My View

Media’s social functions are controlling the flow of information, forming public opinion and informing cumulated interpretations(Melvin & Sandra, 1989). However, the media seems to be failing its function in some cases. For example, Carl (1958) showed that the contents of the media can be divided into 3. Low-taste content; content that causes critics often such as motion pictures, crime dramas, and confession magazines. Non-debated content; content which causes issues rarely, which has a strong impact, such as weather reports, some news content and motion picture of the whole view. High-taste content; content which is educational, uplifting or inspiring, such as art films, political discussions, and serious music. He found out that the low-taste content is highly distributed, causing social issues, whereas high-taste content is less commonly spread. the balance of content is an issue as described, however, there are more critical issues. Media has an imbalance in its content, however, more critically there is a case that does not even get media’s attention at the needed level. For example, the Civil war and genocide in Rwanda happened in 1990-1994 was caused by critical functional issues by media. In Rwanda, there are 2 tribes Hutu and Tutsi. In Rwanda, a brief that Hutu is superior to Tutsi was formed during the colonization by Germany and Belgium (BBC News, Apri 1,2004). The local media supported and repeated this brief before and during the civil war. For example, one of the local news had articles saying “Let us see what a Tutsi woman tastes like”, which indicated readers to rape to Tusi as acceptable(Anne-Marie,2005). As shown, there was a national hate campaign on-going, causing political instability among tribes(2004). The issue here needed support from other countries, this need opened United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda, UNAMIR. However, after the death of 10 Belgium soldiers. UNAMIR decreased the size from around 2500 solder from 270 (United Nations,1994). The general of the mission, Roméo Antonius Dallaire said these reduce in size was one of the reasons that they were not able to prevent genocide in 1994. As said by general, it was in need of public attention like the Vietnam war and social response in the USA; to form public opinion. However, these issues got very small attention or wrong information spread by world-leading countries. The visibility of the issue was not a problem, but the abuse of their social responsibility(Apri 1,2004). The issue here was not completely unavoidable(Roméo,1994). Like the Invasion of Russia to Ukraine, the media was able to attract public attention and cause the government to act Marta(2015). The case of Rwanda has multiple reasons behind, but one is a lack of attention by the public took one part by the unfunctional structure of the media(BBC, 2004)(1994). The media have a tendency to provide a high ratio of low-taste content and lack other (Melvin&Sandra, 1989). This could cause attention to be missed in the needed place. Like the Father of modern corporate management, Peter F. Drucker said in his book, management the social responsibility by industry is abusable, and the structure of the industry determines it(1993). It seems like the media needs to improve the system. However, as the system stability of media is questionable(2015). It seems like we need to have the right eyes, and ears to evaluate the media, by the structure. So that we can see a thing in a critical way.

Citation

BBC News(April 1, 2004) Rwanda: How the genocide happened. Retrieved from 

https://www.bbc.com/news

Carl, G. Hampel (1959), The logic of functional analysis in symposium on social theory(P280-P298). Newyork.

Dallaire, Roméo (2005). Shake Hands with the Devil: The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda.(p. 106-110): London. ISBN 9780099478935.

de Brouwer, Anne-Marie (2005). Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence(P19). 

Intersentia. ISBN 9050955339

Peter F. Drucker (1993). Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices(P89)(HarperBusiness Edition): Newyork. ISBN 978-0887306150

Melvin, Deflerur & Sandra, Ball-Rokeach. (1989) Theories of Mass Communication(5ed) (P.129-145). : Newyork.ISBN 0-582-99870-0-75295

United Nations. (1994). Report of The Independent Inquiry into the Actions of the UN During the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda; Statement of the Secretary-General on Receiving the Report [1999].

M. Neiger & O. Meyers, E. Zandberg. (2011)On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age (P.265-273): Oxford. ISBN:9780230307070

Marta Dyczok(2015).Ukraine and Russia People, Politics, Propaganda and Perspectives (p186-193): Bristol. ISBN 978-1-910814-00-0