Sobering with WikiLeaks

What We see in today’s media is a “negative world”. Alisa Miller says global media bring us stories mainly from the West, while neglecting the rest of the globe. Ethan Zackerman calls this “caring problem”. But the problem is in reflecting reality, as news editors around the world fail to do their societal roles.

It is not true that people get what they want! People even realize they are media addicts, but are unable to resist media over-use. It is like a drunk who knows alcohol is bad, but cannot stop drinking it.

Global Voices is a web site which brings more realistic picture of the world around us than CNN, because it takes into account common people and their topics. Mainstream media are guided by “rating” and “interest,” which takes them away from their primary task.

Julian Assange shows us the difference between reality and journalist-portrayed-world. By freeing secret diplomatic documents, WikiLeaks tells us that humanity fails to connect with reality. There are just too many lies and obstructions to free expression in the world today.

Except unrealistic topics in mainstream media, focus to the Western hemisphere and imbalance in negative/positive news reporting, today’s media bring us lots of entertainment. Most of media users, in fact, try to escape life. In other words, they are not using media as a support to their life, but as fantasy machines.

Last week I felt I sould buy Politikin Zabavnik as I was approaching a news-stand in Belgrade and bingo! In this magazine I found Djordje Pisarev‘s peace about “books which destroyed his life.” Pisarev was indulging into fantasy world of books about Tarzan, in his youth, because it was easier to read them than to go out to the street and live real life.

Entertainment-reach media give us an opportunity to escape ourselves. This idea came up to me as I was talking to Jelena Kavaja of Politika daily, few months ago. She was asking me how people used FaceBook. Indeed, there are various ways to use this social network, but most of the people are “stuck in it.” Instead of finding new friends, scheduling meet-ups, exchanging knowledge or using it to disseminate information, most of the users spend countless hours “having fun” as they play games or socialize online.

I am sure there is a connection between number of media, our indulgence in them, amount of time We spend using them and level of deception they bring us. Before, there were not so many temptations to dive into the fantasy world because there were much less media than now. I think that media create pressure – they no longer exist as human expression-mechanisms. Dominance of media creates media-centred-media!

Motive behind Positive Center is to focus attention of our colleagues on connection between reality and journalism. In a postmodern world of language without meaning, We seek an escape with constant superficial change. On today’s media people become objects because of their inability to express. It is really strange why We do not have statues of striptease dancers in our cities as signs of body worship. This would really show our neglect of reality and “corrupt journalism” all around us. At Positive Center We shall discuss, lecture and research about this lacking connection between today’s journalism and reality.