The world is in chaos. Not really, but it appears to be because we are served huge buffets of conflict each day on our screen and palm and blue-teeth plates. All-you-can-eat misery served fresh daily over thousands of channels, by millions of people – people crying out in a cacophony of competition for the hottest headline – the most tantalizing tagline. Independent storytellers distribute audio and video feeds of scenes that were unheard and unseen years ago. Bloggers blog voraciously about the injustices occurring on the world stage; a venue that was until recently discretely dissected into community theatres, playing to local audiences.
Our appetite for disaster is insatiable. As a result, our media menus are full of the horrors – horrors that do indeed exist, but no more so than they did 20, 50 or 100 years ago. In actuality, there are many periods in our history, prior to the technological revolution (a revolution of another sort!) when there were more conflicts occuring than there are currently in the world.
Of course, it seems much worse today, because we are force-fed the play-by-play continually with breaking news, daily discussions and minute-by-minute feeds constantly besieging us with the bombs and the hurricanes and the strikes and the threats and the general unrest that stirs, now sensationally around the globe. At times, it seems that the universe is imploding. The globe is warming, the disease is spreading, the ozone is depleting, the people are revolting, the wars are raging and the storms are sweeping – all in Biblical proportion – and all available at a click, at any minute every day.
Imagine if positive press content was broadcast so incessantly across these same channels. Imagine if we were as inundated with reminders and reports about love and trust and good will and hope. Imagine if the countless stories about people sharing and caring and doing wonderful things for strangers and contributing to the common good of this world were ingested by us as often. What if air time was given to those who engaged in charity instead of crime – to humanitarianism instead of conflict? What if we lifted spirits instead of dashing them? Is there a brighter side to life? I imagine that it’s just a matter of perspective, isn’t it?
tags: conflict perspective propoganda media
Tom
In General i can say that there are a lot of propaganda of not so good things. And lack of good signal i can explain by one thing – it’s hard to make money on this. The other thing is that conflict content intrigues people much more. It’s like instinct.