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Are the media now more influential than we think?


In my first post, now six weeks ago, I talked of the relationship between politicians and the media, and how they dictate each other so much on the surface, yet still work together to form a perhaps disillusioning picture of the state of our world – in our minds at least.

And it is only now that I have come to realise, after an acute conversation with my dad, that this problem stretches so much deeper and it lies solely within the issue of media coverage.
If you come to look at the history of print newspapers and our exposure to them, in terms of many political scandals, you will see that in the mid to late 20th century in the West alone, there were few major political scandals that were revealed so drastically.

The attempted faked suicide of John Stonehouse in 1974 was one of the most major of the decade at the time in this country. The Labour MP attempted to fake his own death by leaving a pile of his clothes on a beach in Miami, and tributes and obituaries were published – even without a corpse found. Using his new false identities, he deposited large sums of cash in offshore banks, attempting to avoid tax, but was caught red-handed in New Zealand by a teller who recognised him as another of his false identities, and he was subsequently outed publicly.
The issue of tax evasion nowadays is very prevalent in our society, particularly towards the rich. But the beauty of this example is that it shows that attempted deceit like this did still exist 40 years ago, in the same way as it does now. It is highly likely that there is just as much crime by politicians now as there was then, but their fate is decided by the power of the media.

In the age of constant social media currently, it is impossible for any politician to do something similar to Stonehouse. For there is simply too much coverage of their actions and people would know about it all in a heartbeat.
This leads onto the main topic, has the influence from media sources unto the life of politicians gone a step too far?

Back in the time of the Stonehouse incident it was the complete opposite.
Clearly politicians had more licence to bend the truth because there was little likeliness of being caught. This doesn’t just go for things as serious or major as faking your own death, but simply lies that are exposed, false promises and policies etc. They knew that there was no way for the British public to get hold of those, and in that regard, it was very beneficial for them.

Whereas now it seems the media have a stranglehold over the politicians who once manipulated them. It is possible these days for us to hear about news instantly and we can access it from a variety of news sources, this obviously increases the likeliness of their exposure.
Yet, as I mentioned weeks back, politicians now have to lie because anything bad that they do admit to will also be plastered all over the tabloids – it is a lose-lose situation.

And the idealistic ‘line’ between the two has just been trodden over, so to speak.
It is clear that the cause of this emanates in the media – there are always some corrupt politicians, that happens in every profession regrettably. And it is sad to see it is like this.

People rely on media sources more than we think, with social media these sources are embedded into our daily lives. Even my writing of this right now – that owes a lot for the power of social media and technology advances.
And when mainstream media outlets attack politicians (and others) so vociferously, with their undeniable influence around the globe instantly, aren’t we just being fed a viewpoint of theirs, rather than lies from the politicians etc?

We often underestimate this too. After all, here in the West the only countries with much censorship of press are those suffering under dictatorial governments, Russia is perhaps one we always point towards.
It is worth thinking about, because the moguls that control these papers undoubtedly have too much influence on us. In some ways, that is worse than lying politicians, at least they have some expertise on matters.

Yet it is almost unescapable in my eyes. Through ignorance of the power of the media, we have allowed them to dictate our lives.
The first step to creating a clearer picture on political, social, economic and military affairs, is to recognise this concept.

Easier said than done though, hey?



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