Mass Media Terror

I remember on that fateful day in 2001, my house phone rang at around 11pm. We hardly ever received calls from anyone, let alone at 11pm at night. It turned out that it was my from my auntie living in New York. She had called to tell us of her encounter: She was on her way to work via the Subway when she felt prompted to drop of the train before she had reached her intended station. The next moment after alighting, she heard news of the collapse of the buildings where she worked at. She worked at the World Trade Center.

Yes, I am talking about the September 11 attacks - one of the worst known terrorist attacks in the world.

Frankly, I didn't give it much thought when I heard about the terrorist attack that night. Other than being slightly shocked and relieved that my auntie was safe, the whole idea of terrorist attacks was relatively unknown to me. I slept soundly that night. However, the next day, the newspaper fronts were splashed with the photos of the burning buildings, photos of New Yorkers in anguish. Not just one article, but countless articles giving a step-by-step account of the incident, discussions on who was the mastermind behind the attack, interviews on the victims, etc. I heard it on the radio..the sounds of the plane crashing into the steel building, hearing the screams of horror. I remember rushing home from school and plonking myself in front of the tele..I saw footage of people jumping out of the windows of the 110 floors skyscraper, the planes crashing into the North and South tower, heard the final recorded phone calls of the passengers on the plane. I learnt about the effect on the US economy and finally understood the meaning of terrorist attacks. It truly haunted me. The world declared a fight against the terrorists behind 911.

I wouldn't have known the magnitude of this event if not for the mass media, even though I had heard it first hand from my aunt. Even the aliens on Mars would have known about this world-changing event. Thus is the effect of mass media on us today, or what we would call the Agenda Setting Function.


The media raises the importance of certain issues/topics to the public by repeatedly reporting or emphasizing on on them, to fulfill their media agendas. In this case, creating the awareness against the true dangers of terrorism and rallying the world against Afganistan/Iraq. How we evaluate certain issues are also to a certain extent based on the views presented by the mass media. Do you ever recall questioning how accurate was the media's reflection of the whole September 11 attacks, or simply accepting that what the headlines on the newspapers had reported was entirely true? We have often been "primed" by the media into thinking in a certain way, especially if that is part of the media agenda (e.g. the mass media being controlled by a government).
Everyday, we are exposed to so much information from the media, each from their own sources. And it seems for majority of us, we let ourselves get steered by the media and their views. Are we victims of mass media?