Mediacology

Do media start wars? Many critics believe that if the MSM (AKA US corporate mainstream media) had been critical of Bush and Co.’s arguments for war leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the campaign would never have been supported by the public. I’m a little dubious of this argument, only because people’s opinions are not solely shaped by media, but by a number of other factors. You can’t blame media for people’s attitudes about war; it’s a far deeper issue that relates to, among other things, how history is taught in school and also a cultural attitude about violence as a way of resolving conflict. Believe me, I learned a lot more about that in the sandbox during kindergarten than I did from watching TV. Still, I don’t doubt that media contributed largely to the misperceptions of the situation. For example, there is no other explanation for why people still believe that WMDs were found in Iraq, which is contrary to the facts.

Anyhow, I want to draw your attention to a riveting documentary, The Revolution Will Not be Televised, that depicts a situation in which a coup d’etat was literally orchestrated by media in Venezuela. The filmmakers, an Irish crew that was in Caracas making a documentary about its controversial president, Hugo Chavez, happened to be in the presidential palace when a coup was staged. Regardless of what you think about Chavez, this is a rare film in which history actually unfolds on camera, and all I can say without giving too much away is that the documentary is absolutely incredible. Thankfully it’s now available on GoogleVideo at the above link. The movie demonstrates in the most literal example yet, how media under specific conditions could instigate wars, or at least light the match of a counterrevolution. Watch it and learn.

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