We often talk about religious and political dictatorships; however, there is a type of dictatorship that is no less heinous, namely media dictatorship.
Media outlets in the East and West alike practise a dangerous form of autocracy that is no less cruel than the religious and political ones. What else can we say about the media’s control of the masses; it makes them follow particular cultural, artistic and social models?
Doesn’t the media do what tyrants do by influencing people’s vision and opinions?
I do not exaggerate when I say that media dictatorship is about to become the most serious issue in many societies, far more so than political dictatorship, as the latter is like a boil, as Khalis Jalabi, physician and thinker, said: it hurts but may easily be cured.
On the other hand, media dictatorship does not hurt, and its cure is complicated; it is like cancer. If political tyranny is like an external injury, media dominance is a tumour; the former is external while the latter is hidden.
How easy it is to fight political tyranny, and how hard it is when you try to do the same with the media! The media is considered the best tool for deceiving people.
As Arab societies are under autocratic rule, their ability to fight media tyranny is limited, if not non-existent. The era of open, cyber horizons has begun to destroy the iron grip of tyrannical systems, liberating communities from their dominance.
But most of the media outlets launched at the time of the modern media revolution have, ironically, started practising tyranny in a cunning way under the guise of media diversity.
It is true that anyone can launch a media outlet through which they can express their views, especially since we are living in the age of free digital communication. This kind of media freedom, brought about by developments in information technology, did not exist before.
However, dictatorship is rooted in human psychology.
Arab media has not benefited from the blessing of diversity provided by the modern communications revolution. It is true that we have launched hundreds of satellite channels and websites, but we are still ruled by dictatorships.
What do we call the musical, artistic and entertainment channels that have swept the Arab world? Isn’t it a kind of dictatorship? Why is media diversity limited in Arab communities? If we look at the number of enlightening channels and the mindless ones, we find that the latter are more numerous.
Some may say that this situation exists in Western democracies too, where meaningless media channels outnumber the meaningful ones. This is true, but the difference between us and them is that they have made huge strides in the areas of technology, industry, science and culture.
Perhaps they have the right to take a wild break. We, on the other hand, are still living in the pre-technology or tribal age when it comes to political, cultural and social development.
In other words, what applies to Western societies doesn’t fit Arab societies.
We got on the same train as Western countries but not gradually, as they did. We adopted the superficial aspects of development. The type of media we copied from the Western model is the worst in their communities.
Arab media hit the wall by following the lies of the West. They imitate Western media like monkeys.
Perhaps, the common characteristic of international and Arab media outlets is that they are tyrannical and oppressive to a large extent.
If we take the case of our popular media outlet that pretends to be democratic and liberating, we will find it is tyrannical to a great extent. It is no different from the political media that follows the agenda of the countries’ regimes. Both wrongly consider themselves the medium of the people; the former deals with cultural and social issues and the latter with political issues.
Masses get used to silly and wild forms of media because they do not see an alternative.
Human beings become like computers. Computer logic starts with the “Rubbish in, rubbish out” principle, which means that if you give the computer a good set of inputs it gives you a good output. If you give it bad input, you will receive bad output.
It is the same with the media. If you give viewers good material, they will be good. How hard is it to elevate the masses, and how easy is it to degrade them?
Just as we have suffered, and still do, politically, from the concept of “one leader”, we have started suffering from the “one module” of social and artistic standards represented by some actors and actresses whom the bad channels promote despite their limited number of followers.
We need dozens of channels to target the media dictatorship imposed on our communities. The bad production in Arab countries looks good, especially because those funding these media empires like to sell bad products.
The author is a columnist and presenter on Al Jazeera TV channel
