Media Response - Research Paper Example

Human behavior is the integral aspect of life since it regulates social interaction with others and determines his or her belief thereby making one unique from another. In relation to the mass media effects, there is the fact that mass media creates public opinion. Mass media perform a number of function key among which is agenda setting. Under this, a trending topic in the mass media immediately becomes a topical issue on every street. Additionally, the media has the ability to influence the opinion of its audience on the topical issues in the public domain.

This makes the media the most powerful tool for spreading propaganda thereby intensifying the societal animosities. In his article, Said believes the Western media misrepresent Islam and Muslims. He also postulates that the media has established regulators who determine the media content and the western media has highly opinionated regulators who negate the faith through the spread of propaganda and hate media content. This has succeeded in developing a universal negative opinion against both the Islamic faith and Islamic countries (Said 42).

He finds a way of arguing his facts but then he also has to understand that a book is particularly one of the most effective media and the ideas in his book. This includes shaping attitudes towards or against the western media especially in the Islamic society. To analyze his claims more effectively, on March 25, 2013 the New York Times ran a news story titled the U.S concedes control, almost, on Afghan prisoners. In this story, the journalist reports the fact that the United States military is slowly but steadily relinquishing the control of the country to the Afghanistans.

One of the key steps towards that was the return of the Afghan prisons to the Afghanistan government. The reporter tries to remain integral in his report of the story articulating his facts clearly and corroborating most of his claims. Most of the prisoners are terrorists who had attempted or taken part in evident terrorist attacks. The journalist avoids the mention of Islam and does not refer to some of the world’s most notorious terrorist prisoners as Muslims, even though they are, but points them out as terrorist who had endangered the lives of many people who are both American and Afghans (Rod and Alissa 1).

The story is sensitive since Said in his book claims that the western media has succeeded in labeling Muslims as terrorists. This story is published in a western newspaper and talks about an Islamic state and the terrorist activities in the country. The journalist who seems aware of such claims avoids associating the story to Islam in any way and concentrates only on the fact that the United States government had decided to give back the control of the country to the natives of the land. The journalist points out the weak institutions in the country such as the lacking prison services not in a manner that discredits the country but because the fact is of public interest.

Terrorism is an international threat and some of the criminals in the story had served sentences at the Guantanamo bay and therefore require the most effective and sophisticated security system to restrain them from interacting with the society once again. It, thus, is in the public interest to know the fate and future of the prisoners especially now that the