THE WORLD OUTSIDE AND THE PICTURES IN OUR HEADS

''But their plight was not so different from that of most of the population of Europe. They had been mistaken for six weeks, on the continent the interval may have been only six days or six hours. There was an interval. There was a moment when the picture of Europe on which men were conducting their business, as usual, did not in any way correspond to the Europe which was about to make a jumble of their lives. There was a time for each man when he was still adjusted to an environment that no longer existed. All over the world as late as July 25th men were making goods that they would not be able to ship, buying goods they would not be able to import, careers were being planned, enterprises contemplated, hopes and expectations entertained, all in the belief that the world as known was the world as it was. Men were writing books describing that world. They trusted the picture in their heads. And then over four years later, on a Thursday morning, came the news of an armistice, and people gave vent to their unutterable relief that the slaughter was over. Yet in the five days before the real armistice came, though the end of the war had been celebrated, several thousand young men died on the battlefields.''

''Looking back we can see how indirectly we know the environment in which nevertheless we live. We can see that the news of it comes to us now fast, now slowly; but that whatever we believe to be a true picture, we treat as if it were the environment itself. It is harder to remember that about the beliefs upon which we are now acting, but in respect to other peoples and other ages, we flatter ourselves that it is easy to see when they were in deadly earnest about ludicrous pictures of the world. We insist, because of our superior hindsight, that the world as they needed to know it, and the world as they did know it, were often two quite contradictory things. We can see, too, that while they governed and fought, traded and reformed in the world as they imagined it to be, they produced results, or failed to produce any, in the world as it was. They started for the Indies and found America. They diagnosed evil and hanged old women. They thought they could grow rich by always selling and never buying..."The World Outside And The Pictures In Our Heads"

Wıthout usıng the term 'agenda-setting' Walter Lippman in his book, was writing about what we call ''agenda-setting''. 'Agenda-setting' is the creation of public awareness and concern of salient issues by the news media. The process whereby professional communicators use technological devices to share messages over great distances to influence large audiences. The media, which can be a newspaper, a book and television, takes control of the information we see or hear; then attempt to influence viewers. The media then uses gatekeeping and agenda-setting to “control our access to news, information, and entertainment. Isn't it that the nations with more political power receive higher news coverage. The ISIS and Al Qaeda were at some point on the 'forefront' of newspapers. Now we've the COVID-19 all over the media platforms. Bernard Cohen observed that the press 'may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.' He continued saying; 'The world will look different to different people, depending on the map that is drawn for them by writers, editors, and publishers of the paper they read.''Cohen, B (1963). The press and foreign policy. New York: Harcourt.

What I am saying is that; if a news item is covered frequently and prominently, the audience will regard the issue as more important. But remember not all that we call news is actually news. Not all that we call important is really important. The time they are showing us 'Nuclear deals', 'political rallies'; etc, somewhere in some part of the world is a case where children are being trafficked, elsewhere, people are being used as 'modern-day slaves'. Why is the 'torture of Aborigines' in Australia not having coverage, why is the deforestation of Amazon not having coverage? Also in Congo where people (including women and children) are being killed for their natural resources and put into slavery to work in mines. 

Sometimes our silence is mistaken for not caring but it’s more about having a lack of knowledge to speak on the matter. We've to all join in and spread awareness. Like I said, not all that we're shown in the press is important, and not all you don't see is irrelevant.