Dystopias in Media as a Form of Propaganda Essay Example

Introduction

For the masses to be convinced to believe in something, propaganda is often an efficient tool that has been relied upon for ages. Various governments have therefore convinced their people to follow their preferred suit using a variety of propaganda that they have used to remain under control. Media propaganda, therefore, plays a significant role within the social realm as it is instrumental in the creation of social tensions and constant media messages that have deceived masses of people.

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Dystopian Fiction in Media and Propaganda

Media propaganda within dystopian fiction is significant in the determination of economic policies that govern people (Moylan 5). Everybody's thought is implanted by economic propaganda that guides their opinion in matters that regard economics (Bassil). Through this, relevant commercials and corporations can enjoy the economic monopoly. They are therefore able to avoid additional innovation, they feed the public with their monopolistic prices, and they charge for goods and services beyond the market charges (Bassil). Consequently, the public has to rely on these corporations because of the dependence level that they have created. The corporations on their side remain powerful and influential since they can supply the public with the information of their choice (Bassil). The freedom there enables them to display images, advertisements, and propaganda that guide their users to purchase more from their feed since they merit from the necessary media and propaganda mediums.

Societal trend and public opinion are controlled and influenced by the news feed they use, and this makes the media to be very influential (Moylan 2). Whenever characters reach any new destinations, flashing advertisements pop up through their minds. TV shows and online updates offer important feeds that continuously pop up through the visual stimulation that the media networks display (Anderson). It is the videos, images, and updates that serve as propaganda that feeds the minds of media subscribers (Anderson). The Feed is therefore instrumental as a medium of communication between the users, and it acts as a way of communication between subscribers and corporations.

The last form of Dystopia in Media entails the propaganda that is typical to the government's control that is popular in dystopian fiction (Bassil). In the case where governments want to embrace the totalitarian nature of the rule, the citizens have to be manipulated to consent to their government (Bassil). The Feed that the media employs must therefore subconsciously force the citizens to pursue the government's propaganda as the only way of their basic survival (Moylan 7). The media, thus, employs propaganda that sweeps away secret intelligence that can breed democratic reasoning that can promote an uprising against the regime in power (Bassil).

The government and organizations can, therefore, ensure that the masses have access to media devices like internet and televisions (Hubler 23). Once they have guaranteed that everyone can access the information they want to pass, then they take full control of the information that the masses receive (Anderson). Hubler (23) stated that all the parties, therefore, decide on the messages to send, and the information to hold since society will solely rely on the media. It is this power of propaganda that Dystopia in press helps organizations and governments to exploit for them to continue asserting their essence to the masses (Anderson).

Television is the much-embraced media channel in the new world today. The media, therefore, enables some programs to flow in excess until the information they desire to pass evolves into a virtual reality (Syvertsen 49). As they become so real than the fact, the message is moved to the spectators and recipients who get it in the accentuate state (50). The audience, therefore, reflect their adopted feelings into real life, and this is how the media has created fictions that have empowered organizations and governments

How the US displays Media and Propaganda over Syrian Chemical Attacks

Some years back, there was a brutal chemical attack on the Syrian Civilians, and without adequate inspection or investigation on the ground, Belgium and Washington castigated charges against Assad's regime (Hussain). Again, the same drama recurred. The impacts of believing what we consider the "Gospel Truth," that are propagated by the mega American News stations are bringing negative implications to the world, especially in Syria (Hussain). The US media is fancied since people perceive that they know everything under the sun. The reality, on the other hand, has it that the US media is tainting the truth by manufacturing propaganda, behind the corridors of dominant media houses that are located along the streets of Washington (Hussain). The perception and conception of the general public hail from the littered hallways of media houses and sources of intelligence that is either shaped determined by the Pentagon, Wall Street or Rockefeller officials.

Naom Chomsky in his book "Media Control" has successfully explained the astounding achievements that media propaganda helps to create (Hussain). A good example is a commentary on Chomsky's book by Jon Brooks why reveals that President Woodrow Wilson state-sponsored propaganda which was able to influence a massive pacifist American population inspired by Munroe's isolationist policy into war-incitement people ready to destroy anything German (Hussain). The Dystopia propagated encouraged the Americans to war and save the world. Within six months, the Americans had been bewildered into war.

Back to the media dystopia that has been propagated by American media, the reports on the dastard attack that took place in Syria made people change their profile pictures all over social media in solidarity with that Syrians. Indeed this is a classical instance where propaganda can unmistakably remind one of the instincts of the former group (Hussain).

The ordinary citizens are therefore fed with propaganda to shape them into pro or anti a particular issue. The steps that media dystopia takes to spread propaganda entails: first, they make the people terrified by fabricating and spreading narrative that frames the enemy as a brutal character (Hussain). The point here can be derived from the pictures that were shown about Syrian women and children getting massacred, and these stories got circulated yet they were too offensive for sharing purposes. The hysteria that was promoted was that how you-yes you-can help eradicate the world's mortal threat (Hussain). Ordinary people had to vent out their bile through the social media platforms and share the stories about propaganda they never knew.

Dystopia within the media has brought about revolutions that have had repercussions to humanity. In the US, media dystopia has made the citizens hyper-connected, hypersensitive, and hyper-attentive (Hussain). Consequently, this has led to the brainwashing of the US citizens into propaganda, and since the whole world looks into the US, the entire world has been hauled into propaganda (Hussain).

Dystopian fiction is very relevant to the way the US media has displayed Syria as a tattered, brutalized and persecuted land (Hussain). In the real sense, Syria is just a hacked, a forgotten and dying land. Even though its people are being massacred, their real killer remains an enigmatic topic of discussion (Hussain). The real situation is too complicated to place blame games on any faction. As such, everyone is responsible for what is happening to Syria.

Conclusion

Today, the growth of mass media represents a danger to society and civilization. The screen media are depicted as has since dystopic fictions have inspired their level of destruction. The media is an essential element in the culture of humanity today, yet it continues to play a destructive and harmful role. The prosperity of citizens is dependent on good political goodwill, good culture, and intense media that promotes democratic ideology. Meanwhile, the same media has been used to reinforce propaganda through dystopia, and this has led to the birth of the ongoing public debates. The media should enhance public concerns to match positive values, and it is through the discussion of Dystopia in Media that we can achieve the fears.

Works Cited

Anderson, Sydney. "Media As A Form Of Propaganda: Dystopias And A Relation To Today | Rhetoric, Propaganda And The High Stakes Of YA Dystopian Fiction." Blogs.iac.gatech.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 Apr. 2019.

Bassil, Yasmine. "The Effects Of Propaganda In Dystopian Literature | Rhetoric, Propaganda And The High Stakes Of YA Dystopian Fiction." Blogs.iac.gatech.edu. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 Apr. 2019.

Hubler, Angela E. "Lois Lowry's and Suzanne Collins' Dystopian Fiction Utopia and Anti-Utopia." Against the Current29.3 (2014): 23.

Hussain, Mohammad. N.p., 2017. Web. 4 Apr. 2019.

Moylan, Thomas. Scraps of the untainted sky: Science fiction, utopia, dystopia. Routledge, 2018.

Syvertsen, Trine. Media resistance. Protest, dislike, abstention. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.