In our era, the mass media occupy a crucial position in our society and influence our daily life. Mass media enable journalists from every part of the world to gather and spread information about conflicts and peace at fast speed. With journalists, photographers, reporters and writers from across the world documenting every kind of situation, conflict and process, it is normal to wonder to what level the mass media influence our habits and activities, especially when in regards to conflict situations and social movements.
In this paper we are going to explore the influence of media in the realm of social political conflicts, and their role in causing and escalating them.
We will explore some theories in regards to the effects of media on audience and socio political conflicts, in order to illustrate its crucial effect on them.
In any newspaper or television news broadcast on any day, we can find news about a conflict somewhere in the world. The media plays a crucial role when reporting news, in defining the conflict itself. It is the media that ultimately builds and influences perceptions about conflicting groups, manifestors, their motifs, interests and causes for the audience to understand: the media have become a prised ground for the waging of conflict (Cottle, 2006, 2) In fact, the mass media play an important role in shaping the audience’s opinion by covering certain issues and influencing the ideas of the audience.
Agenda setting
In the media as an agenda- setting