Reflections on “Inside the News Media”
With the semester finally coming to an end, it is time to share my thoughts on the course. In some ways, it was rather different from other courses I’ve taken so far, most of all because of the writing assignment (and the blissful absence of a final exam), enabling us to truly share our thoughts with each other, and write a little outside the confines of academic writing — which I initially found quite hard, actually.
In general, I find this class covered a pretty important topic, and the way in which it was taught provoked thought and, despite the early hour it took place, also some argument. Many people go through life believing what the telly or the papers say is the truth, and alternating views not covered by the mainstream media are therefore necessarily false — getting a glimpse beyond the veil of authoritative and deceptive presentations of news outlets in order to learn something about the mechanisms and spheres of influence, and especially the benefactors of news could prove quite useful to all. If we all agree that information is the foundation for an opinion, challenging said information and one’s own bias through scrutiny of the news media grants the formation of a well-informed opinion which is less shaped by your own ignorance.
Most importantly, it is nice that there was no final statement on what news or the news media are — it is left to us to decide what we make of it. Having questioned the validity of media sources and presentation for some time myself, and always having looked for confirmation as well as differing views, I have come to the realisation that the media are not really more than efficient propaganda machines — whether they want to or not. Since it’s impossible to write or show anything without an idea on how to set up the news item beforehand, it is inevitable that media are trying to shape your opinion a certain way, and thus create your reality. The sad fact is that it takes a multitude of media from different regions of the earth, possibly in different languages, to get an objective overview over the goings-on in the world.
In closing, I think this course has further showed to keep an open mind about how things function and to always scrutinise what you read, as well as your preconceived opinions on subjects.
