Truth and Misrepresentation.Discuss

Assignment two: Truth and Misrepresentation

The public relies on the media as the main source of information and the foundation for how their beliefs are shaped. But the truth and accuracy in a news story can be distorted sometimes giving the audience a different perspective of reality. The way news is selected and framed depends on journalist and editors own biases. A story can never be completely fair and balanced because we all analyze and interpret information differently. Another way it is distorted or misrepresented is by exaggerating the information, making it sound more important than it might be. The mass media often take this approach as they compete for the attention of audiences, which is equates to income from advertising or sponsorships. Terrorism is an appealing subject for the media because the public’s fear makes them desperate for information. This essay will examine tensions between the truth and representation of how the media report terrorism.

Since the invention of the printing press, there has been correlation between the terrorist and the media (Eid 2014, 2). Terrorist attacks are projected to have a psychological effect far outweighing the physical damage the attack causes. The atmosphere or fear and suspicion created after an attack by the media can help the terrorist to narrow the power asymmetry between them and the entity they fight. On 11th March 2004 Al Qaeda ousted the ruling party from power in Spanish general elections following the Madrid train bombings. The media reports a terrorist acts to receive the attention of the public that is vital for their existence. Terrorism must be communicated to have effect, and the media cover the incidents in such a way as to benefit from the public’s necessity to obtain information about terrorism.

Terrorists carefully plan where to attack to get the best media coverage. The best example of this is the 9/11 attacks in the United States, where a wide variety of media rushed to cover the story. Millions of people in the United States and around the world watched live as the second aircraft struck the south tower of the World Trade Center, people leapt to their deaths to escape the raging fires and the towers collapse (Holloway 2008, 65). Being able to watch these events develop in real time severely affected people lives more than if they had simply read about it in a newspaper. It seems for many terrorists the audience is just as important as the victims, how the audience reacts to the event is just as important as the event itself.

Terrorism has many characteristics that make it an attractive subject for the media. It features, danger, human tragedy, shocking footage, heroes and action. The recent explosion of 24-hour news, cable TV and the occurrence of mega media organizations have resulted in greater competition to keep audience attention, boost ratings and circulation and increase profits. The media can cover terrorism in a sensational way, enlarging anecdotic stories, especially on who is to blame, repeating the same images over and over again. This type of reporting traumatises the audience by exaggerating the threats, creating an atmosphere and politics of fear, ripe conditions for propaganda and recruitment after a terrorist attack.

In the wake of 9/11 the media especially in the United States instead of remaining calm and objective, called for action mainly against Arabs and Muslims, crying for revenge. The major corporate media whipped up patriotic support for the then President George W. Bush who would lead the American nation against the forces of “political and cosmological evil”. Public perceptions were changed at government and public levels, perceptions on events and the way people started viewing ethic and religious minorities as a threat. The architects of 9/11 had obviously achieved their media-centered objectives, conveying that even the US was vulnerable and that anyone could be subject to a deadly attack at anytime.

Public panic and hysteria created after 9/11 by the media helped the Bush administration to pass new laws exchanging individual freedoms in return for security. The Patriot Act (3), which prioritized national security and defence, often at the expense of civil liberties was signed into law. Action was taken against Afghanistan to dismantle Al-Qaeda believed to house the training facilities for the 911 hijackers. Two years later the United States would invade Iraq motivated by a succession of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore the public. Harold Pinter (2005, 8) calls the invasion of Iraq, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay get little media coverage, the United States detain them without charge, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever (Pinter 2008, 7).

The War on Terror declared in 2001 has been a ‘media war’ and has received ongoing media coverage in all its manifestations. Yet other acts of terror that happened before the War on Terror or during have been largely ignored by the media (Franks & Shaw 2012, 6). After World War II the United States has supported and in many cases propagated every right wing military dictatorship in the world. Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place in countries like Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Philippines and Chile attributable to American Foreign policy but few people know what even happened. Conflicts especially in Africa have been ignored or rarely covered by international media because they didn’t fit the frame of ‘radical Islam’ or ‘rogue states’ (Franks & Shaw 2012, 9).

During the 1980’s the United States engaged in a ‘war on terror’ in Central America, killing approximately 200,000 people and producing over a million refugees (Held 2003, 61). In Nicaragua the United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship for over 40 years but in 1979 the Sandintas overthrew this regime in a popular revolution. President Reagan used the media to portray Nicaragua as a ‘totalitarian dungeon’ when the Sandintas had actually raised health care and education. Infant mortality was reduced by a third and polio was eradicated (Pinter 2005, 5). Some 30 years later and 30,000 dead the United States finally succeeded in bringing down the Sandinista government. Free health and free education were over (Pinter 2005, 6).
Social media has made it easier for terrorists to publicise their messages to the world. They do not really need the official media to convey their message, the Internet is now used which is much quicker and much more effective. For the first time in history the terrorists can take whatever message and images they decide to show the world through the online world. The Internet has clearly increased the scope of terrorist propaganda and activities, for advancing their operational goals with little expense and risk. It has aided recruitment efforts, as most recently seen with young Muslims raised in western countries leaving to join ISIS in Syria. Twitter has recently emerged as the terrorist’s favourite Internet service, taking advantage in a recent trend in news coverage that often sacrifices validation and in-depth analysis for the sake of real time coverage (Weiman 2014, 8). On 23rd April 2013 the Syrian Electronic Army tweeted via a hacked news agency account of a bomb attack inside the White House. Wall Street consequently suffered $136 Billion in losses caused by panicked reactions to the hoax.

The terrorist need for media publicity and the media’s need for greater audiences and profits form a mutual cooperation. There is no doubt that terrorism must be reported but the media should aim to inform the public correctly. Journalists should remain objective, reporting both sides of a story to the audience fairly and accurately with out bias, so the audience can make their own opinion. The public should be The Internet has bought a new age of online terrorism enabling terrorists to spread their messages and recruit with little cost or risk. Regulation of the media particularly the Internet presents a significant problem due to the intrinsic tension between censorship and the democratic practice of free speech, privacy, and press freedom, it is crucial to respond against the cyber activities of terrorists. Methods should involve tracking their activities on online forums, following their conversations and activities on social media and prevent radicalization materials from specific websites.

References

Eid, Mahmoud. 2014. Exchanging Terrorism Oxygen for the Media Airwaves: The Age of Terroredia. Hershe, PA: Information Sciences Reference. doi:10.4018/978-1-4666-5776-2.ch001

Kovach, Bill and Rosenstiel, Tom. 2014. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspapers Should Know and the Public Should Expect.

Pinter, Harold. 2005. “Art, Truth & Politics’, Noble Lecture.

Held, Virginia. 2003.Terrorism and War.

Rohner, Dominic and Bruno S. Frey. 2007. “Blood and Ink! The Common-Interest-Game Between Terrorists and the Media.” Public Choice 133: DOI 10.1007/s11127-007-9182-9

http://www.philosophynews.com/post/2015/01/29/What-is-Truth.aspx