The role mass media play helps shape and form opinions in every space, paradigms and format of our local perception and cognizance to geopolitical trades and global consumerist speed and humanitarian normative. This makes media a source of good and balance or an evil chemical that hijacks the future for some above short term gains. Without an impartial media that make use of substantive based information we might as well be fed with chemical opinions – to put words into our mouth (puppeteered).
People talk about varying items and things, in all sorts of decorum, topic, euphemism or substantive and validated network. They talk in their residence, book clubs, group meetings/chats, outdoor park and landscape or in any nuclear bunker or facility they can imagine about, maybe some shamans, tantrics etc. even do it magically telepathically or through some electrical routing of their brain-chemicals/astral (third eye, kundalini awakening, star child – what else!) #tin foil hat alert! Suffice to say, it is the authentic media or any media that publishes general and scientific information, reports phenomenal events and stories, that gets the upper edge of public attention largely because it sums up to our senses.
But it is an open fact the media houses compete with each other to establish their media mogul, but the important question is, does it harm the general agenda for the meagre matter of their trading relations. For instance in US alone: Fox News and Drudge Report are rightist; ABC, Google News and CBS are middle; Buzzfeed, politico and the economist are left leaning; the Sean Hannity Show and the Glenn Beck program the far right; CNN and NBC are the liberals. Without mentioning it goes by each station propagates and distill the gazettes to their suiting, aside from largely emancipated and visually recognised reports.
Just a month ago, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) grilled Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg with basic and pivoting questions which left Zuckerberg stumped during the House Financial Services Committee, when Facebook looked to seek approval about its proprietary cryptocurrency project, Libra. AOC inquired if Mark and his company did a rigorous Fact Check during political ad campaigns, and whether this decision was tied to his dinner party with the Far Right, some of whom advanced the white supremacy doctrines. Zuckerberg’s response was rather controversial as he stated in certain context the disinformation was allowed so that the voters could better discern and make pejorative stand against phony and biased politicians.
We may talk all we want, but without substantive information that is tested with objectivity, environment, human resource and potential, negative and positive impacts that information can pose, our non linear talking on challenges of future can be reduced to archaic nature and advances. Our very role and duty could be surrogated to wasted and ineffective lifetime with the programming from biased media. We should be aware about that as well, intellectually, and rely less on non conceptual warp of transcending events. Invalidated news is just a sanctum where information were disseminated, not an absolute to affect our lifetime by, the result speaks for itself.
This is not to recommend there should not be diversity of organic media houses or other kind of networks, but, a more conceptual outlook preserves the modality of impartial and authentic reports based on substantial facts or conspiracies. In fact, it would be of great advantage if information and political rhetorics are consigned together. The subservient class and their struggles can be popularly and profoundly addressed. Only a better media can make that volume of connection amid the systemic loops and logical inconsistencies. Else valid data might build a fortress until they are murdered into the void of non imported heap of web hard drives and our impotent memory caches.
T Y Tikhir
Chumukedima, Dimapur
