to question the integrity of our cognitive freedom and the soundness of our democratic experience.
Image From: http://www.osisa.org/media-and-ict/malawi/malawis-media-freedom-ranking-collapses
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