How does your perception of conflict change with media coverage?

Whether the conflict is portrayed as a territorial dispute, a humanitarian crisis, or an ideological battle can significantly influence my understanding and emotional response to it.

Humans are biased, no matter how hard they try to be objective. Even dry, factual accounts will reflect opinions in what’s said and what’s left out. Looking at an issue from several angles and getting your news from more than one source will shed light on hidden or unclear points.

The language used in media reports affects how I perceive the conflict. Words like “terrorist” versus “freedom fighter” or “regime” versus “government” carry connotations that can sway my opinion and empathy towards one side over the other.

Even “had” versus “brought” can change a statement’s meaning. A good way to analyze text is to focus on the verbs and nouns. The adjectives and adverbs can clue you in too, but writers often skip those to finish faster. No one can skip verbs and nouns.

Media outlets often choose which aspects of a conflict to highlight and which to downplay or ignore. This selection bias can lead to a skewed perception, making me more aware of certain issues while remaining ignorant of others.

The media goes where the money is because they have mouths to feed too. Humans suffer everywhere in the world, but the biggest stories are those that media groups believe will pull the most clicks and generate the most revenue. If you want to learn more, you’ll have to dig deeper.

There is tremendous power in building a narrative using visuals in media coverage. The Aarushi Murder case, the Sushant Singh Rajput case, the Russia Ukraine war or the Israel-Palestine conflict. A selective set of visuals are splashed on loop across all the news channels for hours. What we get is eventually a narrative that is false, inaccurate and wrong but intentionally allowed to float and grow. Before long, that false narrative and perception becomes the truth that is widely accepted without much critical questioning. Sadly, when wars and court cases are fought in newsrooms and social media, we see justice pronounced even before the legal system of the country have had a chance to hear it.

Social media platforms amplify certain narratives and can create echo chambers. The content I see is often filtered through algorithms that show me what is likely to engage me, which can reinforce pre-existing beliefs and create a distorted view of the conflict.

Relying on multiple perspectives helps me form a more balanced and informed opinion, rather than passively absorbing biased or incomplete narratives.