Along with advertising is propaganda, which is the organised circulation of information designed to influence people. Even though it is controlled by the State, propaganda usually attempts to appeal to people’s emotions or prejudices, and it may contain huge distortions of the truth. Propaganda is influencing people through the media with information and facts from the State that are not true but is clever enough to make the public believe it.
Newspapers are read all over the world and the UK is no exception. In the UK there are many different papers but they often biased towards different political parties. This means that political parties can influence the public so that they can obtain more votes in elections and so that they have more people on their side when new plans are published. However, we choose what we want to read and which party we vote for. Therefore, newspapers are not as influential as is made out.
Television is the main leisure activity for many people in the UK and it has been said that television can distort our view of reality and defines what we should think, buy, behave and what success is. It also reduces children’s imagination and removes people from the world outside to the living room. Therefore it is influencing our lives to think in a certain way, behave in a certain way and have a certain attitude to different issues. However, we choose what we watch and if we don’t like a programme we don’t watch it.
Spin-doctors are people who try to control the public response to an issue by presenting information in a particular way to the media. As information has been manipulated and ‘moved around’ to promote one issue or aspect to highlight a specific section or minimize a contentious section it can be often biased. As spin-doctors work in the political arena and most senior members of the government have them working for them they are often able to manipulate the media. They can do this by speaking to journalists off the record, leak information before a media story is released, control the focus of attention in a news story and select what news to release, when to release it and how to release it to the media. This therefore means that even though we believe what the news says as it is the only way to know what is happening around the world it is not always the whole story and has often been twisted.
The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) monitors the code of practice for publications. If a newspaper is found guilty breaking the code by the PCC it must print the commission’s judgement in full and in a prominent position. However, the PCC is regulated by the Press and therefore there can be a higher chance of it being biased and is able to say that newspapers are not breaking the law as it is in ‘the Public Interest’ even if it isn’t. This means that we are told about incidents that the government don’t want us to know and not told about incidents that we would like to know therefore we are being influenced and believe what is written even though if it is not true.
Even though media is very influential in the UK, we choose what we want to watch on television, listen to on the radio and what we read. This suggests that we select what influences us and we behaviour and think it the way that we want. This does not say that media is not too influential but we decide on what areas that we take notice in, believe and act upon.
