I believe that the media has such a large impact on the opinion of the public; so much so that the public opinion is equivalent to that of the media. The media do this by picking what information they wish in order to manipulate the public perception. They use phrases such as “we are hearing reports,” meaning that they have heard rumors, but are not able to verify them yet. Using phrases like that one, as well as using other manipulation techniques, the media sways people’s opinions to believe what the media wants them to believe. The terror attack in Nice, France shows how the media doesn’t always use ambiguous phrases to give broad ideas, however it is an example of how people value Western lives over others.
The media uses phrases that have ambiguous meanings so multiple interpretations can appear. The term “boots on the ground” is used occasionally to represent a stage of war that is not completely clear. When people say that they don’t want American lives at risk and American boots on the ground, that can have multiple meanings. One meaning could be active combat. “Boots on the ground” could refer to all types of combat, so by saying that someone doesn’t want “boots on the ground” could mean that they want to avoid all combat. There is some wiggle room in this meaning, however. Supporting any side of a combat is not technically the same as being at war, but it still leads to conflict resulting from our involvement. Another interpretation of the phrase “boots on the ground” could mean that they don’t want strictly ground personnel involvement. The United States has tried to keep American boots of the ground in Syria, however, they have run massive bombing campaigns.
In this instance, the media seemingly didn’t use these types of phrases. I couldn’t find any articles that made any assumptions about the context of the attack, including the religion or ethnicity of the attacker. All of the articles that I found say that ISIS is taking credit for the attack, but there is no mention as to whether or not the attacker was Muslim, which would spread Islamophobic ideas.
This attack does show, however, the value of Western lives over the lives of others. There has been so much more coverage on this and the Paris attack than on other terrorist attacks that happened to occur in the Middle East. Prior to the Paris attacks, there was a terror attack in Beirut that killed 40 people, but the media barely talked about the attack. This shows that they care more about the lives of Western people than others. This may be because a terrorist attack is almost expected in the Middle East, which is a sad reality. The fact that people don’t notice as much just because terrorist attacks happen so often really is a realization of how violent the world is.
Another reason why Western lives are valued more could be because of the familiarity. At least in Western society, the ideas and culture associated with the West is familiar. People tend to be more sympathetic with situations that they are familiar with or that they can relate with. In the Middle East, the culture is so different that people don’t care as much.
The attacks in Nice, France show that the media can make good choices in how it displays the issue at hand. There were no assumptions made beforehand, so no immediate hatred can be produced without facts. However, the attacks do show that the media do show more about tragedies in the West than any other place. Whether it be because of the lack familiarity with the audience or the expectation of terror attacks in the Middle East, there is still an unreasonable value placed on Western lives over others.
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