Media: Helping or Hurting Global Action?

Why does the media choose to highlight certain natural disasters and not others? An interesting article from the Daily Texan titled, “Media’s focus on celebrity aid lessens probability of political action,” calls to question the power of media on making effective change. We’ve given the media, with its 24/7 constant reporting, a power greater than any authority- in the sense that the media has the power to control politics. The media is aware of its ability to manipulate its viewers, and also the institutions that can enact change. But what the media also has the ability to do is create great inaction, desensitization, and an inactive global community.

            The article talks about celebrity aid, and how the spotlight is being put on the donors instead of the victims. The “glamourization” of natural disasters highlights and epidemic in our technology based society. Instead of looking at the factors contributing to a disaster or what’s being done, we’ve removed a sense of government accountability and need for policy reforms. For example, its important to analyze a situation, like Ethiopian famine and it’s history of oppression, government corruption and the mishandlement of foreign aid. Knowing the political, geographical, and sociological contexts are crucial when looking at the crises, because underneath every disaster there is a deeper instability that needs to be addressed. For global citizens, combating the medias portrayal of disasters come in three steps. Firstly, gather as much knowledge as you can about the circumstances in a disaster. And when you think you’ve understood the situation and what’s happening, keep looking for more. Look at the culture, the government, hear stories from the victims, but use knowledge as tool. The knowledge you gather is a means of power that we can hold over the media and say, “This is the reality of what’s going on, we won’t be satisfied with bias, one-sided stories for sensational purposes.” Secondly, if we’re pursuing knowledge then we must look at more quality of our news being produced, showing a bigger picture of the situation. We shouldn’t subscribe to bias news stations, which can be challenging especially for Americans that let it’s two party politics reflect a two-party media outlet. And lastly, we need to give more focus to the victims, not as stories of personal tragedy but how we can end human suffering. This will only happen if we enact larger institutional reforms and create a stronger, lasting structure like upholding international norms.

            Hopefully, we will touch on a lot of these issues tomorrow when we discuss the media. I think this issue really calls to question, as evident in this article. Although some people are altruistic when giving aid, is the media doing more harm than good to enact long-term institutional changes?   

Here is the link: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2014/03/04/media%E2%80%99s-focus-on-celebrity-aid-lessens-probability-of-political-action