One thing I found particularly interesting in this week's reading was the focus on the Iraq War.
This is something I find particularly salient because I lived through it, I was old enough to remember the news stories about WMD's, and even though I was a little young, I still had opinions on it.
I found it interesting that public sentiment was so influenced by the mass media coverage of the "hunt" and subsequent "nothing burger" that resulted from the search for those WMDs.
This, to me, was a perfect example of mass media done right. Politician tells a lie. Media reports that lie. Media goes on to reserch the issue. Media finds out it is false and informs the public. The public reacts, which is in turn reported by the media. Politician has to undo that policy that was fraudulent.
However.
The Iraq war wasn't very long in comparison to the Afghanistan war, and scores of people died. The country was thrown into instability for decades, and we achieved...not very much. So even though the system "worked" the way it should(meaning the relationship between mass media and politics), the consequences in the meantime were disastrous.
So I guess it didn't really work at all then did it?
No policy solutions from me this time. Just train of thought.
Really nice job this week, Steven. I liked how fluid your post was and how you really just spoke your mind and what thoughts you may have surrounding this topic.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting take on the Iraq War. Furthermore, I agree that when the mass media is used effectively and purposefully, the results are beneficial to the public. After all, the mass media's purpose is to inform the pubic through extensive research, fact checking, and objective reporting on salient issues. More specifically, the words of politicians because as we see time and time again, a politician's word cannot always be trusted and must be taken with a grain of salt.
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