Together with the family and education, the media has a great influence on human nature and development. It is one of the main pillars that develop a person’s thinking, attitude, behaviour and action. Whereas the role of the family and education in society is often debated, not much attention is given to the media’s role. Studies on the media’s effects on people are fairly recent, acknowledging, however, that it has wired societies worldwide, created the global village and motivated humankind to wake up from its sleep and start taking initiatives and act.
The present pandemic has drawn out the multiple faces of the media. It has been a source of anxiety for many as reports flow in on the spread and misery of the illness. With revelations on corruption, money laundering and tax evasion on a global basis, it has caused the downfall of politicians and governments and lived up to its role as the ‘fourth estate’ in exercising power over people’s opinions and activism. Never has the media been so much in the spotlight and itself a leading protagonist of our times.
Communication brings people together, builds bridges, breaks down walls, provides necessary information, and opens minds and hearts in search of the truth. As Pope Francis says, it facilitates the change from a social network community to a human community. The media has been a channel for education, a facilitator in distinguishing between good and evil, and some help in developing opinions and sound judgements based on clear, objective facts.
Communication is not only a matter of competence in managing professional research, interviewing and investigation, and the targeting of the right audience using the correct medium. We need to focus on the communicator, the person, who has a great responsibility towards society and its welfare – the responsibility of disclosing the line between opinion and facts.
Pope Francis, in his address to the Catholic Press Association earlier this year, suggests that the media should “speak with nouns that acknowledge the quiet claims of truth and promote human dignity, in a world that readily speaks with adjectives and adverbs”.
Disinformation or fake news is the greatest damage the media can cause. Social media has brought out the worse of disinformation, with a tendency to being anti-social and anti-human. It has created self-isolation, polarisation and cyber-bullying.
It has made it easy for people to make judgements on parts of the truth and not the full truth. It has created ‘echo chambers’ where people hear only one side of an argument which is not challenged or contested.
The appreciation of the truth has never been more felt than during this period of the pandemic. Humankind is seeking information and knowledge to help it manage a difficult period of suffering caused by uncertainty.
The media is there to inspire a service for the common good, and to defend life and human dignity, not to destroy it, whether physically or psychologically. Pope Francis says that “we need men and women of conviction who protect communication from all that would distort or bend it to other purposes”.
We cannot escape from the fundamental responsibility that lies squarely on the shoulders of the communicator.