Media Can Change Society

Throughout history societal changes have always been hinged on crusades. History teaches us about the crusade for the Holy land in 1095. We can’t all forget the hard work of Bernard of Clairvaux in upholding his faith through various crusades. We live in an era where the media must be a crusader for societal balance and development.

The media is a connection platform in every society. It connects the habits behaviours, antecedent, societal evolution and every societal fabric. Every expressive form is media. The biggest media platform is the family. The parents are the great television sets in the eye of the children before they come in contact with the wider world. The prospect of a society is the sum total of its media interactions and anything that a society becomes is a reflective in its media.

The media has a powerful appeal to every generation, technology is just cascading its impact. The discovery and the evolution of the printing press by Johanne Gutenberg is an indication of the rapid movement and developmental impact media has on society. Every media will bring about a shift, a shift will bring about oscillations, oscillations will make a revolution. It is sad that the media has not been a tool in destroying the society and this is not just the social media but the traditional media is also suspect in this moral decadence.

The radio and television platform that are supposed to help in shaping society is now a tool for hate speech and sorts of nefarious vices. We have to say, the society is always on the journey of fine tuning and balancing out but with the journey of balancing comes many twists and turns albeit a ferocious gyration in some cases but caution is of great importance in a bid not to lose equilibrium.

In finding solutions, I must repeat that society and stakeholders in the media space must be introspective and intentional. In being introspective, we must ask what society we intend to leave behind and how we can use the media as a tool to foster societal balance. And the deployment of various platforms must be intentional in addressing various retrogressive ills in society hitherto emboldened by various unsavory agenda. It has to be said our society is going through a moral embolism and we must save the societal arteries to avoid a shutdown.

Rufai Oseni, rufaioseni@gmail.com