Think You’re Informed? Here’s What Media Isn’t Telling You About Its Biggest Problems!
The media, both electronic and print, has played a key role in making sure that truth does not remain hidden in a war, crisis or any other situation. The thing that has made it possible is the unbiased use of media and journalism to report things as they are, not as they should be, without any additional layer of molded meanings. Resultantly, the media has gained immense popularity among people globally to know about facts and figures regarding events happening locally and internationally.
At the same time, if truth becomes the victim in any issue taking place anywhere and being reported, it is largely due to biased and unjust reporting. This biasness and one-sided reporting could be done in different ways, some of which are apparent, and the others are a little subtle.
Image: DIW-Aigen
Sometimes what is being reported is worthless and a total wastage of time, as it does not provide any beneficial information to the consumers. The only logic behind showing such stuff on the media is the benefits that the media itself gains after depicting it.
These issues have not only affected traditional media but have also accumulated on social media, which has become a hub of disinformation, misinformation, and baiting. Below, we outline the various challenges facing modern media:
Personality-focused Coverage
More importance is given to personality-focused coverage than the global or local issues worth reporting. Discussions about celebrities’ lifestyles and their private lives have become too dominant in the media, with special shows and magazines fully dedicated to explore their lives.
Such reporting has no benefits for the general public. Rather, it wastes their precious time and takes their attention away from the global issues, like wars in Gaza/Palestine and Ukraine, and makes them totally oblivious to the suffering being endured by people around them.
Showing Filtered Content
Showing only filtered content about any issue, like war, makes people aware of only one side of the picture. They become judgemental about that particular issue and start supporting or rejecting it. They do not have any idea about the other aspects of the same issue.
Genocide in Gaza is the best current example of filtered content amid the global media landscape, which keeps on calling attacks on Israel as terrorist and attacks on Gaza as just retaliation or self-defence. So a big portion of Western public has only one sided view of the war.
Exaggeration through Language
The use of exaggerated language on news sites and ads on websites and on social media has been used just as bait to trap people for more and more clicks and views. The main statements on social media or ads are intentionally made so attractive to deceive people, and when they do so, it leads to other pages than the ones the click was to do so.
A statement would read, “Horrific explosion: 3 killed”. But the landing page would have nothing to do with an explosion or killing of three people. But the site owner did receive a view.
Surveillance on the Internet
Most internet users are unaware of being on surveillance by governments and third party vendors when they are scrolling on websites. The phenomenon is called browser fingerprinting. These third party vendors use browsing activity to get details about device type, screen resolution, time zone, browser type etc. And then this data makes each individual identifiable as a digital fingerprint.
Because it is being done without users’ consent, it is against ethics, and that most users are unaware of the whole problem makes the whole issue shameful.
Churnalism in Reporting
Many media outlets globally share pre-published content with audiences due to their leaning towards a specific cause, party or country. Instead of reporting things as they are, without being biased towards someone or something, these outlets shape their content as per their biases.
This is called churnalism. Which is the selecting of already circulating material which suits one’s interest the best, without bothering about whether it is true or not, if it serves one’s purpose. Churnalism has become common due to Youtube and Facebook where every other person is a journalist or reporter, sharing news with local people they have no access to.
Algorithmic Content
Users are mostly showered with algorithmic content on social media, which is based on their likes, dislikes and recent activity. As a result of this, a specific type of data is presented to users over and over, which eventually creates a strong leaning towards a specific idea, ideology or cause.
All this happens while rejecting other aspects of the same thing, idea or incident. This leads to the radicalization of individuals, who might commit actions harmful to themselves or others.
Only Slacktivism
Being an activist has become very convenient through social media. Every second person uses social media to support a political person or cause, manipulating the emotions of people using such political or emotional posts, but these activists do not take any practical steps to forward their case, and their online activity is nothing more than a show-off.
Such slacktivism not only harms the causes, but also promotes unreal revolutions online, without any practical ground.
Paid Content
Not all content is free online. Rather, the best content available on the internet is to be paid for to have access to it. The best newspapers in the world, like The New York Times, Washington Post, TheInformation etc., offer paid subscriptions to users for accessing their best content.
So most people globally, as a result, do not have access to quality content. Rather they rely on free content, which is not free from biases, disinformation and limitedness. In other words, only the affluent have access to quality content covering all aspects of an event.
The Lack of Locality in News
Most news in the media revolves around global issues, excluding the local news of an area a person is living in. Instead of reporting about the crime rate and other issues in their own areas, people receive news about Hollywood, the American election, the Wars in other parts of the world etc.
No doubt, the world news has its own value in today’s world, but it could never be more important than the local news of an area to which a person belongs, for the local news is what concerns all people in their lives.
Too Powerful Media
It is no secret that major media houses all over the world are owned by powerful people, who also have political biases or are biased towards some causes. For example, the ongoing war in Gaza has been called in the western media differently than it has been depicted in the muslim countries because zionist lobby is too strong in the USA and has a great influence in the American media to let any major media house speak freely and truly.
The same biases of media houses are seen towards political leaders, where biased reporting is done by media houses to show their support for a political leader.
The same goes for social media, especially X, whose current owner, Elon Musk, had the power to buy the social media giant and then change the rules as per his wishes.
Online Boosters
Social media platforms have been used as boosters for specific messages and causes. Political parties have their X teams that run their political campaigns online. Similar groups on Facebook and Instagram boost their messages and trends by manipulating messages and consistently posting and reposting it online to make it a trend in their country. These trends give an impression of a large population supporting an idea or party, but this is not the case.
These online boosters, accounts run by a group or autonomous accounts, have a specific agenda to follow, so they do not represent the ground reality.
The Intrusion of Ads
Monetization is the aim of most websites online. The news websites, whose aim is to provide quality news to audiences, are also monetized. So the popping up of ads on every second click on a news site is a consistent phenomenon. This popping up of ads while scrolling a news site or while reading an article is a constant cause of annoyance among readers. The whole experience of reading a newspaper is degraded when ad videos keep showing intermittently.
Why is it bad? Because it causes concentration to decrease gradually, ads on a news site is not something that a reader can appreciate.
The Tool of Astroturfing
Astroturfing happens when a media house publishes alleged public opinion about a matter, depicting what the public thinks about that particular issue, but in fact, that is not a public opinion, but the opinion of a carefully selected sample of people belonging to a particular group.
Astroturfing is common in the media due to biases that exist there. These biases force them to show an astroturfed opinion about a political party, a religious group or a cause. In the political arena, astroturfing is too obvious, making the public think that a specific party is popular among people.
Deplateforming Neutrals
To counter biases in the media, many individuals become neutral to report things as they are. Most of them use their Youtube channels, websites or social media to educate people about what is really going on. But such individuals are often shadowbanned from moving on with their plans, and their websites, Youtube channels and social media accounts are blocked by authorities.
Such people have existed and still exist all over the world. Just recently Steve Herman of the Voice of America was banned X due to his tweets. Hamid Mir of Pakistan has experienced a ban on his show due to his straightforward talk. Similarly, journalists and other intellectuals have gone through the same experience for reporting facts about the Vietnam war and Iraq war.
Out of Context
Once a clip, a text or talk is taken out of its context, its meaning can easily be manipulated. With modern media and tools, this out-of-context-phenomenon can influence a large population into believing which is actually not the case.
The war in Gaza and Ukraine are again the best examples of out of context reporting and stories. An attack by Gaza on Israel is shown as an offensive step without even talking about the history of barbarity experienced by Gaza that caused that attack. Similarly, sometimes old videos start circulating on the internet in relation to a recent event, which makes things worse, and common people start reacting as per that old video.
Immune to Media Coverage
As I have said above, biases do exist in the media, forcing them to make certain decisions. Such biases in media make some people, organizations and political parties totally immune to reporting and coverage from a media house.
If some members of a political party, organization or a company are investors in a specific media house, that media house will not dare to cover any illegal activity of that company or organization. Similarly, open reporting against the government might lead to the cancellation of their media license. So media houses, especially in the global South, leave the most powerful elements in their governments alone.
Adorned News
It is a world of fierce competition, with many news outlets competing with one another. To attract people to their news channels, news is not just reported as news, but adorned so attractively to make it more compelling, so people could be lured to watch it.
On print media or websites, headlines and headings would consist of such words to create a sense of urgency in readers, such as “Shocking revelation by the journalist.” In the same way, such tone and voice would be used by newscasters in describing a headline that would leave no choice for listeners except to wait for the details coming later.
Just Horse Race Journalism
Politics and elections are two of the main topics loved by the media, for they provide abundant amounts of data for coverage. As it has been observed all over the world, the media is more concerned about political figures, arguments among them and elections than the problems faced by people themselves.
Day and night, media houses keep themselves busy in talking and arguing about upcoming elections and potential results. They are never as passionate about public issues–not giving as much time–as they are about polls and who would be the next president of a country. The current presidential election of the USA is a good example of how much attention is paid by the media to such an event as compared to attention given to public issues in the country.
Spreading Fake News
Big media houses try their best to avoid fake news and disinformation to maintain their reputation. But even if not deliberately, fake news has been an issue of the modern media. No doubt, social media and local news outlets are the biggest source of disinformation online.
Sometimes apparently official notifications start circulating online–which some news channels would also share–which would later turn out to be fake. Similarly, old videos of remote events would be posted online and shared by local channels to support a theory or rumors.
Rarely, even reputed news channels would fall into this trap by sharing some fake story, for they desperately wanted to be the first one to report it.
Mould of Good and Evil
Whatever opinion someone has about something or someone anywhere in the world is mostly due to the information received through the media. The media has the power to frame some people as good and others as evil by presenting those people in a specific way. For this very reason, heroes of some are the enemies of others.
Again, the present ongoing war in the Middle East is a good example of how two distant views about this war exist in the world. In the same way, Vladimir Putin is called an evil due to his invasion of Ukraine in the western media, which calls, at the same time, Netanyahu of Israel a savior. In truth, only one of the stated assertions could be true.
The World of Rumors
Rumors are widespread on social media about all matters of life. They are presented with such wording and images and are attractive in nature that most people believe in them to some degree. These rumors range from the political topics to the private lives of celebrities.
Just recently some rumors about an alleged rape of a student of a college in Lahore, Pakistan, started circulating on social media and gave rise to an social upheaval, which resulted in clashes between police and students, injuring many. But no proof of any such incident has been found till this day.
Similar rumors spread on social media like fire and cause harm to people, but their believers have no idea of their origins.
No Follow Up on Coverage
The modern media is receiving news from every corner of the world, and it mostly gives up on the previous news coverage to make room for a new one. This attitude of the media not to follow up recent news coverage with details and results is hypocritical, for it shows that the media does not care about the issue or event. All it cares about is more news to keep itself updated and running.
This leads even people to anger. No follow up on a recent coverage of an event or issue makes it wholly obscure, for the public is first guided and led to something and then left in the middle of it. For example, the media might report about an earthquake in Turkey today, but the marriage ceremony of the son of an Indian billionaire might force it to give this luxurious event more coverage the next day.
No Tolerance for Dissent
Any form of dissent is met with harsh response from a society and from authorities, if it is related to national security. The world has become connected and progressive, but any deviation from the widely held opinions about even trivial matters, history, country or issues results in abusive responses on social media.
Social media has enabled people to openly reject and criticize a person who has moved away even a little from the national line. Since the last decade, celebrities, politicians, sportsmen and national institutions have been bearing severe criticism online for doing or saying something which was deemed not-national. Just recently, Jemima Goldsmith received rape threats for raising voice for her jailed husband, Imran Khan.
Implied Truth Effect
To counter fake news, warning tags have been used with news or stories coming from unreliable sources. These tags would indicate to readers about them being false. So this has been a way to distinguish fake news from authentic news.
But it has also given rise to the phenomenon called implied truth effect. People now tend to believe that any news or story without a warning tag makes it authentic and reliable. This tendency makes the whole concept of using warning tags redundant, for news stories without a warning tag are not necessarily authentic. This loophole also allows fake news to mingle with authentic ones to regenerate the problem.
Overton Window and Acceptability
All societies only accept a limited number of things, so only those acceptable ones have to be discussed in the media. Even a slight moving away from the acceptability of things is prohibited even in the liberal societies.
Many European countries will not allow the support for veils for ladies in their media. Similarly, many countries that allow prostitution will not accept open rejection of it. Also, political issues, like the disputed region of Kashmir, can only be discussed as per the accepted line in India. Media has to conform itself to such issues in all societies.
Open Biases
Some powerful news outlets even dare to cross the line to support a cause or a political party. Such outlets pick and choose articles and news stories that support their men and causes. This is mostly done to receive a payback from those being supported later.
It is common all over the world, but countries of the global South witness the phenomenon more often. It has been observed that one media house was giving positive coverage to a political party, and the other was giving negative coverage. Moreover, many liberal news outlets in religious countries openly show biases towards more liberal ideas to promote them in those countries.
Promoting Divisions
One of the biggest flaws of news channels has been the promotion of already existing divisions in a society. Political talk shows globally invite members of opposing political parties to apparently talk about public issues, but the end result of such talks is nothing more than intense argumentation for an hour.
These arguments have also led to physical fights and the use of abusive language against each other during live shows. Nothing is gained from such talk shows except more hatred among supporters of both parties and divisions in already divided societies. But such talk shows keep broadcasting such behavior the whole year, for it suits their ranking and helps them in competition.
The Amplification of Issues
The research has shown that the media plays a very negative role in increasing crimes in a society by amplifying crimes and issues and depicting criminals as inhuman through constantly referring to them. The media depicts crimes within a society as if they were being committed every passing second by every second person, framing a society as intolerable. All of this has a negative effect on the psychology of common people.
Not only just common people, but such depicting has a negative effect on criminals also. They take such depiction too personally and react by following the same path that they have been following before. Resultantly, issues of a society either remain the same or multiple.
Provocative Content
The media intentionally uses provocative wording to attract readers to click on the news to read. Provocative wording is normally used in headings and during headlines. For example, “New warning given by Putin” or “A bad news for Taiwan” depict the type of language used by news outlets to attract readers online.
Similarity, provocative images, showing blood or destruction, are also employed to make the whole thing more appealing. Because the human mind is more sensitive to images, using such pictures does produce desired results for the media.
Showing Half-truths
As stated earlier, some media houses are biased towards a specific cause or a political party. They employ various techniques to fulfill the role of biased media houses. One of such is the showing of only half-truths. To use data to show popularity from areas where the party a media house is supporting is an example of a half-truth. Similarly, showing statistics of one party only and neglecting its rivals is also a type of half-truth.
Half-truths help political parties and other powerful people to gain more popularity among people, for people might change their minds after seeing such statistics.
Similarly, only showing the destruction done by one country and totally neglecting havoc brought by the other is a good example of a half-truth.
Cause-and-Effect Fallacy
The cause-and-effect fallacy is the favorite technique of conspiracy theorists. Many such theorists in the media take many facts of the same event to create a story of their own based on logical connections. Most of the time, the story is nothing more than an attractive fabrication.
Many major events were broken down using the same fallacy to create a new version of the story. From calling the moon landing fake to substituting a cruise missile in the place of a plane in 9/11, narrative fallacy has been used in the media to create mysteries. Because they are based on facts, they are appealing.
Superficial Bothsideness
Too apparent bias towards someone and something can cause trouble for a media house. So to remain biased and hidden at the same time, the media sometimes resorts to superficial bothsidedness. They pretend to cover both parties or sides of the same issue, but they just want to create a superficial balance to hide their bias.
A biased media house or journalist deals with both sides, but their reporting is deep and passionate for one side and not for the other. Or they pretend when their side is not in a good position that there is still balance between both sides. When an Indian pilot was captured in 2019, the Indian media balanced the equation with a fake story of shooting down an F-16.
Promoting Agendas
The media has the power to exert influence on people and change their thinking. They can frame the collective conscience of a nation. If they have an agenda to serve, they can serve it by promoting and publishing selective content, which might not conform to the accepted standard of a society.
The promotion of liberal views and ideas in conservative nations, like Iran and Pakistan, or authoritative states, like China and North Korea, is an agenda taken up by the media of those countries, despite the fact that the liberal views are highly unpopular among the conservative nations. But still the media follows the agenda, for it suits itself and makes its patrons cheerful.
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