Radio and television has a great impact on people and it could affect people in different ways. The power of radio and television could be used in different ways which are good or bad. It could be used to educate people, to make their aware or to provide some musics or activities to help them to have a great time. However, the bad ways could cause horrible results if it used by wrong people and leaders.
The Rwandan genocide, which happened in 1994, is a terrible example of the misuse of the power of the radio. Rwanda consist of 3 ethnic groups which are Hutus, Tutsis and Twas. There was a political tension between Hutus and Tutsis because of the things that done by the western countries especially the Belgium and the France. The countries wanted to use and colonize the Rwanda that they separated the population when they go the Rwanda in the first time and they gave identities to the Rwandan people. The Hutus were the majority in the population with %90 and the Tutsis were avarage in 9% of the population. (It could be change in different sources.) In addition to that, the western countries gave Tutsis power in politics . After some events like death of the Hutus leader, the genocide triggered by the radio and that terrible, huge massacre happened.
The highest percent of the population was really connected to the radio and because of the economical situations the radio was more common than television in Rwanda. Before the genocide, before the assassination of the Hutus leader, the radio station which is called Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) made a lot of propaganda against Tutsis. After the death of the leader of Hutus, they radio announced that the Tutsis killed the leader of Hutus and Hutus need to take their revenge and they made the terrible announce which is: cut the tall trees!*
During the genocide, the RTLM continued their propaganda and the propagandas increased the anger of people against Tutsis and in 100 days 800,000 Tutsis murdered in the Rwanda by Hutus.
In my opinion, the radio is a great invention for humans but the important point is who is going to use it? Is there any way to protect radio from the bad people and propagandas? How to prevent that?
*The western countries separated the Hutus and Tutsis according to their skin color, face and nose shape, their head measure and their height. The tall trees refers to the tall people which are tutsis.
I started to think about media representation around Gezi Park resistance. People were on the middle of Istanbul, but most of people in front of the screens did not know about them. This got me thinking about news coming from the south-east, since you are from Diyarbakır I am sure you understood this fact way before i did, and how me and people around me think of people who lives in that part of Turkey. Of course I cannot say the news coming from there was the only source to affect people's minds, however as youngsters they shaped our minds about streotypes. Watching any news channel today, and checking the same news from different sources, I again realize the power of mass media.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your entry by the way, it was very interesting and i didnt know anything about Rwandan Genocide.
Exactly, I agree with you. Television has a great affect on people’s minds. When I came to Istanbul in 2014, a lot of people asked me that do you have malls in Diyarbakır? Are the streets of Diyarbakır safe? How your streets are looking like? What about bombs? However they do not know that Diyarbakır has 5 or 6 great malls and the city plan is very good and I feel safe in Diyarbakır more than in Istanbul now. The most important reason of that ideas on people’s minds is the television. Television always shows the bad parts of Diyarbakır which has uneducated people and dirty streets and bombs of course(!). However in my opinion Istanbul also has that part but we do not see Istanbul’s bad part on television. Generally sea, seagulls and very expensive houses next to the sea.
ReplyDeleteBtw, you are welcome. Happy to hear that :)