The television is one of the most powerful tool for public influence. In the 1960's, the television was considered to be the most prominent source of news to the American public, possibly the most strongest tool for influence of public opinion itself. Until today, the television remains to be a powerful influencing tool. But, did it influence for the sake of good, or bad? Was the outcome rather positive or negative? Let's see some of the examples of what we can find in the world today.
Muslims
Muslims, are of course Islam. Islam means 'peace'. So basically, Islam means the religion of peace. But why does the media portray Muslims as terrorists? Was it because of the 9/11 incident that was so exaggerated by the media, brought this false perception into light? Of course, even before the 9/11 incident, people already regard Muslims as 'violent'. But ever since 9/11, the false perception grew massively. Mind you, Islam does not teach its followers to be terrorists. Why do the Western media always portray false facts about Muslims? Why don't they portray something positive?
This is an example by CNN (watch the video):
Indonesians' Perception Toward Malaysians
Indonesia and Malaysia have always had conflicts between another ever since Sukarno's era, or even way back. But recently, these conflicts turned into a serious problem. Regarding of the alleged rape of an Indonesian woman by some polices in Penang, a lot of Indonesian rioters shows frustration. "They burned the Malaysia flag and urged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to deport the ambassador, failing which they called for his resignation." - themalaysianinsider.com
At one point of time, the heat was so hot for Indonesia and Malaysia, and it even got worse when their media exaggerated a lot of of things about the conflict of these both countries. Let's see a snippet of one of their TV station's report on the incident:
According to one of Bendera's supporters, "Malaysia has betrayed Indonesia and its sovereignty and integrity of the nation." When all of these things are happening in their country, do we see Malaysians rioting outside the Indonesian embassy burning their flags? I've had experiences of having Indonesian maids, and asked them on why do Indonesians have such strong hatred towards Malaysians? Some of them replied, because the media has always talked about how Malaysians and Malaysia are bad. Some of them are clueless. Some of them even said, "I've never knew that Malaysians can be so friendly, despite what we did to their country's image in our country."
In a nutshell, the television, although credibility remains questionable by some people day by day, is still a powerful influence; at least in setting agendas. The media cannot tell you how to think, but can surely tell you what to think about. The television has the power to even change a country's image within split seconds. To put it simply, the television has more power than what we can expect.
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