Guțu Eva, XI A
In the past decades, individuals had easier and quicker access to the media, and correspondingly its influence grew considerably. Additionally, however, the amount of false information also underwent an extensive increment, thus resulting in a deleterious media manipulation that led, and will continue leading to mass deception, unless society becomes aware of the eminent need for media literacy.
Hence the media is one of modern’s society main sources of information and offers easy access to the public, one must not exclude the fact that these do not always present guaranteed accuracy and truthfulness. Therefore, we can discuss about pernicious conspiracies, political and financial gain, propaganda and even disabling of one’s discernment to a certain extent. Mass manipulation is one of the easiest to achieve, through influencers, advertisements of all sorts and mainly focusing on the ignorance or sometimes the gullibility of the target audience. By providing false or incomplete information, lacking factual evidence, and using over dramatization, are only a few means through which the media manages to persuade and deceive society with great ease.
It Is also no shock to anyone that the media does not always depict the full picture preferring to transmit a favorable message from only one point of view. And as there are always two sides to a coin, the media is no longer politically correct or fair from any perspective.
Furthermore, such an example can be found within the well-known scandal induced by George Floyd’s death in 2020, in which, when digging deeper into the subject one notices that the rise of BLM protests increased not only in frequency, but also in violence. Aspects determined by an incomplete story that unfortunately capitulated in tragic events such as increased percentages as far as homicides are concerned, trained activists, easily reassured by the promise of “we will bail you out”, and ultimately somewhat of detrimental anarchism. The same sort of media manipulation can be identified in the present day, throughout the current war between Russia and Ukraine. However, this situation differs, hence aside from the Kremlin that keeps strongly affirming and imposing their propaganda within its borders, numerous newspapers from countries that have no direct link to the situation, keep going off the deep end at the slightest possibilities and opportunities to start and further spread all sorts of rumours about Russia, its troops and Putin himself. These, although not always providing factual evidence, are easier, and more likely to be believed without devoting much effort to determine whether it even sounds plausible or not.
Consequently, media literacy is of tremendous importance thus, all individuals shall implement it and embolden others to do the same in order to avoid misinformation, not falling prey to the vast masses of this deservingness and pursue to use their critical thinking ability freely and efficiently. It is also salient to comprehend that even while images are sometimes easier to trust than plain words or statements, convincing fakes are easier to create than conveying an accurate picture.