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The
Age Of Disinformation
By Shaukat Ajmeri
As the 'information revolution' spreads its tentacles, the role of the media becomes all the
more challenging. The challenge is to sift the wheat from the chaff. In essence, to separate
the truth from the propaganda. And it is not easy for ordinary people to do that.
Because basically it boils down to the question of power. Those who control political and
economic power also control information. In other words they control the levers of knowledge
and ideology. The literate have an obvious advantage over the unlettered. So even as we cruise
along the 'information highway' we are leaving behind a large-scale information deprivation.
But the question is not what the information-have-nots do not know but what the information-haves
are not allowed to know. In this crucial sense, the line between the literate and the illiterate
is very thin. The colloquial expression "educated illiterates" encapsulates a political truth.
It represents a triumph of kitsch over gravitas.
German philosopher Emanuel Kant was of the opinion that not everything is knowable. This
sentiment is all the more truer in our times, and at a much mundane level too. In fact, even
what is knowable has become inaccessible to the majority of the public. But common perception
may yet differ. For when the O.J. Simpson trial or the Nato air strikes on Bosnian Serbs are
shown live or when events as they happen are reported instantly and accurately we are bound
to feel that we are being allowed total access to everything that happens around us. That the
world of information is at our finger tips from flipping TV channels to flipping newspaper
pages we can know all there is to know.
In fact, we cannot know enough. The human brain and by implication, the human conscience can
only take so much. But do we need all this information? Or, for example, does it mean that before the invention of television people were any less stupid than we are. Or that their lives lacked a sense fulfillment or purpose. To put it differently, is 'information explosion' about making our
lives better; about the ultimate values of freedom and justice; about creating a better world?
If it is, then, are the information and knowledge systems at our disposal helping us attain
these goals? For often it happens that we are appalled by the gruesome pictures of the
war-ravaged children in Afghanistan or read with horror about the cruelty and massacre in
Rwanda and, the very next instant, we get back to our little lives our supermarkets, our
rents and our parties. This is not a value-judgement but a fact of everyday life.
The massive glut of information and imagery at our disposal somehow fails to move us beyond
the point where we begin to feel responsible for human misery that exists in our neighbourhood
or thousands of miles away. But, then, it is argued that the role of the media is to inform us.
Not to move us. Still less to inspire us into some foolhardy crusades.
It's a matter of abiding irony that the media that links up a scene of massacre with our living
rooms functions on the premise that the two are not necessarily connected. That there's is no
human or moral connection between the place where massacres occur and where they are reported. In another sense, it is immaterial that our pursuit of cheap labour ultimately also cheapens human life. That a habit of profligacy in one section of society produces hunger in another. That one country's lust for nuclear supremacy endangers lives of people thousands of miles away. That a yen for hamburgers in one part of the world generates devastating poverty in another.
The ancient Greeks in their arrogance declared that the man is the measure of all things.
Today, in our myopia, we've made profit the measure of all things. And the human being is
reduced to a mere cog in this vast and dehumanized system that reproduces itself day in and day out. We all play our assigned roles in perpetuating injustice and inequality in our own little,
but not insignificant, ways. This is not a terribly new perception of reality.
Yet most of us play our parts unknowingly. Without really being aware. The whole corpus of
information and knowledge at our disposal essentially obscures awareness. The unstoppable media outpourings give us loads of information but little awareness. Indian journalist P. Sainath,
who toured rural India in 1993 on a Times of India fellowship to report on the state of poverty,
said in a magazine interview that what we see or read in the media is just the news events
taking place at a particular instant of time. But there's a history to those events. There are
processes that lead to those events which the media rarely bother to report.
The capsules of information we get are often detached from their contexts and meanings and are
essentially packaged for easy consumption. For instance, before we are told about the real
causes of a riot, another riot plague plane crash war is upon us.
The processes of governance, policy-making and workings of political power are not mysteries in
themselves but are deliberately kept that way. Ordinary people are not supposed to know what is
it that leads to their poverty or powerlessness or their absolute lack of control over their own
lives. They are not supposed to know that with their collective will and effort they have the
power to turn their communities around.
The mainstream intellectual culture is of no help either. In fact, it is there largely to report,
analyse and sanctify the official version. Public debate on major issues in the media is
permitted but only within acceptable limits limits that stop short of unraveling the mysteries
of private power and profit. American scholar Noam Chomsky calls this facade of public debate
as "manufacturing consent".
What this means is that private decisions are legitimised by public ratification. Whatever
governments do is made to appear as if it's done for the sake of the people. Democratic
societies of the West boast about the freedom of speech they enjoy. But where there is free
speech there is thought control. The mainstream media plays an important role in controlling
thought. Pundits and experts of all kinds talk and write a lot without touching on fundamental
issues. Facts are reported but interpretations of facts are rare. And obvious conclusions are
seldom drawn or even hinted at.
Schools and universities also play their part in keeping the faith. They churn out clones that
fit nicely into the system and in turn reinforce it. The pressure to conform to the established
norms starts right from school level. It's not for nothing that discipline is an integral part
of school ethos.
As children move forward through progressive grades, they internalise the values of hard work,
discipline and success. By the time they are out of university, they are ready to serve the
system and be part of. In an ideal world, hard work and discipline, for example, must bring
success. But in the real world 'hard work' is often used as a psychological ploy to discipline
people.
Few students can escape from this totalitarian fiction. The irony is, few parents will allow
them to. Parents being parents, they naturally want their children to be well-off and successful.
Playing by the rules is a virtue greatly admired and encouraged. In democratic societies this
virtue is administered in subtle ways, in non-democratic societies coercion becomes necessary.
Writer and historian Michael Wood in his BBC series called Legacy talks about "a habit of
civilization" with regard to Egypt. At the the end of the second millennium, we can label our
willingness to submit to all forms of state power as a "habit to conform". Within the given
range of permissible thought and behavior we're free to make our choices and crow about
"freedom of choice".
But if our choices happen to fall outside the realm of established pattern then we must be
some sort of deviants. If our perspective is different from that of the mainstream's or we are
too critical of the unjust state apparatus then either we are irrational, communists or even
terrorists.
No matter how "advanced" the society is, this is generally the level of tolerance for
'deviants' in the mainstream media and socio-political circles. Much of the media makes a
fetish out of 'objectivity'. But those who work in the media know that this 'objectivity' is
largely dictated by corporate and political interests which are anything but 'objective'.
The conclusion is inescapable, we may have an avalanche of information and an illusion of
being in the know but we're none the wiser for it. In a world where we live to consume,
information is just another consumer commodity. Attractively packaged to protect us from the
truth.
On second thoughts, maybe it's pretentious to talk about separating the truth from the
propaganda. The happy alternative is to join the karaoke of talking a lot and saying nothing.
Which is what the role of the mainstream media is, anyway.
Source:
dawoodi-bohras
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