What the media means for society

For half a century now, media influence has grown exponentially with the advance of technology. First there was the telegraph, then the radio, the newspaper, magazines, television and now the internet. We live in a society that depends on information and communication to keep moving in the right direction and do our daily activities like work, entertainment, health care, education, personal relationships, traveling and anything else that we have to do. “Usually when I wake up the first thing I do is check the TV news. When I go to work, I read all my favorite newspaper, local and international before embarking on my work. I’ve realized that most of the information I get from all these media sources in a way influences my daily decisions, mood and the conversations I have with friends,” explained Christian Rwamejo an intern with Energy, Water and Sanitation Authority (EWSA). Simply put, most of our decisions, beliefs and values are based on what we know for a fact, our assumptions and our own experience. In our work we usually know what we have to do based on our experience and studies, however on our daily lives we rely on the media to get the current news and facts about what is important and what we should be aware of. For those of us who have children, you’ll agree with me that today’s media plays a big part in the behavioral development of your children. A teenager is prone to pick up the habit of smoking if he often watches movies or music clips where celebrity movie stars and musicians smoke cigarettes. There’s a lot of media today that exposes sex images and violent scenes, which propel the teenager to do just as he sees or reads from the media. “It’s very hard to control what my children watch but I always try to make sure they’re watching the right things for their age. However, today’s media especially the internet makes it easier for today’s children to access stuff that us as parents disapprove of,” says Beatrice Mutoni, a mother of two teenagers. All this said, Rwanda’s society is the best example of how media can break a society. During the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis, the Rwandan media played a major part in supporting, or creating an atmosphere to harbor the terrible human suffering that ensued. Most of you have heard of the works fabricated by Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines - RTLM (one thousand hills free radio, TV) a private radio set up in 1993. Several RTLM shareholders and founders were leaders of the militias or members of the notorious death-squad called Interahamwe. Then RTLM called for lynching and killing actions against Tutsi, whom broadcasters called “cockroaches” and “snakes”. Besides inciting Genocide, RTLM played a more direct role in helping the killings by advising militias in managing road-blocks, it helped them to search, identify and find people who were supposed to be eliminated. Broadcasters would for example give an address and car number-plates of persons trying to hide or escape. “Media’s role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis is now well known both in Rwanda and internationally as having fanned, propagated and steered genocide. It spread hate propaganda by among others publishing the ‘Hutu Ten Commandments’, defined the enemy (Tutsi) who was the target and dehumanized the Tutsi,” explained Patrice Mulama, Executive Secretary of the Media High Council (MHC). Apart from RTLM, there was Kangura, an extremist newspaper which published “The ten Hutu commandments”, a reference to the ten commandments of the Bible. The Ten Hutu commandments were a true incitement to hatred, and discrimination against Tutsi. Its 10th commandment read; “Any Hutu must know that a Tutsi woman, wherever she is, works for her Tutsi ethnic group. Therefore a traitor is any Hutu who marries a Tutsi woman, or who has a Tutsi concubine or who hires a Tutsi secretary, or protects a Tutsi woman.” This awful commandment concluded, “Every Hutu must widely disseminate this ideology. Any Hutu, who persecutes his Hutu brother for having read, spread and taught this ideology is a traitor.” With all these atrocities committed by the media then, I am sure you’re all wondering what is being done to avoid such atrocities again. “Although media hasn’t sufficiently played the role society expects it to play, it has been at the center of facilitating good governance by providing the public with an avenue to participate in their own governance. Debates and phone-in programs for instance are key tools for public participation and providing feedback on government policies. It’s at the center of promoting unity among Rwandans by spreading the ‘Rwandan first message’ as opposed to being Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa,” explained Mulama. Of course by working with other public, private institutions, state and non-state actors, media is providing employment opportunities in many ways and is a source of revenue for those who invest in it. “It should be noted that a lot more investment opportunities still exist in this sector and experts have confirmed that media in Rwanda is a viable business. This is what is needed for our media to be vibrant, professional and play a much better role in promoting democratic values and sustainable development,” added Mulama. All the above clearly indicate that the media is an authority and that the influence of mass media on our society is so big that we should know how it really works. Bryok14@yahoo.com