Alfred Dawes | The court of media opinion

It was Malcolm X who said, “The media is the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” To this day the civil rights leader’s words ring true. The media has controlled what information we are fed and thus, over what we develop outrage and take up as causes. It is no wonder that whenever there is a coup, the main targets are radio and television stations where the propaganda of the rebels can be sold to the masses.

Internationally, the media is dominated by Western sources. The stories are reported through the lenses of pro-Western controllers. Interestingly, the owners of mainstream media companies have shrunken in number due to aggressive mergers and acquisitions. In 1984, the setting for George Orwell’s dystopian future, 90 per cent of America’s media was owned by 50 companies. By 2012, six corporations controlled that same 90 per cent of the media. That concentration of power in the hands of an even more elite group has no doubt threatened our freedom of not only expression, but freedom of thought itself.

The media determines our friends and enemies, what causes we get behind and whose lives are more important. During the Arab Spring there was extensive coverage of the Libyan uprising even though the majority of the country supported Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. There was little mention of his rule by consensus, that every year Tripoli would be at a standstill when local chiefs would journey to the capital for a massive meeting where the affairs of the country would be decided on in a fair, democratic manner. There was hyping of the numbers of protesters and how widespread the demonstrations were held.

Characterising Libya as a terrorist state removed any sympathy for Gaddafi as NATO carried out an illegal air campaign with the sole objective of removing from power the thorn in their sides. As the Libyan regime transitioned into the chaos that lasts to this day, there was little mention in the mainstream media of the brutal suppression of Arab Spring protests in Bahrain, where Saudi tanks rolled into the island nation, home of the United States’ Fifth Fleet. The Bahraini dictatorship, with a penchant for torture, was allowed to stand while anti-Western leaders were ushered out.

CAUSE OF THE PEOPLE

Only a few will remember that there is an ongoing massacre in Myanmar of those protesting against military coup, that Yemenis are suffering from the effects of a civil war fomented and supported by external agents, that it is not Syrians fighting Syrians, but foreign insurgents paid by other countries with vested interests, and that Haiti is again in political turmoil as the elite and corrupt politicians are coming to fisticuffs. Their lives matter less, and selective outrage is the order of the day. The cause of the media is the cause of the people. We only discuss what is topical and the media determines what becomes and stays topical.

One would believe that with the rise of social media there would be greater openness in what thoughts and news items are fed to the masses. That experiment has been a colossal failure. The content shared on social media is primarily from the mainstream media, so much that Australia recently passed a law requiring Google and Facebook to compensate media houses for their content shared on the platforms. The mainstream media has simply found a wider, captive audience to shape.

RESTRICT INFORMATION

The awesome power of social media is even more frightening when one considers the fact that many people do not read beyond the captions and rely on these and short sound bites and videos to form their opinions. A tastefully done video or attention-grabbing picture and caption can go a long way in manufactured consent or outrage. People tend to get their information from pages and sources that support their own beliefs, and this reinforces biases or outright fake news. Conservatives follow conservative pages and conspiracy theorists all share the same media content.

The power wielded by the social media giants is now used to restrict certain information from being shared. A colleague was recently banned from Facebook for sharing a link about a drug that shall remain nameless lest a warning be generated under this article when shared. Alternate views can be wiped off search engines and their authors removed from social media platforms, silencing them by severely restricting their reach. There is a duty to protect the public from misinformation campaigns, but who determines that what is fake and dangerous? Who determines that content violates community standards and should be banned?

In Jamaica, the power of civil society and advocacy groups rests solely in their ability to get their views expressed in the mainstream media. Outside of that they are impotent. Policymakers, businesses and politicians solely respond to public outcry. Nobody responds to a private letter outlining concerns. If, however, the howls of outrage from the public are unabated, decisive action will be taken to save face. The decisions then of what actions and level of accountability we demand as a people rest with the editors and principals of the few prominent media houses that influence smaller entities and the masses.

Jamaica consistently ranks high in the world press freedom index, and that has probably been the only check on the power wielded by the political class. One wonders how much more corruption would take place if there was no threat of media leaks and investigative journalism. Even then, with so much wrong with Jamaica, we can’t help but wonder who is steering us towards what ought to matter to us. Who watches the watchers?

- Alfred Dawes is a general, laparoscopic, and weight-loss surgeon; Fellow of the American College of Surgeons; former senior medical officer of the Savanna-la-Mar Public General Hospital; former president of Jamaica Medical Doctors Association. @dr_aldawes. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and adawes@ilapmedical.com.