Speech on media and peace:

As someone who is as passionate for history as I am, it is deeply saddening and shocking to
see the world in the state it finds itself in. And at a time like this, where the world’s eyes are
focused on the Ukraine, I can’t help but wonder. Have we learnt nothing? Have we learnt
nothing from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, from My Lai, from 9/11, Iraq, Syria? Clearly, it seems
we haven’t. Humanity has been through so many hellish wars, where lives have been lost
and the course of history changed forever, but standing through it all has been the media,
for good or bad.

The media can be thought of as being a double-edged sword, on one hand, it’s a gift. It
allows us to access information, and I’m sure we can all agree that information is power.
However, if used by the wrong people with the wrong intentions it can become a weapon so
powerful that could cause great destruction, often ending in the deaths of scores of people.
The media is like a window, that gives ordinary people like you and me a glimpse into other
worlds, lives and situations. But, since it is after all a double-edged sword, it can provide us
with very distorted views of reality and events.

To exemplify this, I propose, a case study, to analyse the effects media can have on peace if
it’s not properly managed. Let’s hit rewind, let’s go back to 2010 and 2011, the Middle East.
I’m sure most of us can vividly remember the headlines: the so-called Arab Springs. Does it
ring a bell? I’m sure all of us can remember it portrayed as being a pro-democracy liberal
movement, right? The events taking place in Syria, Libya, Egypt or Tunisia were placed in the
frame of the so-called Arab Springs. If we deconstruct the actual term, when we think of
spring, images of rebirth, splendor and elation flow into our minds. The term itself was
merely a propagandistic tool aimed at making people believe that these uprisings were
positive when it was clearly too early to tell what their effects would be. The media failed to
provide accurate explanation to each of the different country’s individual situations, we
can’t understand Syria and Libya in the same way each had their own problems and
difficulties at the time. There is no denying there were things that needed to be addressed
but the generalized projection of it through the media encouraged the possibility of
intervention. This shows that the term ‘Arab Springs’ was in simple terms, a journalistic
label. Behind many of these movements that were shown as progressive was extreme
Islamism. The consequences of this for peace in the region were deadly, the states were
weakened even more than they previously were, bloodshed, and war.

But what should the media do to effectively avoid the breakout of conflicts such as the latter
case and as a result preserve peace? For one thing, one of the main changes that must be
made in the media industry is to ensure that the stories published by them aren’t too
oversimplistic, complex issues must be dealt with the seriousness they deserve in order to
avoid misconceptions or misinformed opinions. The media must always take an impartial
stance, keeping transparency and professionality it’s important to remember that the media
is supposed to deal with facts, not opinions or feelings. It should provide reliable and
unbiased information that goes beyond the agenda of any government or political group, it
shouldn’t be influenced by any outside players or contribute to polarization.
Finally, nowadays, where the media is left out of the hands of professionals through the
emergence of social media platforms, responsibility is left in our hands, especially in the
hands of the younger generations. It’s up to us to make decisions to accept or reject the
information that we receive on social media, be it facebook, Instagram or twitter. The media
is changing every second, evolving and we must evolve with it to ensure the stability of
peace in our world.