In the United States of America, a capitalist democracy, the media has the freedom and independence to balance their coverage and object annotation as they deem fit. The media maintains its autonomy by shying away from private ownership and avoiding extreme regulations. The mass media, public service broadcasting, citizen journalism and alternative media have the mandate to develop a media system that will enlighten and empower all fellows in the society thus enhancing democracy. This empowerment can easily be achieved through the adoption of citizen journalism and unconventional media networks thus emphasizing public service broadcasting which will consequently enhance audience participation. From the above discussion, it is conclusive that the democracy of the media is an important information tool that can aid in empowering the citizens of a state and promote democracy (Herman& Chomsky, 1988).
For the media to promote democracy its ownership and coverage should also be democratic; therefore, when the democracy of the media is hampered, their coverage will be biased. The corporate domination of the media has increased over the years thus reducing the accountability of the mainstream media to the general public that they are meant to serve. When the information released to the public through reportage and commentary only reflects the dominant class ideologies and not necessary what the public needs misinformation occurs thereby the media forfeits its original goal of promoting democracy. The use of media by partisans to air their argument or pass information that they need the public to hear and not necessarily to pass information is called media manipulation. The thesis statement of this paper is “Media Manipulation occurs in a consistent direction favoring specific aspects of the society.’ This paper will expound on this thesis statement as it discuss ways in which the media manipulates its audience(Herman & Chomsky, 1988).
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With all the talks of media manipulation going on, notabilities in the broadcasting industry have attributed the inaccuracies in coverage to innocent errors and habitual production problems. They blame budgetary constraints, deadline pressures and difficulty in editing of complex stories as the principal causes of the misinformation. In addition, since not every tidbit can be reported, they censure selectivity as another major cause of information discrepancies. From their reasoning, it is acceptable that pressures in media do exist and this leads to numerous problems. Furthermore, they receive a lot of information that they cannot air it all and so they need to be selective. However, these pressures are evidently not solely responsible for the overall performance of the media. If they have to be selective, what criteria do they use or what principles do they follow during the selection. This implies that their biasness is not just a mere coincidence of selectivity or a random hitch that occurs in every business industry rather, drawbacks in media occur in a systematic and consistent manner esteeming the management over the industry, the fortunate whites against the poor minorities, corporates over corporate decriers, officialdom versus the protestors and privatizations over the public sector expansion (Parenti, 2002).
Context of Media Manipulation
The media uses various methods to manipulate their viewers, listeners and readers. They may use propaganda techniques and logical fallacies to misinform the followers; they may suppress information or perspectives through overcrowding it; they may induce people to listen to specific arguments or divert their attentions somewhere else. Mass media provides a channel for the public to pass their opinions and express themselves and therefore, without appropriate channels, propaganda will always be on the rise. Different fields manipulate the media with different objects such as marketing and public relations. Currently, the mass media manipulates people through creating distractions while they assume that the public has a short attention span. The following are frameworks used by the mass media to manipulate its audience.
Activism
Activism refers to the practice of vigorously supporting one side of a controversy while opposing the other. Currently, the media has adopted activism by starting movements in order to impact change in particular social views. Although activism is typically initiated by a prominent person, it is quickly picked up by the public thus creating a large impact on the society. Majority of the activist prefer rallies, street marches, strikes and rants on social media as a way of creating social movements. Granting that most social movements are arranged by prominent people with selfish interest, some movements formed have helped shaped the country into the great nation it has become. For example, ‘The Civil Rights March on Washington’ that was initiated by Martin King Luther Jr. in the 20th century commenced the ‘Civil Rights Acts’ that have helped the country to appreciate the African American society thus promoting equality within all race. Through his activism, King was able to garner a large following that marched and demanded for equality among the marginalized communities. He organized non-violate rallies that were accompanied by public speeches (including the renowned, ‘I have a dream’ speech) and this helped in changing social views thus spearheading the development of an equal America (Turner, 2009).
Activism is always one sided and this can lead to conflicts. The affluent person initiating the social movement will insight people to join him or her on one side of a controversial matter? Although through this activism, a social, political or economic change may occur, there will always be a losing side. For example, in a social movement to demand for the ‘freedom of abortion,’ most scholars, philanthropists, medical practitioners and other social movements fought for the proposing side. They demanded the freedom to abortion be passed so that women all over the country can be able to terminate their pregnancy whenever they need without violating the law. However, religious groups and other limited social group fought for the right to life claiming thateven a fetus or embryo has a right to live. Since the proposers were backed by most media coverage, abortion was legalized in the country. The consequences of the outcome are that although the large group backed by the media won, a small proportion of the public still lost. If incase the media was neutral and gave both teams an equal coverage, then the results may have been different(Turner, 2009).
Suppression by omission
Contrary to common belief that the media is invasive and sensationalistic, it is actually evasive and muted whenever it wants to. The media has an art to avoid issues that will not give them fame and will only cover sensational stories. Sometimes, the issues avoided are vital to the public knowledge and are avoided because an influential person or organization has demanded the story not to be covered. For instance, matters concerning national security are usually sugar coated as the government may forbid the media from presenting the news or giving false information just because the true story will reflect poorly on the government or will create public restlessness. In another example, political subjugation executed by ‘reprobate’ governments is usually widely aired in the media with all media channels commenting and reporting the same story over and over again. However, when it comes to facts concerning the brutality of the forces sponsored by the USA in war torn developing countries or scandals perpetrated by the national security team, they are denied air play. Because of this, the public is left in ignorance with the Americans celebrating their forces every day without once raising an eyebrow towards any negativity(Parenti, 2002).
Advertising
Advertising refers to the attraction of the public attention to a specific entity particularly through professional announcements of goods and services. Most contemporary advertisements include business owners who try to sell their products thus informing the consumer about them. However, non-commercial exists when specific groups spend money on advertising with the expectation of nurturing awareness about a specific cause or idea. Non-commercial advertisements are mostly adopted by political parties, interest groups, religious and government movements. Most of these groups use the media to advertise in order to sway the public into changing their opinion in their favor. Currently, politicians are paying millions on television trying so that people can listen to their ideologies and enticing them to vote for them. Unlike America where the media is somehow neutral among politicians, in other countries, a specific network will only promote one politician and crowd the other politicians so that all the public’s attention will be on the selected politician (Rushkoff, 1999).
Propagandizing
Propagandizing is a kind of communication whereby only side to an argument is presented with an aim of influencing the outlook of the listener. At times, the media will air propagandas created by the government or other powerful organization with the aim of influencing the public to be on their side without presenting the opposing argument. Unlike impartiality, Propaganda is basically created in order to primarily influence the addressees’ values, emotions, beliefs, reasoning, motives and behavior. In order for propaganda to take effect and give the desired results, it is spread to various media types so that every individual can be able to access the information. A famous example of propaganda in the media is the Nazi propaganda that was used to justify Holocausts. During the Holocaust, the Nazi perpetrated the methodical massacre of 11 people (including 6million Jews and 5 million other minorities in German including Slavs, gender- nonconforming individuals, Romani’s, homosexuals, and people with physical disabilities. When public anger outburst began, the Nazi created propaganda of why the massacre was necessary. This information was spread on different media channels so that everyone could access. As a result, the public opinion was swayed to the Nazi’s perspective and the outburst calmed down (Ellul, 1973).
Techniques Used In Manipulation by the Media
Several techniques are used by the media to manipulate their viewers, listeners, readers and followers. Two commonly used techniques are search engine marketing and compliance professionals.
Search engine marketing
In this technique, the media will research different websites and see which of them was widely accessed by the public. They will then use the past searches by the followers to increase the level of conspicuousness in search engine results page. This technique enables them to guide the results of a search along a path they desire hence manipulating the searchers.
Compliance professionals
Some organizations use compliance professions who are experts in utilizing and perfecting the gain of media influence. Compliance individuals vary with their aim and can be propagandists, pollsters, marketers, political advocates and salespeople. These professionals know how to influence the public and are accessed by politicians, economists or private individual whenever they need the public’s opinion about them changed. Compliance professionals can use logical fallacies, framing, social proof, reciprocation, commitment and consistency to sway the public.
The democracy of the media is a significant tool in the promotion of democracy in any country. When the media is manipulated, this role is forfeited and the public ends up living in the dark. Through inappropriate advertising, activism and propaganda, the public is misinformed leading to wrong judgment calls. While the rich and influential individuals use the media to influence the public to perform the will, the media should be the supporter of the public. Instead due to greed for rating, the media only airs what they think is more ‘catchy’ and omits what the public really needs to hear. Interference from outside sources such as the government and prominent organization has further hampered the autonomy of the media thus reducing the democratic ideals of the nation.
References
Herman, S. E. And Chomsky, N. 1988. Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy ofthe Mass Media . New York. Pantheon Books.
Ellul, J. 1973. Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitude. New York: Random House
Rushkoff, D. 1999. They Say’ In Coercion: Why We Listen To What They Say. New York: Riverhead Books.
Turner, J. S. 2009. African American History: An Introduction. Peter Lang Publishing.
Parenti, M. 2002. Monopoly Media Manipulation. Mediterranean Quarterly. Print.
