Contemporary Issues in Media World

Media Imperialism
The idea that powerful and wealthy countries can exercise economic, cultural and social control over others through control of media industries.

The media coverage of the larger nations has been criticized as having blanket coverage of the world's events. Many think that media imperialism has led to biased information and inaccuracy within news stories. - (taken from week 7's lecture's note)



The Power of Nightmares: The Shadows In The Cave (Part 3)


This video has been showed to us during the lecture in week 7.

The Power of Nightmares is a BBC documentary produced by Adam Curtis. The films compare the rise of the Neo-Conservatives movement in the United States and the radical islam movement, making comparisons on their origins and claiming similarities between the two.

More controversially, it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—and particularly American Neo-Conservatives—in an attempt to unite and inspire their people following the failure of earlier, more utopian ideologies. (taken from wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares )

From what the documentary has showed to us regarding this issues, its very clear and obvious now that the tragedy of 9/11 was an inside job and there's a hidden conspiracy lies within.

This is surely an example of media imperialism. The so-called world leader is lying and fooling their own people and this is not the only big lie that they've made, there's a lot more that we didn't know or didn't ever think of. Some of us didn't notice of their lies and conspiracy. How can this happen? It's because they have a control over media. Let me give a simple example. Television. Some of us never realized that the news that have been spread through the TV might not be 100% trustworthy anymore. They will cover up the news so that it will make them look good and make the other side looks bad. This could not only be apply to news, but also other type of media such as cartoon, music, and also movie. Sometimes the representation used in the movie was totally differs from the real thing. They tried to poison people's thought through it with many things and of course the obvious one is about Muslim being a terrorist. Even before 9/11 they've made up such things and included them even in cartoons. Who's the viewer? Kids of course. They are trying to poison us starting from our kid's lifetime!

I'd like to quote this sentence which i find it's very interesting :

" It is our TV viewing that shapes our understanding of the world and ourselves. However, it is saturated with U.S. influence and media imperialism. How much television has affected our culture and sovereignty is yet to be seen. Only time will tell. " (taken from : TV & Media Imperialism By Catherine Woods)

The world leaders now might are up to something. Who knows. They made Islam and the Arabics looks bad. What i know is that the Arabic lands are rich of oil. They might be setting up a system which can benefits them and their voice of the system is, of course, "MEDIA". We are living in a world of deception. People were spoon-fed with lies and fantasy. The leaders use the word peace, war on terror just to gain authorities. They made it looks like they're trying to protect us while the real thing is uncover. Its like they are trying to blurred our eyes and blind us from the truth.

Here's a story i'd like to share. I've heard this story so many times but i couldn't memorise it. Luckily i've found it while googling about media imperialism. Cool!

" The 13th century Sufi teacher, Rumi, told a tale of a group of blind men trying to describe an elephant by touch alone. One felt the trunk and described it as a rope. Another felt the leg and described it as a tree while the third one felt the ear and described it as a fan. The point of the story was to show how the unenlightened may miss the truth of the whole : the elephant as coherent reality. " ( Cultural imperialism By John Tomlinson, American Council of Learned Societies )

Lastly, there's 1 more video i'd like to share. A very very interesting video to me. For me its a must watch documentary. Open your eyes widely~



What a shocking things to discover! After watching the videos, i did google it just like the creator of the video said and there are lots of information about it on the net. I have never ever before, not even once thought of this and i never expected it to be like this. How come i didn't know about this when the information is widely spread on the internet? Looks like i, myself too being deceived by what has been feed to me.

Personal Reflection :

I was so happy when our lecturer said the lectures will be short just in about 15 minutes :) ! But not anymore when she said we are going to watch an hour long documentary :( . But actually tha documentary was so interesting that i could concetrate watching it. But sometimes i do felt a bit boring because of not understanding what the people in the video were talking about. Now i begin to like this whole media thing because i can relate it to what happens around me. But when it comes to lectures, still i cant resist to not to sleep.. :p