Road Safety Campaign Analysis - Essay Example

Road Safety Campaign Analysis Name University Introduction This retrospect paper focuses on propaganda from the media on the factors that led to congestion and road carnage, the high number of accidents in Mauritius as stated in the article. In a capital city Fowdhur and Rughooputh aimed at remedying the congestion caused at Port Louis which is one of Mauritius’s biggest and active city. They found that in order to achieve this goal they had to reduce the number of cars entering the city and encourage use of buses (Fowdur and Rughooputh, 2012). In this case the aim is to focus on the effectiveness of the mass media on the project of enhancing safety on our roads which is purely propaganda from the media sources. The media provides information that may be regarded to as propaganda as it is biased and it is given to the public and is viewed from their perspective. The propaganda aims at influencing the people’s perspectives and motivate them to follow all the guidelines when it comes to road safety in terms of crossing roads, driving and speed limits. In this campaign the mass media houses, insurance companies, the government and the general public are involved in this campaign. Evaluation of these mass media campaigns is also measured in terms of its effectiveness in remedying the road users’ behavior (Varhelyi, 2015). The technique used here is multi-disciplinary evaluation of the menace following the traffic (Bryman, 2015). Essentially there should be a tight bond among the parties involved (Noah, 2012). The propaganda will affect the opinion of the people who read it and affect their perspective and at the same time influence how they go about things. In the article it is evident that the writer overlooked the fact that when all accidents take place under drivers whose vehicles are not insured the people affected are not compensated and the drivers are also not apprehended that caused the accident. The authorities attention is given but no actions from them have been noted the writer seems to insinuate that they are not making any efforts are being made to remedy the issue which might not be the actual case as they might be looking into it but not publicly. In the article the writer seems to edge on the fact that vehicles that are not in good condition are the major contributors to road accidents. In January 2012 more than 122 casualties in grisly accidents died in road accidents in Mauritius despite the fact that the quality of the roads is being improved day after day. Some of the factors leading to the accident is the presence of vehicles in the road that are not in good condition. The writer also argue that there is insufficient number of authorities and lack of funds to manage the high number of vehicles imported by the people of Mauritius and also considering that it is a very small island. The article implicates that the government should face the problem head on and solve it by laying out elaborate measures like forming an organization between the insurance companies and the ministry in charge of transport which would be a body like in other nations for instance the Motors Insurers Bureau. It would be aiming at compensating the people involved in accidents that involved vehicles that had no insurance policies or that were not properly insured. The reduction of the imports of the cars and the reduction of vehicles that are not roadworthy in the roads will lead to safer roads and less congestion if the public implement the opinions and views of the media imposed to them. The results gathered from the analysis shows that the public opinion was affected based on the information that they were fed by the media houses, therefore the information outsourced to the public by the media should be based on truth and facts so that they are not misguided and led into changing their opinions so as to subscribe to the media’s sentiments (Mullen & Klaehn, 2010). This arguments make sense since the import of vehicles in the country that is relatively small cause congestion in the country and strain the government resources when it tries to find ways of managing the traffic and finds it difficult due to the lack of inadequate resources. This are assumptions based on the results expected if the measures to reduce road accidents are forwarded. If the public put into consideration the views of the media and then this will see the reduction as far as traffic congestion is concerned and the number of traffic accidents will reduce as the number of vehicles will be less and hence the probability of an accident occurring to be low. The institutions offering this media services should avoid propaganda in the reports that they make and should avoid the acts of favoring one party more than the other. The propaganda was spread via the newspaper and television news live broadcasts since they were the most common and easily accessible by all the people. The media using this techniques will be assured that they will be able to reach the targeted audience in good time and hopefully the will follow the guidelines. The campaign is biased since it is mostly based on assumptions it is assumed that if the number of vehicles are reduced that are not road worthy, if all the vehicles are insured and that the vehicles imported should conform to the structures in the country this some form of restriction to the number of vehicles imported to the country therefore reduction in the number of vehicles that enter the country. The media being biased is when it omits some part of the truth and hides it from the people it is giving the information (Crawford et al, 2013). The campaign lays all the blame to the drivers, authorities and the insurance companies overlooking the fact that it could be the fault of the pedestrians and passengers as much as it is that of the government, insurance companies and reckless drivers. The campaign has discourage the citizens of the country from importing vehicles by setting up elaborate measures that will prevent them from wanting to import vehicles as they must meet the requirements needed to be met before its importation. In Ahmad Macky’s report on road safety measures in Mauritius he explains on the major causes of accidents in their country are caused by lack of proper insured cars and the negligence of those that fall victim in this incidence since they are not compensated due to the lack of insurance policies that cover them. The propaganda model is existing in the imagination based in the political economy that was put forward by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman to show how propaganda and systematic bias use in the media. It aims to show how the masses are influenced and how the approval of policies is made in the public mind because of the propaganda (Chomsky and Herman, 2002). This campaign is approached on the level that the authorities, government, insurance companies and the reckless drivers are to blame for the high number of accidents that occur. The government through the ministry of transport have been directed to the direction of creating a Motors Insurer kind of body that will cater for the compensation of the third parties who are involved in this tragedies that more times often than not are involved in accidents that not insured. This body will ensure that no one is left with the liability caused by them. The government has also set up elaborate measures that restrict the increased number of imported vehicles and if they are able to import them then they must meet the requirements and the vehicles must be compatible with the structures in Mauritius. The increased number of vehicles in the country has caused a major strain the systems where it has required the government to have to dig deeper in their pockets to deploy authorities to handle the traffic however the number of authorities available is not proportional to the number of vehicles which makes handling of them difficult and its management cumbersome. The main aim of this campaign was to create awareness and shed light to major problems in the transport systems that led to the cause of these accidents. Conclusion It is paramount for the media to be non-biased in the information that is to be sourced in the public. Because the trust bestowed to the public is high and whatever it says is believed to be true. In the case of the campaign on road safety the information given was based on the perspective of the writer and views pertaining the road safety issue in Mauritius. The information provided by the mass media should be open and transparent and should not be biased or one sided. In terms of the filter bubble the mass media may exclude some of the key players in the issue being faced through creating conflicting ideas and also provision of the same information time after time (Pownall, 2015). The mass media should not manipulate the audience perception leading them to think in accordance to the perception of the writers of the particular information (Aronczyk, 2013). Everybody is as much to blame for the cause of these accidents for the drivers is the lack of having insurance and reckless driving, for the pedestrians is lack of following the traffic rules, the government on the other hand is the lack of setting policies that regulate the importation of vehicles that cause congestion and difficult to control and finally the insurance lack of compensating the affected people in accidents involving cars that are not insured and allowing cars without insurance policies to be on the roads and even much more was cars that are not road worthy. More penalties should be inflicted on those drivers that are found driving without proper licensing (McNamara et al, 2013). The elderly should have their licenses revoked if they have health issues especially to do with eye sight. This will make them be more careful in the roads and have good insurance policies that cover them from accidents. It is the fault of the government in conjunction with the insurance companies for the lack of setting up an elaborate body of handling this compensation issues. References Aronczyk. M. (2013). The Propaganda Society: Promotional Culture and Politics in Global Context. Sage Journals Vol.15, No.1 pp. 151-153 Bryman, A. (2015). Social Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2015). Worldcat.pp.2 Chomsky, N. and Herman, E. ( 2002). A propaganda model. Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media. 2d ed. New York: Pantheon Books, pp.1-35. Crawford, J.T., Jussim, L., Cain, T.R. & Cohen, F. (2013). Right-wing Authoritarianism and Social Dominance Orientation Differentially Predict Biased Evaluations of Media Reports. Journal of Applied Social Psychology. Vol.43 Issue 1, pp. 163-174 Fowdur, C, S. and Rughooputh, D, D, V. (2012). Evaluation of Congestion Relief Proposals in a Capital City. Journal of Applied Mathematics Vol. 2012 Article ID 420195 pp. 13 Noah, M. (2012). Constructing narratives as a means of legitimizing political power: Contextualizing the Propaganda Model. International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies. Vol.6 No.1 pp. 97-116 Mullen, A & Klaehn, J (2010) The Herman–Chomsky Propaganda Model: A Critical Approach to Analyzing Mass Media Behavior Taylor& Francis Online Vol.3, Issue 2 pp. 317-320 McNamara, A., Chen, G. & Ratcliffe, J. (2013). Accident Analysis & Prevention: What factors influence older people in the decision to relinquish their driver’s license? A discrete choice experiment Vol.55 pp. 178-184 Science Direct Pownall, C. (2015) Managing Online Reputation: Palgrave Pocket Consultant’s pp. 52-69. Springer Varhelyi, A, (2015). Road and Safety Management- The need for a Systematic Approach. Journal of Local and Global Health Science, Vol.2015, ITMA Conference 2025, 112 Read More

These arguments make sense since the import of vehicles in a country that is relatively small causes congestion in the country and strain the government resources when it tries to find ways of managing the traffic and finds it difficult due to the lack of inadequate resources. These are assumptions based on the results expected if the measures to reduce road accidents are forwarded. If the public put into consideration the views of the media and then this will see the reduction as far as traffic congestion is concerned and the number of traffic accidents will reduce as the number of vehicles will be less and hence the probability of an accident occurring to below. The institutions offering these media services should avoid propaganda in the reports that they make and should avoid the acts of favoring one party more than the other. The propaganda was spread via the newspaper and television news live broadcasts since they were the most common and easily accessible by all the people.

The media using this technique will be assured that they will be able to reach the targeted audience in good time and hopefully they will follow the guidelines. The campaign is biased since it is mostly based on assumptions it is assumed that if the number of vehicles is reduced that are not roadworthy, if all the vehicles are insured and that the vehicles imported should conform to the structures in the country this some form of restriction to the number of vehicles imported to the country, therefore, reduction in the number of vehicles that enter the country. The media is biased is when it omits some part of the truth and hides it from the people it is giving the information (Crawford et al, 2013). The campaign lays all the blame on the drivers, authorities and the insurance companies overlooking the fact that it could be the fault of the pedestrians and passengers as much as it is that of the government, insurance companies and reckless drivers. The campaign has discouraged the citizens of the country from importing vehicles by setting up elaborate measures that will prevent them from wanting to import vehicles as they must meet the requirements needed to be met before its importation.

In Ahmad Macky’s report on road safety measures in Mauritius, he explains on the major causes of accidents in their country are caused by lack of proper insured cars and the negligence of those that fall victim to this incidence since they are not compensated due to the lack of insurance policies that cover them. The propaganda model is existing in the imagination based on the political economy that was put forward by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman to show how propaganda and systematic bias use in the media. It aims to show how the masses are influenced and how the approval of policies is made in the public mind because of the propaganda (Chomsky and Herman, 2002). This campaign is approached on the level that the authorities, government, insurance companies and reckless drivers are to blame for the high number of accidents that occur. The government through the ministry of transport has been directed to the direction of creating a Motors Insurer kind of body that will cater for the compensation of the third parties who are involved in these tragedies that more times often than not are involved in accidents that not insured. This body will ensure that no one is left with the liability caused by them. The government has also set up elaborate measures that restrict the increased number of imported vehicles and if they are able to import them then they must meet the requirements and the vehicles must be compatible with the structures in Mauritius.

The increased number of vehicles in the country has caused a major strain on the systems where it has required the government to have to dig deeper in their pockets to deploy authorities to handle the traffic however the number of authorities available is not proportional to the number of vehicles which makes the handling of the difficult and its management cumbersome.

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