Raymond Galicia

Instructor Elizabeth Thomas

March 30 , 2015
th

UWRT 1102-058
Media Asset or Liability?

The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control
the minds of the masses.

- Malcolm X
Everyone in the modern age has been exposed to or used some type of media.
22% of Americans use social networking sites throughout the day (Convince & Convert).
It is no surprise that most people get their news mainly from social media sites. You
would think being connected all the time, to so many things and people would be a good
thing, but sometimes that is not always the situation. Many people assume that the media
they are receiving is pure, unbiased, and true but that is not always the case. Media can
have its positive and negative sides.
Rajesh Kumar, a student at the School of Communication at the University of Doon,
said that media serves as the publics source of information, social outlet, and
entertainment. The media serves the public in so many ways that most do not even
realize. The media nowadays has the ability to get information across coast to coast.
If something were to happen in Japan, the United States would hear about it within

hours. These are the positive sides of media help can come within hours. Funds and
donations can be set up to help those who were affected. Another way the media can be
used for good is as a catalyst for a social change. Throughout the nations history media
has been used to create social movements, it was the biggest way of getting messages
across a huge spectrum. Social media can be used to summon rallies and crowds for a
positive change. Crowds came together in Egypt after posts of social injustice feelings
were mutual between citizens. The revolution started on January 25th of 2011. The
revolution consisted of marches, occupations, and strikes. The protestors focused on legal
and political issues. The protests were meant to be nonviolent but ended up with several
causalities and injuries. 3,143 people died, most of them being civilians. Social media
was one of the main reasons the people of Egypt came together to seek social change.
Even though the protests ended up being violent, there were several changes. Elections
were held to bring new politicians to power.
Media comes in all types of forms, such as, print, electronic, and speech. Newspapers
served as the media outlet for many years. Media is so much more accessible than it once
was in the past. This can have a huge impact on children. Studies done by the Pediatrics
and Child health group said that when children watch violent things on television, violent
behavior increases. Lets take wrestling for example, I have cousins who are obsessed
with watching mixed martial arts and wrestling. On multiple occasions they have gotten
hurt, and they have been sent to the hospital as well. I say that stuff like this portrayed on
the media should be more restricted or shown later at night. On the other hand television
has good effects. Television shows like Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer teach kids
important things like the alphabet, manners, and cultural ideas. A lot of random facts that

I know today, I learned from watching childrens television programming when I was
younger.
The media can be a dark and manipulative thing in society. Americans are known
around the world to have started wars and kill millions, but an average American does not
see that. They see every war we have been in as a fight for freedom or an act of courage.
Academia and the make war seem okay when they say Its a fight for freedom.
Personally I think war is a horrible thing and is unnecessary. If Americans would see the
unfiltered truth, they would hopefully change their minds. The news filters so much of
what actually goes on overseas to keep the public calm. The media in a way brainwashes
the people by what they put out into the mainstream. Edward S. Herman and Noam
Chomsky developed what is called The Propaganda Model.
The model explained how media was used as propaganda to manipulate the public. It
studied the way propaganda was used through economic, social, and political means. The
model explained different filters that the media uses to influenced people (Cromwell.)
One of the most common one is my funding. Huge companies used television networks
for advertising, and by doing this, the television network makes millions and has money
to fund its programs. Most of the products advertised on television are things only
privileged people can get and that is the target of the big companies.
Another example of how the media is filtered is flak. Flak is the strong criticism of
a subject. This method is used as negative responses to a media personnel or
announcement. When global warming came along, it caused a huge stir around the
nation. This was good thing because, in my opinion, global warming is a real thing.
I believe that we are slowly killing our Earth with all the pollution and deforestation

around the world.

A major flak machine was the Global Climate Coalition (GCC.) This groups aim was
to undermine a major scientific report stating facts about global warming. This coalition
was made up of companies that had links to oil related profits. These big companies had
major power when it came to advertising and bashed the scientific report. Their attack
had a huge influence on the way the public saw the report as well. The experts who wrote
the report and the Global Climate Coalition went back and forth over years in a fight
between who was right. The coalition was able to persuade the public concern with their
arguments and thus delaying government involvement in environmental issues (Revkin.)
This is a good example of my inquiry question, why cant the public simply do their own
research instead of relying on one source? I would have much rather believed a group of
scientists telling me about global warming than some oil company. If a couple people did
their research, they could've prevented such a delay on environmental laws and have
helped the earth sooner. The coalition used tactics used by the tobacco companies in the
early days. Tobacco companies would say that there was not really a correlation between
smoking and getting lung cancer. George Monbiot, a British environmentalist, said that
the coalition took advantage of the media and the public. After years of fighting the
coalition broke up and gave up the argument of humans not causing global warming
(Revkin.)
One last filter that used by major companies is fear instilled in media. Fear has been
used all over campaign ads, product labels, and television.
One of the most popular advertisements that used fear was the commercial Daisy.
This advertisement included a little girl running through a meadow picking flowers. As

she is picking petals off the flowers and countdowns, a voice overshadows her and the
camera zooms in on her face. Her eyes is then replaced with a picture of a mushroom
cloud. This advertisement was sponsored by the Johnson party. The ad tied fear into the
message to get people to vote for him. The ad states The stakes are too high for you to
stay home. The advertisement claims everyone must love each or if not we must die.
Johnson sent troops to Vietnam to fight and bomb the NLF in 1965. The bombings and
fighting were meant to last a couple months but ended up being a 3 year battle. The
United States or President Johnson never saw what was coming when we entered
Vietnam. I agree that the United States should've helped South Vietnam with their
struggles but we shouldnt have sent our boys to fight someone elses war. Thousands of
lives could have been spared if Johnson and his administration would sought other ways
to help. His administration had to use fear to get the public on his side, without their
support the war could have not gone anywhere. If the public wasn't so influenced by
media maybe then, there could have been a change, a change for good. Even though
many have caught on with the fear tactics, it shows that fear in advertisements are
effective. Companies have increased the fear factor to generate more business nowadays.
After the attack of pearl harbor, Japanese Americans were sent to camps due to the
scrutiny they faced from the media. The act was unjust and unconstitutional. Another
example of the media using fear is discrimination against muslims. After the 9/11
attacks, the media made it seem like all muslims were terrorists (Kristoff.)
One of most infamous uses of media was the Nazi propaganda. "Propaganda tries to
force a doctrine on the whole people... Propaganda works on the general public from the
standpoint of an idea and makes them ripe for the victory of this idea. This quote came

from Hitlers, Mein Kampf. Hitler came to power and took over in 1933, he used the
power of the media for bad. The aim of the propaganda was to reach people through art,
music, books, radio, education, and the press.
Germans were always reminded of the loss during World War ll and how the Jewish
people were the ones to blame. The Nazis created campaigns to help promote tolerance
for violence against the jewish people. Nazism was highly prevalent in films. The
movies portrayed Jews as money hungry, selfish, and parasites to society. These films
were seen by most of Germanys citizens, the were brainwashed to hate jewish people.
The newspapers that would circulate in Germany would print antisemitic
cartoons. These cartoons were seen by mostly children and by doing this antisemitic ideas
were planted in their heads at a young age. The Nazis wanted people to think that the
jewish people were not human (Making it easier to accept that they were going to get
exterminated.) Hitler wanted to make killing Jewish people and other unwanted citizens
to come without protest and he succeeded (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.)
In 1944, an International Red Cross team was allowed to inspect a ghetto, where
many Nazis were held. Before the visit, the ghetto was completely transformed. This was
an example of how the outside world was fooled with the Nazi propaganda. During the
visit a film was shot to show how life in the ghettos were like. The film was filtered for
the outside world to see (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.)
Kony 2012 was a revolution that started mostly online. The Kony 2012 video was
about bringing Joseph Kony to justice. He was a Ugandan warlord who had an army that
abducted children as recruitments (Kosner.) The whole campaign was debunked little by
little, people fell into the trap of trying to find this warlord. Many people donated

hundreds of dollars solely based on the youtube video The Invisible children. The
campaign owes most of its success to social media. Without things like Facebook,
Youtube, Twitter, or Instagram the movement never would have started. Without the
people buying into the story of Kony, the revolution would have gone nowhere. People
gave into the bandwagon of supporting a campaign that they had no prior knowledge of.
While the movement had upsides like gathering the youth for change, it also
in a way took advantage of them. Since mostly young people are on social media sites,
they are more easily influenced. I know when I heard all about the campaign I was all
about donating my money, but at the time I had none of my own. Now that I think about
it,

I wish I would have done my own research and formed my own opinion about

Joseph Kony. He might have been a bad person at one point, but no one knows where
he ended up. Natives of Uganda claimed they have not seen Kony in years (Kosner.) The
whole campaign slowly lost its momentum in the wake of a scandal involving the CEO
of the Invisible Children, Ben Keesy. He was found naked acting belligerent, the news
reported that the Keesy was on medications because he was suffering from stress. The
campaign had its toll on the CEO, thus causing the movement to fall.
In the recent deaths of unarmed black citizens, such as Mike Brown, Eric Garner,
and Aiyana Jones. The list goes on and on. The main point of me bringing these names up
is that if it wasn't for social media, their deaths wouldn't be known. Twitter blew up after
the death of Mike Brown in Ferguson Mississippi. Twitter caused the whole town to
come together for a change. They started with protests, but when the police retaliated it
caused the protests to turn into riots. Riots is the only way to get the government to listen.
People turn to violence because its the only way to get people to listen. If it wasn't for

Facebook or twitter these deaths wouldn't even be as big as they would be if they were
solely on the nightly news. Information off of twitter is raw and to the point, but if it was
on the news, it would most likely be filtered.
Through my extensive research I learned that the media has such a huge impact on
how society acts. Media can be used to influence people, control the public, and conform
to what big companies want. Media should not be the only way of getting information.
We should definitely take a step back when we are told something and form our own
opinions. A lot of the time, people jump to conclusion when they hear something they
know nothing about.
The world should open their eyes and see that there is more to the story than what the
media puts out there. Every time I hear something in the news or read something in a
magazine, I will give it a second thought. Every media outlet is different but it is up to us
to decide what we believe.

Work Cited
Anthony Kosner "12 Lessons from KONY 2012 from Social Media Power Users."
Forbes. Forbes Magazine. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2012/03/09/12-lessons-from-kony-2012from-social-media-power-users/>."Americas
History of Fear." The New York Times. The New York Times, 4 Sept. 2010. Web. 16 Apr.
2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/opinion/05kristof.html>.
Carelli, P. (2014). Media systems beyond national boundaries: Towards a new paradigm?
Academic Journal, 85-91.
California State University, Fullerton. A brief history ofMedia effects research and
theories [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from
<http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/tclanin/comm333/lectures/chap_03.pdf>.
"Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy."
Convince and Convert Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy. Web. 6
Apr. 2015. <http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/11-shockingnew-social-media-statistics-in-america/>.
"Nazi Propaganda." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust
Memorial Council, 20 June 2014. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005202>.
Revkin, Andrew. "Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate." The New York Times. The
New York Times, 23 Apr. 2009. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/science/earth/24deny.html?
pagewanted=all&_r=0>.
"The Propaganda Model: An Overview, by David Cromwell." The Propaganda Model:
An Overview, by David Cromwell. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
<http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/2002----.htm>.
"Vietnam War." <i>History.com</i>. A&E Television Networks. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.
&lt;http://www.history.com/topics/vietnam-war&gt;.