State-Controlled Media: Different, Biased Versions on the Ukraine Crisis - Essay Example

As the Ukraine crisis unravels, people from different sides of the world rely on different news and information sources to understand what is happening. Some of them use state-sponsored media, or social media, or Western media, or all of the above, while others may be witnesses to these events themselves. The media, though used in the singular sense, is then actually far from being a monolithic entity. In the case of the Ukraine crisis, the media can be differentiated across every nation and region. Western media is composed of the United States and the European Union (EU), Ukraine and Russia have their own media monopolies, and every nation have their own social media users who support or criticize their governments and other governments. It is important to analyze the role of the media in depicting and shaping the Ukraine crisis because whoever controls the media affects what the media intends to affect- the ideology and behaviors of the civil society of each state and perceptions of the international public. Each state controls government-sponsored media for their own political and economic interests by promoting their official stories through framing the news and information which their supporters reinforce through social media reporting and all of them present issues and the news without further commenting on the incompleteness of these media reports and analyses and without promoting critical thinking for all audiences, thereby creating a misinformed public sphere. Western media is guilty of framing the Ukraine issue through familiar official stories that easily pit pro-Ukrainian versus pro-Russian with greater vilification against the latter because of the importance of maintaining a pro-Western ally in Ukraine. Many reports from the West describe Russia as the enemy that instigates unrest in Ukraine for its own political needs of re-claiming Eastern Europe away from the EU and the U.S. BBC’s “Ukraine in Maps” provides a simplistic view of the Ukraine issue. Because of what is happening in Ukraine, the West reports that Russia is taking advantage of the unrest to annex Crimea. The BBC reports: “The EU and U.S. condemned the ‘annexation’ of Crimea and imposed sanctions on Russian and Ukrainian officials” (“Ukraine in Maps”). The report frames the issue in ways that immediately place Russia as the enemy of Crimea, Ukraine, and the West, without fully providing details of what happened in Crimea and how it is connected to Ukraine. Vladimir Golstein of The Nation criticizes how Western media covers the Ukraine crisis. He undercuts the manipulation of facts by the media through the example of Western coverage on the burning of pro-Russians in Odessa: “the Western press dutifully refers to ‘the clashes between pro Ukrainian and pro-Russians,’ without any explanation as to why several dozen unarmed citizen of Ukraine were burned alive in an Odessa building” (Golstein). The Western media framing of the crisis serves to only over-simplify the issue by immediately showing compassion for the Ukrainian state and supporters and denigration for the Russian state. The impact is fanning the flames of old official narratives about evil, communist, authoritarian Russia and the benevolent, freedom-giving, democratic West. Aside from the West, the Ukrainian and Russian states and supporters also influence the media so that it will report a frame that benefits each of them in the eyes of the civil society because they want a public sphere that supports their political and economic interests. The BBC provides some information of what some of these basic economic interests are. The West has an economic interest in Ukraine that will be cemented through the loan they will provide to the latter: “With funds from other donors [from the International Monetary Fund (IMF)], including the EU, the total package will be worth £32.1bn” (“Ukraine in Maps”). Other economic interests are also political because it concerns energy needs. Ukraine imports majority of its gas and oil from Russia, while around one-third of Europe's gas also comes from Russia, where around half goes through Ukraine (“Ukraine in Maps”). Ukraine media benefits then from being more pro-West than pro-Russia because of the loan it needs to aid its struggling economy. Russia has a political interest in maintaining its leadership in the region. Golstein remarks on how Ukrainian and Russian media each approach their ideological perspectives. With interconnected or conflicting interests, it is not surprising that their media frame the Ukraine crisis for their own interests. Social media reinforces or contradicts state-sponsored media, but not always to improve the quality and quantity of information, but to replicate each group’s ideologies. Social media platforms are now used to mimic real-life socialization patterns and effects. In The Culture of Connectivity , Jose van Dijck asserts that social media is now complementing, if not at times, supplanting, “informal and ephemeral manifestations of social life” (6). While the upside of social media is that it can offer new sources of accurate news, the downside is that it can also be used as political propaganda for people who prefer to preserve their ideologies with regards to organizations or governments that they support. David Stern reports from the National Geographic that pro-Russians and pro-Ukrainian media, mostly social media, are framing news to support their own views. On the one hand, “Pro-Russians glossed over or denied that members of their contingent apparently shot at the pro-Ukrainians from behind police lines (as one video seems to suggest),” and, on the other hand, “the pro-Ukrainians have omitted important information as well. Their crowd was packed with far-right nationalists. They too were well armed and ready for a fight” (Stern). These reports indicate that social media is also being skewed for the purpose of manipulating the public sphere and generating a lop-sided public debate on the crisis. Connectivity is now being used to spread slanted news, where opinions and interpretations of images and information are mixed with what social media users believe as “facts” or “reality.” Social media and state-sponsored media work together in supporting their own ideology of beliefs about Ukraine and Russia. The media misrepresents the news by creating monolithic perspectives and disregarding transparency and not calling for critical, balanced thinking among the audiences. The media uses the public sphere to inform public opinion and actions. Manuel Castells argues that the public sphere is not only a space for public interaction, but a “cultural/informational repository of the ideas and projects that feed public debate” (79). The media do not promote critical thinking and openness in the public debate because every media has its own political motivations. In Social History of the Media, Asa Briggs and Peter Burke depict the history of the information age. As communication technologies evolved, media role in society changed too. Media no longer just broadcasts information in an objective manner, but slant, or skew, them to serve particular interests. In addition, Briggs and Burke stress that the civil society is now informatized because of how people can easily access information through the media. However, Briggs and Burke underscore that media has a developed a larger role in controlling information because of their control on its content and intentions. As a result, they argue that the media’s control of information has implications for power in the knowledge world: “[c]ontrol of information…would be the essence of wealth and power in the future” (Briggs and Burke 232). The Ukraine crisis is defined according to who controls the media. Catherine E. Shoichet of CNN reports from the West, but she, at least, accepts that the news says what its state wants. For every question, she answers it from the sides of Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. In doing so, she presents people different sides of the issue, though in summarized forms. Still, majority of the media overwhelming lacks the absence of accountability of how incomplete and potentially biased their news sources are. As a result, people who support either side can cherry pick whatever supports their opinions instead of inviting debate in the civil society of each nation and across the globe. Hence, the media, in its plural sense, frames the Ukraine issue along lines of official stories that each state wants to express in the public sphere, each of which lacking in objectivity and completeness, because of the prevailing ideologies that shape the interests of framed news. The role of media in the Ukraine crisis is not to report the news as it is, but to report the news to support particular ideologies. Whether it is the ideology of the West, Ukraine, or Russia, the media has become a means for political and economic preservation and promotion for each state. Civil society is left to analyze which parts of the news are true or accurate. The public sphere is now the motley of politically-and-economically-motivated news. Social media and connectivity, apparently, is not a refuge, but may even be a means for greater misinformation and propaganda. Hence, the Ukraine crisis proves that the media is far from being objective, but a means for national and international propaganda for particular economic and political interests. Works Cited Briggs, Asa, and Peter Burke. Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. 3rd ed. Malden, MA: Polity, 2009. Print. Castells, Manuel. “The New Public Sphere: Global Civil Society, Communication Networks, and Global Governance.” The Annals of the American Academy (2008): 78-86. Web. 24 May 2014. van Dijck, José. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford U P, 2013. Print. Golstein, Vladimir. “Western Media Coverage of the Ukraine Crisis Is as Distorted as Soviet Propaganda.” The Nation, 22 May 2014. Web. 24 May 2014. Shoichet, Catherine E. “Ukraine Crisis: What's Happening? Depends On Whom You Ask.” CNN, 4 Mar. 2014. Web. 24 May 2014. Stern, David. “The Twitter War: Social Media's Role in Ukraine Unrest.” National Geographic, 10 May 2014. Web. 24 May 2014. “Ukraine in Maps: How the Crisis Spread.” BBC News, 9 May 2014. Web. 24 May 2014. Read More