The Media - Do they realise how powerful they are?

A reminder from a James Bond movie - the evil newspaper baron who creates news, does the reports before he makes the event actually happen. This slowly becomes a reality in todays world with the internet and satellite television reaching all corners of the world. Let a Channel announce that a Hindu killed a Muslim and this will actually happen - mob frenzy will help magnify this event very easily.

A brief thought passes by : How has the media grown? How important spreading your voice has become. From the Cacophony of official screamers, the Tom Tom Drums from Denkali, Pigeons with messages, Telexes, Faxes to Twitting.... the whole world has changed. The more we are able to throw our thoughts and influence distant people, the more powerful we become. And as we throw our thoughts further, into other cultures, we seldom realise that our 'subject recepients' may either not comprehend or even worse, mis-comprehend our messages.

As a people on this planet, we are diverse in race, religion, culture and behaviour.
One persons fad may be blasphemous to another. Thus we could be spreading hatred without knowing it and probably for no reason at all. And the 'media' therefore becomes party to the creation of dislike.

If one goes back into the history of mans quest to get his 'point of view' across - we see that from time immemorial - we have tried make our voices louder to spread it across distances. From SHOUTING loud, using hands to magnify the sound, to the development of a simple paper cones or megaphones, to battery run ones, to microphones and loud speakers, to radio, television, satellite communication and the internet - we have come very far from being able to throw our voices (and thoughts) - from just a few metres across a fence - to great distances - across the earth and the universe too. The Next stage will be human teleporters and what not - the untimate 'media' to get our points of view across. Get yourself teleported to give the best effect.

Would you then get tele-ported in a Bikini to Saudi Arabia or in a veil to a Neo-Nazi meeting in Germany? The point I'm trying to make 'through this media' is that we need to realise the implications of our propoganda. In times of war - countries deliberately used the media, to mis-inform people ( mass porpoganda - they called it). Nothings changed today. George Bush used it to constantly keep his people under the veil of fear. This enabled him to virtually go about invisibly in his destruction of Iraq under the guise of a war on terror.

Where does one draw the line between Freedom of expression and propoganda?
Until we do draw a line, lets try and exhibit understanding that, what we say may affect someone we dont know far away. Reigning in our voices will automatically reign in our thoughts and thus our influence. Communities will be able to live their lives as they wish and not as dictated by a louder voice.
The Medium must become localised. Opinions expressed must be preserved within your context. Religions especially must let the conscience from within take over. When silence prevails, the world will become a safer place.

But then reading through the above, one wonders if this all is really possible. We push science and technology to expand the distance between our physical presence and our moral influence. The trespassing of others physical territories by our wandering influence is bound to create problems. Will we ever be able to draw a line? Will there ever be something we can call a responsible media? The media is only a creation of ours so that we can spread our wings and be free. Are we willing to curtail our own freedom?