It is difficult to pick just three out of all the major media events of this century. The 2008 American presidential elections would have to be one of them. The election of a black American president is something that most of us did not expect to see in our lifetime. The use of the media for these campaigns was taken to a level that has never been tried before. The party representatives made sure that their candidate was not only on television, newspapers and posters as usual, but also on the internet as well. They took over major social networks such as youtube, facebook, twitter and everything else they could find to ask for votes. Obama gained major publicity through the internet. Some people say that were it not for the media, the internet and the technology that we have now, Obama would not have won and Martin Luther King’s dream would still be nothing more than that, a dream.
I consider the Kenyan 2007 elections another major media event. Compared to the American elections, the media coverage was more on the aftermath than the before. The post election violence was covered quite vividly. Unlike in the American elections, I think the coverage did more harm than good to some extent. The media was the first to show the horrifying images of people being shot down all over the country. They passed on messages from angry gangs to frightened people. They were the ones who passed on wrong information about the elections. All this did was fuel more anger and hatred among the people. This brought more fighting and chaos. In this particular case, media was used to worsen the situation.
Another event that I would say the media played a huge role in is the disaster in Haiti. Just hours after the earthquake, pictures of the devastating state of this nation were all over the internet with pleas for help. Even in a place like Kenya, local radio stations set up elaborate programming to help collect funds to help the people of Haiti. Through the media, people from all over the world were able to access news on what was going on and information on how they could help.
Media events serve an important purpose in our world, they can bring important issues to attention and sway opinions in towns, countries or even the entire world. The large news organisations 'live off' media events. These news organisations make their money when news hits the world in a big way. This can be dangerous. In order to survive, the media may sensationalize things that may make matters worse. This happened during the 2007 elections in Kenya where the media directly or indirectly made the violence bigger than it actually was, with some small media houses even inciting Kenyan against Kenyan. Media events do have a rightful place in the world but the media has to be checked to ensure that it carries out its duties responsibly.
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Isn't it funny that we always link the major media events to recent things that have happened in society. You make some really great points about the fact that during Obama's presidential campaign they used all sorts of media sources to advertise to people about the presidential campaign. And because it was the first black president running for presidential office it was advertised every where. I remember professors talking about it, it was such a big media event. As these media outlets are being used more and become more available we will see that media events will be advertised even more through these means of communication. It is interesting to see how things are changing through the years.
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