The role of Media in shaping public opinion on conflicts

Humans send news from political, social, and cultural crossfires of all parts of the globe. Most basically is the fact that from wars, civil conflicts to diplomatic disputes, and humanitarian issues, the way these conflicts are portrayed may have an effect on the opinions and perception of the public at large. Indeed, media framing is primary in the way people are able to understand, interpret, and respond to these complex problems.

They make some issues in the conflict come out and others suppressed just by the manner of framing the narratives, which stories they cover, and how they present them. It is this framing that makes a conflict appear solvable or intractable, or a way of identifying with or demonizing the parties in a conflict. Summing up, political and corporate coverage in general bias makes the narratives fit into the agendas. With the digital age and the power it has gained, it is shaping public opinion through sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the rest. It shapes citizen journalism and activism, as many of them come with a dual challenge at the same time: that of misinformation and the challenge of echo chambers. Some understanding of media dynamics, further sharpening of media literacy, and critical thinking do so much for an individual to swim through the media waters and relate with conflict narratives in an informed, discerning manner.

It is through the media, in all its forms, and more so on television, radio, print, and digital platforms, that the public generates its knowledge. It serves not only to inform but, more so, to influence attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. The framing of narratives and the selection of stories and their presentation to the audiences give the media its power. This is very high-stake and high-emotion in the case of conflicts.

One of the most significant ways in which the media construct public opinion on conflicts is through framing. It is under this aspect of framing that it becomes inevitable for information to get packaged or furnished in a manner meant to bring out elements at the expense of others, which are downplayed or missed. Media make deliberate selections of what to report on regarding conflicts, what aspect to bring out strongly, and what to downplay. These might have quite some influence with the public in terms of perception and understanding.

For instance, it shapes how the causes and effects of conflicts are pictured. A conflict framed primarily as a case of geopolitics strategies will hinge on bringing to the fore the state actors, international alliances, and strategic interests. The very conflict, framed through a humanitarian lens, will highlight revelations of suffering, communities destroyed, and the urgency of aid and intervention. All this explains why such different frames bring about totally different types of public responses, from opinion to policy support.

• Conflict Resolution vs. Escalation

Media coverage is likely to portray a conflict as a path toward resolution through diplomacy or dialogue, or a spiral of escalations and violence. The opposing framing choices set the trend of batting for the view of conflicts and its consequences. What these narratives put in place by journalists and editors determine is public opinion for or against a conflict being resolved or going the rounds of violence waves forever, and in that use for military intervention or peace-building efforts.

When putting a conflict in a resolution frame, media highlight avenues of negotiation, mediation, and diplomacy. The focus, therefore, becomes more on the peace talks, ceasefire agreements, and the work of international institutions in bringing the parties to the table. This, through the coverage, will help the story to outline a ray of hope and a pathway for peace through the thorns of the chaos. Such framing would bring increased popular support for diplomatic initiatives and humanitarian aid, influencing governments and international bodies toward seeking peaceful solutions.

• Humanizing vs. Dehumanizing Narratives

Media go further to humanize or dehumanize the conflicting parties in an integrated way of influencing public empathy and support. Humanizing narratives would include individual stories, personal experiences, and the human toll of violence in order to cultivate empathy and a sense of social connection with a suffering population. Dehumanizing narratives mostly portray groups as villains or wrongdoers, further prejudicing and fueling animosity against those groups.

Humanizing narratives allow distantly located conflicts to be brought home to a global audience. Media can shine a light on such personal stories, and more than that, the daily struggles of those people caught in the conflict can become very relatable and urgent. For example, stories of broken families, or the misery of children denied an education, or how to go about rebuilding a community can evoke very strong emotions. Increased public support for humanitarian assistance, assistance to refugees, and peacebuilding is a possible result. Such narratives remind the audiences of the fact that behind such headlines are real people who have hopes, dreams, and who suffer beyond political and regional borders.

Media bias is one important factor in how public opinions are oriented during a conflict. It shows how information both is given and understood. Media bias can be in three forms: politically, culturally, and corporately biased. Despite every effort made by journalists to remain objective and neutral, infiltration of bias in coverage of issues usually comes through editorial choices, source selection, frames, and angles. Such bias can misrepresent conflicts and can have an effect on public understanding and responses in a conflict.

Bias in media coverage can be political and ideological, and it plays a huge role in how conflicts are framed. News frames are usually tied to conservative or liberal perspectives and interests. Media with a more conservative outlook will highlight the risk that there is for national security and frame conflict as an existential danger that requires a strong military response. Such a frame will galvanize public opinion and justify the expenditure and call for military intervention necessary for defense. Issues concerning the same conflict will be framed from human rights abuses to the need for other countries to mediate by liberal media outlets. This creates ideological slants that could frame perceptions out of these stories to polarize the public, which then makes consensus in conflict resolution difficult.

• Political and Ideological Bias

Indeed, such political and ideological biases have the ability to take public perceptions of conflicts to unimaginable heights. The positioning of the media toward certain political orientations and ideologies dramatically influences the reporting of conflicts and, in a sense, the way they are interpreted. This, in a way, affects the framing of news stories, the choice of sources, and what gets more emphasis in a conflict.

This can be seen, for example, in media run by conservatives, which present an instance of what could constitute national security being threatened and having called for a strong military response. For example, such media might pinpoint the coming dangers from enemy soldiers, the strategic importance of military actions, or even the need for defense spending. Such a frame can create fear and a sense of urgency that can mobilize the public to support hard-line policies and interventions. By raising centrally the specter of threats to national security, conservative media predispose the public towards a reading of conflict with aggression and defense at its focus, often to the exclusion of any other issue such as diplomacy or humanitarian concerns.

• Corporate Interests and Sensationalism

Media coverage of conflicts is, save for very few instances, under the command of corporate interests, sensationalism, and public blurring in comprehension and perception. These media conglomerates, where some of their industries are mighty in financial aids, will always have a say in such a reportage to shield their respective investments. The sensation in the pursuit of dramatic and emotion-evocative stories twists conflict reporting into sensationalist events with no regard for detailed analysis.

Corporate ownership of media tends to lead to slanted reporting in the direction of the financial interests of the parent companies. In this sense, for example, media conglomerates, in bed with defense contractors, may necessity about the need for military interventions and count their human prices. Such narratives could create public opinion support for policies that include increased military spending and military adventures. Similarly, media outlets with investment in mining industries may provide justification for interventions in resource-abundant areas where extraction has become impossible due to local dissent, conflicts, or other reasons. Which may result in reporting that slants the news for the sake of corporate greed when it should be neutral to reflect public opinion and not mislead.

In the digital age, social media platforms have been influential in shaping public opinion around conflicts. Other peoples' conflicts are what others will see and hear about over social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, among others, that act as a forum for citizen journalism, activism, and sharing information that bypasses the gatekeepers of the traditional media. While it is true that the slot88 platform offers an opportunity to amplify diverse voices of people and perspectives, at the same time, it is a conduit to misinformation, echo chambers, and algorithmic bias.

Social media can act as huge breeding grounds for misinformation and propaganda, especially during a conflict. Misinformation and disinformation act as enablers of the free flow of false information, creating perceptions and fueling public polarization. In a period where social media exists without editorial control, there is bound to be a lot of misinformation, which is counterproductive toward promoting a clear and nuanced understanding of the conflicts.

This commercialization of social media has led to deliberate algorithms that create echo chambers, allowing only those who share similar beliefs to fortify them. Consequently, this creates polarization and ideological divisions in a manner that makes it very difficult for one to have constructive dialogue and find common ground on such complex issues as conflicts.

• Disinformation Campaigns

In addition to the inadvertent spread of misinformation, there is the added potential for disinformation campaigns by state actors, extremist groups, and indeed any other malicious actor using social media platforms to further their aims. These have been done to influence public opinion, create division, and rattle faith in democratic institutions. Fighting this information necessitates a collective effort of governments, tech companies, and civil society organizations in a manner that will further the goal of responsiveness and not overregulation.

• Citizen Journalism and Activism

While this can open the door to the spread of misinformation, it is also these same platforms that allow ordinary citizens to gain a voice in the development of discourses on conflicts. Citizen journalists can utilize them to document events on the ground, give eyewitness accounts, and bring forward the voices of people whose stories, largely overlooked by mainstream media, remain untold. At the same time, social media activism helps in online petitioning, trending hashtags, or rolling out digital campaigns to mobilize public support for humanitarian and advocacy work.

It is through such power of the media to manipulate public opinion on issues of conflict that we then find ourselves in a position where media literacy and critical thinking have to be applied. Media literacy will allow proper scrutiny of any information and detection of bias, misrepresentation, and general media engagement in a responsible manner.

The educational policies encouraging media literacy will also supply each and every individual with the skills and knowledge necessary to negotiate the media terrain in an optimal manner. Media Literacy programs aim at helping learners learn how to analyze messages from the media, be resourceful with the sources, and make some vital decisions so as to be good citizens and participants in civic life.

Such skills are critical in the assessment of the credibility and validity of media conflict coverage. Encouraging skepticism and triggering further inquiry with the aid of probing questions, as well as exposure to diverse standpoints, all work toward helping members of the public learn on a higher order on complex issues while at the same time avoiding being manipulated through such partial and false media frames.

• Fact-Checking and Verification

Fact-checking organizations play a key role in making sure that the right information in media is passed with all due regard, especially when conflicts are likely to result from misinformation. For this very reason, they have put in place very stringent methodologies to verify claims and scrutinize evidence in order to gauge the credibility of the sources. In that case, relying on trusted sources of fact-checking could provide an individual with an assurance in the information they consume and thereby produce a more powerful feeling of empowerment when decisions are being made.

Fact-checking is very important since it is one of the determinants of refuting false or misleading claims that may be put forth by biased or agenda-driven media houses. Lately, fact-checkers have come to be seen as the watchdog holding the media house to account for the truth in their reportage in a world abuzz with misinformation and disinformation.

• Diversifying Media Consumption

Experiencing various media sources is important in order to get the widest perspective on a conflict and avoid the trap of the echo chamber. In a media landscape, which becomes more and more polarized, one hears solely the information with which one agrees and likes. This begets more ideological division and thwarts critical thinking.

They open people not only to new perspectives, but also to questioning any assumptions made and that potentially limit understanding of complex subjects. Diverse media supply sources of varied perspectives to the person to learn how to weigh them, source evidence, and form nuanced beliefs. Anything that fosters intellectual curiosity and, in turn, teaches a person to be open-minded is thus very key when it comes to having a constructive or cooperative discussion and finding common ground on controversial subject matter.

They have a way of setting public perceptions on issues, more so concerning conflicts, and how the general public views, conceives, and acts in the murky theatres of this world. With framing, bias, and an explosion of digital platforms right before us, media is a big influencer of public discourse and decision-making. But awareness of these dynamics of the media, the development of media literacy, and the exercise of critical thinking, one can become a better navigator in the media environment and perhaps contribute to more productive, enlightened dialogue in regards to the context of conflicts. Citizens and consumers of media would then acquire the sense of power in media to shape their perception and be reflective and skeptical with nearly everything communicated through media.

This article was written in cooperation with AMRYTT MEDIA