CAN WE TRUST IN MEDIA?

CAN WE TRUST IN MEDIA?
By Matías Weitz

    Nowadays we live in a globalized world, in which media have an important role in human’s life. Media have an incredible power and influence in humans, and we have to take care about this. I mean, we believe all what media tell us, but we don`t take care about something very important: media is controlled by people, and we don`t know the intentions that this people have. This is very important because sometimes the information can be modified, showing us something that isn`t real, or in other cases, media create an image of certain groups by stereotyping those groups of people. From this, I make a simple question: can we trust in media?

                Throughout time passes, we have testified different examples in which media have modified the information, making us believe something that isn`t real (fake information about real events). One of the most impacting examples is the 11/9 terrorist attack to World Trade Center. I venture to say that a huge part of the people believe in what media tells us about what happen in that terrorist attack: some people of Al Qaeda takes control of some commercial airplanes and make them crash against some specific USA places, such us the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But the problem is that nowadays, we can see different documentaries that tell us, that the 11/09 terrorist attack was fake, and it was prepared, to have an excuse to mobilized troops to Iraq.  After the attack, media transmit information about the attack during weeks, showing us different speeches of important people of the President Cabinet (including George Buch Speech), a lot of testimonies of people, etc.  But later, us I said, different evidence (that wasn`t presented by media in that time) came to light, showing us a different reality of what really happened.  The evidence that this TV programs present is very convincing, and it makes me think about the power of media, that it makes us to get touched us during years, making us believe that USA was victim of this attack. How we can believe in media if, as we can see in this example, it shows us the president telling something, and now we now that the things can be completely different?

                Other example is what happened in Chile some years ago. CHV (TV channel) showed a report in which a woman talk bad things about the maids, saying in other words that maids are ‘less important’ or a lower social class. The problem was that CHV only showed some fragments of the whole interview, cutting the important parts of the interview. Later CHV transmit the whole interview, and I get surprised because in the complete interview, Ines Perez Concha (the woman) defended the maids, trying to transmit to people that watch CHV, the problem that maids of her neighborhood had. Here the media controls the information that they had, showing us a fake reality of the opinion of this woman, making, in this case, a huge damage of her reputation or image.

                Media controls what to show and what must people believe about what is happening around us.  Other interesting element is the use of stereotypes. Media creates in our mind some connection with some words. For example, when someone listens or sees a commercial of a sport car, we instantaneously relates it to a man driving it, because media have modified our perception about this, stereotyping those cars. Other example is that we relate women to the housework. Why this did happen? Because when we see TV or an ad at the newspaper about detergents, it always shows a beautiful woman cleaning the house and using the product. That is a wrong perception of reality, I mean women and men can drive sport cars, and not only women are in charge of the house cleaning. Media have influence us in a huge way, and the power that have must be take in consideration.

                Concluding, I will to make a call to all the readers of this great blog: go deeper in what media tell us, and don’t believe in all what you see on the TV, Internet, etc. We don`t know who is behind the redaction of the different information that media present us, so we don’t know the intentions that media have. Us we see in the 2 examples that I have, we believe in what media tells us, but sometimes we must not believe to much, because of the  intentions that it have: convince us of something that isn`t truth (11/09 fake attack and Ines Perez Concha case). Also stereotypes that we have in our mind, have been molded by media, by all the advertisement and different situations that it present, in which they characterize a group of people.

                Finally I will like to share a quote that y take from an image: ‘relax… your friendly media conglomerate will decide what you need to know’. A clear quote that reinforces what I’m trying to explain to you, that media have the power to make us believe what they said, and we trust in it, and we don’t take in consideration that they manage what we must know; in other words, media have the control of people, and we must be careful about this.

Rationale

        

         I decided to do an opinion column, to present in a better way a theme that affect us. As the  column said, media is an important element in our daily life, and during the time passes it have acquire more power and influence in humans. So presenting a formal opinion about a topic that affects us, describing the point of view of someone that is affected by this, it helps to attract the audience, convincing them, or making them is aware about this topic.

         The audience of this text are the readers of my blog, in which they can appreciate my personal opinion, based on my experience of this topic.

         By relating the personal experience of a person (in this case, me), it makes more convincing what the text is trying to tell us. As I said, it creates a conscience in people who read this, making them thing if they can trust in media or not. Also, presenting examples of real life, such us the 11/09 terrorist attack or CHV case makes it more reliable, showing this cases of how media can modify or adapt what we have to know, or in another way, what media decide that we have to know.

         In this opinion column are presented the stereotypes, making reference to something that affect, because media have created some classification about certain groups.

         The objective of this task, was to create conscious about this topic, based in this call to the society, by this opinion column, to be aware about how unreliable can be media, which has control over us.

Text: 879 Words

Rationale: 264 Words