Fear stalks nation
BUT MEDIA EXPOSES AND RESISTS RISING VIOLENCE
SOUTH African society is becoming more and more violent.
Experts are grappling with this issue, trying to pinpoint the reason for our precipitous decline.
Children are raping children. Grannies are being raped by their grandchildren.
Women are battered and murdered, and robberies here are among the most violent in the world.
We are even being referred to as the crime capital of the world. Why is this so?
Not surprisingly, the media is blamed for much of this.
We have been accused of publishing content that influences people’s behaviour negatively.
There is, so the argument goes, a uniformity in people’s response to published information.
Our exposure to various stimuli is common, and we are told that the consequences of what we publish will predictably result in a common response from society.
This is clearly a flawed argument. No event is seen in the same manner by everybody, nor do we hear messages the same way. In addition to all this, it is assumed that people have no control over their reactions to any of the stimuli generated by published information. News, whether good or bad, affects us differently.
Newspapers will carry reports about corruption, and even the consequences of such corruption.
We have seen the fall of mighty policemen, politicians and business people. Our reports cannot, therefore, be seen as corrupting society.
On the contrary, most right-thinking people see our reports as playing a critical role in preaching that crime does not pay, and many will praise the media for helping bring crooked politicians and businessmen to book.
Questions arise as to whether movies or television do not result in young people copying actions depicted in those mediums.
They point to the fact that young children play cops and robbers, they imitate driving cars, they imitate actions by movie characters like Spiderman and Ben Ten.
Surely, the argument goes, these must also influence their personalities, development and their individual learning and culture?
However, even in this, there is clearly no uniform response to these exposures.
There will, undoubtedly, be negative effects on some children, but there are other influences all around them that could just as well be responsible for their behaviour.
Crime has become so common that it is no longer considered shameful to be arrested and sent to jail.
Criminals are idolised and often become role models. Sexual violence is common.
The media is not a uniform structure either. The impact that television has on society is much greater because of its visual power. Television has what one writer called unintentional learning or emotional influence.
The power of mass commu- nication was demonstrated in the days before television became popular, by radio.
In 1938, Orson Welles created an adaptation of a science fiction novel by HG Wells for radio, The War of the Worlds.
The broadcast stated that creatures from Mars had invaded the United States and killed millions of people. People were terrified.
Others made confessions of their sins to make peace with God. Running away, they believed, was hopeless, so they decide they might as well die in their homes. Welles had no intention of creating panic.
He assumed that people would recognise his radio play as a work of fiction. The lesson learnt from this is that mass communication can be powerful. But it also taught the media to consider very seriously the impact of any information they might publish.
Today, even the most extreme April Fools’ jokes would not suggest anything that could create panic, and so the media refrains from such creations.
Does the media carry the power that the government believes it does, to the extent that we need laws to govern what we publish?
Once more, the assumption that whole groups, or communities, can be influenced by a news report to do something, or refrain from doing something, is challenged.
The media is blamed for the sorry state of the nation. The media is blamed for the high crime rate.
The media is accused of bias by omission, which is perhaps the most common accusation by those in power. Communities, also, are socialised in what is termed the “lying media environment”.
Clearly, if the media has to play its role in exposing corruption, and ensuring that the moral fibre of our society remains intact, and keeping a watchdog role over those we elect into power, then there will be people who will feel aggrieved.
There will also be those interested parties who will suffer the secondary fallout, who will also blame the media for their condition. This suggests a selectivity on the part of critics.
Blaming the messenger is as old as time itself. But what this does is to challenge the media to strive even more towards excellence and accuracy in their reporting.
Any mistake will be grist to the anti-media mill, and so a great burden of responsibility has fallen upon journalists, made more severe by the onslaught against media freedom.
Readers can e-mail the Public Editor at latakgomoj@avusa.co.za to log concerns, complaints or issues, fax 011-280-5151 or phone 011-280-5112