Arguments Against Malcom X

Malcom X once claimed that “the media has the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent” and that “they that control the media, control the minds of the masses”. Several arguments could be made both in favour of or against this statement. However, taking into consideration the argument that the media as a whole is everchanging, it can therefore be assumed that this claim was made at a time in which media significantly differed from what it is currently percieved as. An argument could be made to prove that there are two definitive sides of the modern day media; the first side being one which is controlled and filtered, and an opposing side which is far less controlled and contains virtually no filtration. Two prime examples

On a global scale, the reporting of the news within mass media is believed to be one of the most focused on media aspects with regards to the political economy of the media, in attempt to – in coherence with Malcom X’s claim – “control the minds of the masses”. This is due to the fact that the only way to deliver “official” news to a mass audience is through some form of media – be it television, print, radio etc. and so possessing control of that would mean possessing the power to affect how entire societies feel even know about certain significant events. The way in which news is filtrated is explained in Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky’s “Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media” in which the Propaganda Model – containing five different filters, each used for the benefit of a different aspect in a given country’s political and economic state – is introduced. A clear example of the Propaganda Model being used in recent events is Egypt’s media coverage of the Arab Spring. After the overthrow of ex-president Mohammed Morsi and the Egyptian Military taking power in Egypt, Egyptian journalist and political scientist Hani Shukrallah stated in an interview that “the Egyptian military is using the media to its own political ends”, claiming that Morsi’s supporters “weren’t all mad preachers of hate” and that the Egyptian people “were just bombarded by vitriolic comments about Islamist terror” which ultimately lead to the overthrowing of Morsi and the power going to the Egyptian Military. It is implied, then, that the Egyptian people were brainwashed into overthrowing a second president with another so-called “corrupt regime” in order for the eventual success of the current Egyptian leader – military leader turned