Impact of Media

Besem Etta - Ashu
First Blog - Media
September 11, 2019

                                                         IMPACT OF MEDIA

Media is a platform which serves as a means of communication amongst people worldwide.
People get to share their goals, accomplishments, successes as well as devasting issues and unbelievable events that occur in hopes of making an awareness. Through the use of media, every single person's voice can be heard because someone will see their post and most likely repost it depending on the message they received. There was a video I found on Instagram of a small Hispanic girl crying because her parents have been deported and they were all she had. Tears running down her cheeks and her voice full of so much pain, she desperately begs the government to have mercy on her parents. Since I do not have the power to bring her parents back as well as all the other parents who have been separated from their children, I decided to share that post on my story to make awareness. Everyone who saw my story began to repost the post on their own page, and everyone who saw their post began reposting the story as well. Media gives me the power to voice my opinion on critical issues that are occurring in my community and in the world in the hopes of making a change.

When I watch the news on CNN, I only get information on what happened, but no one's response or perspective to an incident that occurs. CNN only addresses issues that are happening in the United States or issues that are related to the United States like the Isis and Korea complicated relationship with America. CNN does not address the mass shootings or sexual assaults which are constantly occurring in other continents. Media provides varieties of news from around the world, giving each country a chance to be heard and provided the support they need. While looking through Instagram, I saw a post about massive rape that occurred in the Central Africa Republic, Bossangoa. Several women were abducted by soldiers and taken to a camp were they constantly suffered the pain and agony of being raped over and over again. Unfortunately, these women were not saved in time to receive the medication to prevent HIV or any other sexually transmitted diseases. When I go on Instagram (media), I do not only get to read about the whole story but I also get a chance to watch videos and see pictures of victims whose lives have been brutally destroyed by these horrific situations.

The power of the use of media can be both a positive as well as a negative thing. Media can be positive in the sense that media provides a means of people uplifting each other and addresses issues that are happening to cause awareness. On the other hand, media can be negative because it does cover acts of resistances, protests, and activism. Media sometimes hides the truth of protest making the reality of the protest seem more of angry people movement than movement for equality, social rights, and racism or any other movement that falls in that category. When groups of people in the community are lacking a sense of power, they tend to go on media to make awareness to advocate for a change but depending on what the protest is about, media decides on whether to keep the post up or delete it from the view of the rest of the world.

An example of media hiding the truth of protest and acts of resistance is when a white boy goes over to a black community and massacres a massive amount of black people there and yet, he is identified as having a mental problem. There are several incidents in which white males take advantages of their privilege of being white to brutally destroy the black and Hispanic communities. The incident of the Charleston church shooter, of a male white who killed nine black innocent people and injured several more, was not classified as an act of racial movement against the black community. Media did not address this move as an act of racism yet it was. On the other hand, several innocent black males are put in jail for years and years for a crime they never committed. The lives of blacks and Hispanics are constantly being threatened. Black males are constantly being abused by police officers who are ironically supposed to protect everyone, and Hispanics are being deported for who they are. This is all an act of racial discrimination that the media denies to admit but yet everyone knows it is true including the media.