Fabricated Media and How Can It Be Solved - Coursework Example

Fabricated Media: the Problem and Solution Taher Al-Najar ENG 204, Section 11 Lily Mabura December 22nd, Media has a great influence on people’s behaviour. It can implant love between people, or create hatred against each other. Nowadays, some media outlets have become biased in an obvious way. Most of the news has become corrupted. To solve this problem, three methods were studied. And one of them was chosen to be the most suitable method to solve this problem. This method is stating rules and punishments by the government, and punishing whoever breaks them, while the other two methods were not helpful because they are difficult to apply. Fabricated Media: The Problem and Solution During the last fifteen years, the world became a small global village due to the wild spreading of communication and many space channels. But unfortunately, it became a destructive tool that affects earth more than what the nuclear and chemical weapons does. [delete – repeated below] Scientists found out that they could use media to change opinions, create hatred, motivate and influence people with anything that they want. It is too simple for them to just spread the idea, or in other words the message, through TV channels whether as an advertisement between interesting shows or on the news during hot events such as wars or elections. They make it seem as an indirect message that will be received by their targeted audience so that they will have the response that they-the media channels- want to achieve. [delete – not necessary] Media could easily manipulate the opinions driving them [of people driving them] to think and act according to what is appropriate according to the media channels, and what benefits them. Thus, the receivers of the messages will start getting convinced and will obey the indirect orders they are receiving, therefore those biased media channels will achieve their goal. Not all receivers are aware of what will be the consequences of acting upon the orders they are receiving, and to what extent it could be harmful. Here shows the main threat, when an individual harms another innocent individual without being aware of what he/she is doing, without understanding their actions, without keeping in mind that there may be negative effects of his/her actions or opinions that are imposed on them indirectly. Unfortunately, this is where the world arrived, to replacing what is helpful for other to what is beneficial for us! This is where even if a country hundred miles away, still it can be harmed by a manipulated mind who can and will manipulate other minds by the idea or the frame he received from a media channel or several channels. [verbosity – delete] [Interesting image; cite and list in references.] [Good effort with introduction and presentation of problem; you, however, need to ground the reader in place/locality. Are you discussing media bias globally or in a specific region/country? I would recommend narrowing down to region/country.] The main problem is how media plays an important role in persuading people and leading them to misperceptions. As media entails great influences on the behaviour and the mentality of adults and teens in different ways. The most effective technique in changing the receiver’s way of thinking is by targeting people through what interests them, and then broadcast false, misleading and biased information about the second opposed party (Samson, 2009). In turns, they control the receiver’s minds and direct it in the way that suits the saboteurs. The main goal for those vandals is to destroy communities and set them apart from each other, whether on individual basis or an entire country. And to make that happen, they have to destroy the way of perceiving the message at the first step. This problem is widely scattered all over the world, and as mentioned before, it shows up in sensitive situations. Situations in which the vandals find it the right time to inject the toxic thoughts. That happens through touching the emotions of people and turning them to harmful thoughts and actions, that makes them believe in anything they receive. Emotions have different categories according to people. For some people, religious issues are their weak points. For example, when a new flash appears on TV saying that a Jew has bombed a car in Lebanon, this will create hatred towards Jews, although the main could be false. Another emotional category that affects people’s view is the fabricated news, which illustrates the oppressed ones as an iniquitous and vice versa. Moreover, an effective method of inserting the corrupted information or ideas is by injecting them through cartoons and kids movies. That builds up hatred by the time those children grow up. This strategy had been used in the late 90’s, and by the time it is getting worse. Since it costs less than any other method of destruction, those vandals that works on it became experienced in what they are doing (Fabricated media reports hamper budget implementation). They started fabricating scenes and videos to make a message appeals as if it is true and convincing. Not only that, but they knew what turns people in terms of hatred against each other, so they have been fabricating news depending on who they want to target and against who. As what happened in the September 11 incident, when rumors about Jews responsibility in bombing the trade centers were passed on news and it was believed. “The allegations apparently originated on Al Manar, the TV channel of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamic party, not long after the 9/11. Once the ugly rumor hit the Internet, it found dedicated converts throughout the fundamentalist world.” Said Mariane Pearl (2003) in her book A Mighty heart. (p.29). This shows how hatred was planted in the hearts of the people who murdered her husband. Just because he was a Jew and a rumor was broadcasted about Jews, Danny had to pay for it. [From the above discussion, you might consider focusing on media bias in the Middle East/Islamic World or in the USA. In both situations, you can refer/keep Pearl as a source. High-order revision needed as well as attention to low-order concerns once this is done.] This problem had not been solved before for several reasons. For instance, it is hard nowadays to determine the corrupted news from the true news. Also, because as mentioned before, those channels plays with emotions, so as they view an event with a fabricated news about the responsibility of the one who did it or the reason for doing it, it will become hard to fix what they have done. Because those spectators will believe directly and without even thinking twice whether what they have seen is true or not, it will be also hard to control them and to fix the ideas they have received (Hodges, 2012). Obviously, the significance of this problem is very high and risky. For, it might lead to a civil war in a country, create religious hatred, and also, it might and can cause nations to hate each other which are considered as a negative consequence of the problem. The last method that could be used to cut down the media lies is to post punishments and to take a serious action with the channels that disobey the listed rules. Such rules must be powerful in many terms. And the punishments have to be clear and have to show that the government is really concerned about the issue and that there will be no toleration with whoever breaks the rules. The punishments must be strict so that it stops those channels from moving on with their intentions. Punishments must be through detentions which are by stopping the channel from broadcasting for few days, or by paying substantial fines, and in captivity if it was necessary. Those sanctions should be issued depending on the amount of problems the channel cause and depending on the circumstances that are going on and on what consequences they might lead to. This way might also help in solving this problem, depending on how serious the government is. On the other hand, the method of restricting the number of TV channel seems not easy to apply. Because of the number of news channel these days, it will cost a lot of money to convince the owners of them to shut down. Since the government have to recompense them on what they will lose after they quit their business. Also, if the government tried to own these channels and be the only transmitter for news, people will disagree with it, because they will know that the government is only going broadcast what benefits it (Fabricated Articles from Alternative Media Without Censorship?). This in turns will create a media dictatorship, which will create an international debate, since everyone is seeking for freedom nowadays. And apparently, countries with freedom of news seems to have more corruption than rest of the countries that govern news as mentioned in an online journal article. (Costa, 2012) .As a result of those consequences, the third method appears to be useless in fixing this problem which leaves us with the last method that I think it is the best approach. As mentioned previously, the last method which is applying policies and punishments to whomever tries to fake the news or their sources seems to be the best approach in solving the problem. Because it is this method is supposed to be definitive as it is applied by the government. The last method which is about implementing rules and punishments on whoever breaks them by broadcasting fake news is the best solution for fixing that problem in my opinion. That is because; people nowadays are scared from punishments more than anything else. And if the method applied was by the government seriously and without any tolerance, the amount of fabricated news will decrease too much. It is known that when encountering a behavior leads to a fine, that behavior will be stopped. For example, car speeding fines and policies that are forced by the police reduce the amount of cares speeding, because the drivers are not willing or able to pay that fine. Same with TV channels owners, if they were forced to pay fines they for any lie they broadcast, they will not lie and fabricate news at all. Also, when the punishment reaches to be imprisonment, owners of such channels will be worried about their reputation and their channel’s too. So, this will lead them to quit what they are practicing. That is why; I believe this is the most effective solution to solve the media fabrication problem. Because it is easy to apply, this method will show improvement in the quality of news by the time. The solution will not gain positive results at the beginning. It will start gaining positive results when it is applied on one of the channels. Then the rest will know that this solution was not a joke. By then, this solution will be the best solution and will show good influence on news. And thus, it will decrease the amount of hatred among people’s hearts, for they have everything clearly viewed. There were many obvious solutions to solve this significant problem, but unfortunately, they all seemed to fail. One of these solutions is to block the signal on those channels, but it is hard to do so. That is, because those channels are spreading all over the satellites and it is hard to control them. Moreover, those channels started streaming on the internet, which makes it harder and harder to control them. Another solution is to make it hard to open a channel. But this method did not work too, because there are many satellites that are owned by different people who do not usually agree together. So, if a channel was not allowed to broadcast from a certain satellite it will find another one. And one more time, internet is still there to help in spreading those rumours. There are many solutions that can be entailed to recover this problem and to put media on the right track again. The track in which everything is transparent and all the news is transferred without any fabrication. And to get into this position, governments have the most important role to encounter. [Delete – the above material is mainly part of journaling/brainstorming. Read sample paper for tips on how to the research paper should flow. Draft a topic sentence positioning the following solutions as alternative solutions.] One solution is to increase awareness among people that is by telling people what to believe and what not to. Another solution is to restrict the number of new TV channels that is by making it hard to own a channel. The first solution that can be applied is mainly about making people aware of the current situations through channels that are approved by the government. In such situation, governments have to create its own channels so that they can monitor everything that is transmitted to people. In this case, everything will be passed on have to be approved by the government, and the risk of having corrupted information will be decreased by a huge amount. Another thing governments can do is to deal with channels that they think are credible and will not cause any confusion. Another thing is to cooperating with channels that are approved by other countries, since they are supposed to be credible in their country. Also to raise awareness, governments have to try to calm down people as much as they can, through showing them the problems and trying to make them feel that everything will be corrected. This helps in delivering the news to people without creating hatred in their hearts. The second alternative method is to restrict the number of TV news channels so that people do not get confused. Governments can do that by limiting the methods of joining the media market, and by decreasing the resources that will help in setting channels up. And also, by making it expensive to own a TV channel, it will be hard on those who want to destroy the people’s ideology to get their news broadcasted. So, the only TV channels that are allowed then will be under government’s control, since they were approved and allowed by the government to broadcast. This in turns will help in decreasing the amount of fabricated news that will harm people. Therefore, less hatred will be generated as news is transmitted with complete honesty. Thus, might be counted as an effective method in the detraction of corrupted news. Anyhow, two of the three solutions that were mentioned above and are considered as good solutions to solve the problems, seem to be not, because they are not easy to apply. For instance, the first method is not a good approach because it is not easy to raise awareness to an entire country and assure that people will understand the situation. That is because it is extremely impossible on the government to persuade the entire population in their country to accept their methodology in believing in what the government will say. Moreover, if the government approved a certain channels to be watched by people, still those channels will be easily bribed by external forces who aim to have corrupted news broadcasted, and whose target is to destroy communities and create hatred. Also, the websites of those channels can be easily hacked and have the corrupted information posted on their web pages. Therefore, this method does not really help in fixing the problem. [Good effort outlining both alternative solutions; you, however, need stronger rebuttals. You should also use at least one outside research source for each alternative solution.] To sum up, news nowadays plays an important role in influencing the behaviour of people. And as it is known, most of the news that is transmitted by the media is corrupted and fabricated for the benefit of unknown non-human organizations. I mean by it, the organizations who seeks for their own benefits without caring for any consequences that their behavior might lead to. And to fix this problem, there are many solutions. But unfortunately, those solutions are either hard to apply or they will be useless. For instance, the only best solutions that will stop this issue from reoccurring again it to punish whoever is responsible for such confusions. And hopefully by this method, the media will not be biased anymore and the news will be announced honestly. This will lead to less confusion between people, thus, people will not hate each other for no reason. [Please reconsider conclusion after revision and edit entire essay for low-order concerns as well.] References Costa, S. (2012, May 18). Do freedom of information laws decrease corruption? Retrieved from http://jleo.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/05/13/jleo.ews016.full Pearl, M. , & Crichton, S. (2003). A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl. New York: Scribner. Samson, Alan Michael. (2009). Plagiarism and fabrication: Dishonesty in the newsroom. Available at http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/fms/Colleges/College%20of%20Business/Communication%20and%20Journalism/Staff/Staff%20research%20files/ASamson/Plagiarism%20thesis.pdf Fabricated media reports hamper budget implementation: Abul. Available at http://unbconnect.com/component/news/task-show/id-79229 Quill, Greg. (2012). Plagiarism and fabrication charges undermine news media credibility. Available at http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/books/article/1238375--plagiarism-and-fabrication-charges-undermine-news-media-credibility Hodges, Philip. (2012). Liberal Media Fabricate Another ‘Scandal’. Available at http://godfatherpolitics.com/6385/liberal-media-fabricate-another-scandal/ Fabricated Articles from Alternative Media Without Censorship? (2012). Available at http://sgmoderateobserver.blogspot.com/2012/07/fabricated-articles-from-alternative.html [You need at least 8 outside sources for this research paper. Please take it more seriously.] Read More