May 11, 2021 Reflection

 

International disputes and media manipulation are problems we face in the current world engendering casualties and conflicts between countries. Today, we scrutinized the Israel and Palestinians' territorial quarrel. We learned that the origin of the fight started because the unassailable countries such as the UK and US supported the Jewish refugees to move into the Palestine territory and continued to support and suppress the Palestinian government. Because the United States and United Kingdom government supported the Jewish and were in favor of them taking over the land, the news was manipulated in a way to encourage the Jews and chastise the Muslims. At first glance, it may seem obvious that these kinds of manipulation are inappropriate and disgraceful for a company that epitomizes telling the truth to the viewers, but this may sound like a devil's advocate, but I find it quite scintillating and clever and shows how easily humans could be fooled by just the smallest changes. For example, by differentiating the uses of kidnapped and taken prisoner, it changes the impression of who the antagonist is. In my opinion, these kinds of mental manipulation can also be used in real life, and in more positive situations. 

Another news article we saw was the video of the Jewish people chanting and enjoy watching the Mosque burn. My simple opinion towards this article was simple as I thought it was atrocious that people can't respect others and the way they believe even though they believe in the same rubbish as the people they were criticizing. 

Lastly, we discussed how the media has evolved from the analog age to the current Web 2.0. In the past, the only form of information was with newspapers and new companies owned by rich people. Now with the introduction of the internet and social media, news from citizens and regular people were able to spread from the tip of our fingers.