Dissertation

Influence of Media

Influence of Media

Media has a very important role in today's world. Media has potential to influence our lives as it affects the society. Media communicate with the whole society that includes people with different background and different cultures so it is possible that there is a conflict of opinion among the member of society relating to the news reported in media. There are different types of media that includes brochures, newsletters, magazines, press releases, radio, television and internet. The media channels such as CNN and BBC have global audience. Therefore, these two main stream channels affect the sentiments of masses around the globe. It is fact that the west population is more attached to these channels and makes opinion on the basis of the information that these channels present (Stone, 2011, pp. 260).

In the context of Syria crisis, the role of media is very significant because media has used nine years old photo of dead Iraqi children to manipulate the sentiments. The media did propaganda on the basis of that photo. The analysis of literature review also showed that the media creates hype by false reporting and misrepresentation of the facts. As stated earlier, the photo of five hundred dead bodies that the media widely used was a distortion of facts because that scene was actually created to transmit the false news. This shows that the media is biased and work on predefined plans. Therefore, media created wrong information and perception about different situation which induced violence in public in extreme conditions. It needs planning to dig out 500 dead bodies from mass graves from a far distant place. The usage of nine years old photo of dead Iraqi children influenced the public opinion against Syrian government to very high extend (Blasco & Sobbrio, 2012, pp. 437).

The research also showed that there is a great link between the use of photo and propaganda battle. The objective of that photo was to create extreme situation and violence in public. In order to attract general public, media used to create unnecessary sensationalism in general public. The media also gave unnecessary coverage to that photo which made the public sentiments against Syria. This misrepresentation has affected the reputation of Syria in negative terms. Media used to report news without any authentication and its gives freedom to media to report false and biased news. The media has shown full biasness by using that photo because it was authenticated. The news (pictorial or text) that media report must be authenticated by a reliable resource. This has been seen widely that media use to display pictures without any authentication. The ignorance of authentication by media shows that the media wants to attract the audience by any mean. It is in the media's jurisdiction to prepare biased report to influence the mind of target audience. It also affects how individual perceive things and end up in misleading public opinion (Bernhardt et.al, 2008, pp.1101).

The facts that were unfolded in this research showed that ...