In class, when posed with this prompt, I took a very long
time to choose if I would agree or disagree. I was unsure about the exact
meaning of the word and if both of them inflict the same affect. But after watching this documentary I would
strongly agree. I don’t particularly think that decieving and lying are much
different as the result is still the same. To put this shortly, deception is
like manipulating. Just like lying, they
both convey a false image or perspective and therefore it is just as bad, as
the media decieves you to believe one side, completely excluding the other.
Whilst making sense of the clips,
the representation of the United States were portrayed to be heroic and
courages as they where showing the bodies of soldiers in the battle scene. This
would really appeal to the emotions of the American public as it was rather
graphic. Through this depiction, the US government is not lying as there is no
false information as there is visual evidence, however the government is not
illustrating the whole picture of the Iraqi people which only shows the
Americans being portrayed as heroic. However as a lie, it would still
contribute to the public thinking the same ideology behind this occuring news
story. Therefore it is just as bad. The government publically announced that Al
Jazeera was equivalent towards being “Osama Bin Laden’s mouthpiece” and that
Sadam Hussien threatened the U.S with weapons of mass destruction. This is
evident in relying on only emotions.
For instance, the news outlet
used Soliders for evidence in how the information was being displayed which is
very important for patriotism and giving the audience a sense of pride and
releif. This can be supported with the fall of another Arabic country, where
the citizens were very shocked that they had lost the war and came to local
panic because it contradicted to how well their country seemed to be doing in
the media, which shows that the portrayal of the countries strategies a lot of
the time are used for propaganda only.
Al Jazeera’s approach was very
incitefull as in the documentary, on the the producers argued “We want both
news exposed, this guest only exposed the American’s point of view. That’s not
how we do things.” It is inciteful because not many news outlets think this
way. It is very heavily influenced by western coverage, where Al Jazeera wanted
to cover the news in Iraq as well providing both aspect to an extent that it
was very contreversial. This channel was very contreversial that some Arab
Governments banned it. This highly important as they are letting their
audience-which is extremely important in media- to come up with their own
solution and perspective on the media. This shows that the channel does push
their demographic to be viewed as neutral sides and information being conveyed,
despite having American bias at the beginning. However in the end, they did
comment on the capture of Baghdad and how they interpreted the situation which
shows how trustworthy the news is .