Recently in the news there has been coverage of
the Kenyan mall attack/ hostage situation. Five gunmen including at least one woman came inside
Nairobi’s Westgate Mall with multiple different guns and grenades. After the
lights shut off, the gunman continued to shoot only allowing Muslims to leave. Multiple
people from various nationalities were at the mall during the time of the
shooting and a festival was also being held where 50 children were in
attendance.
Later in the day, Kenyan officials say the
attacks could have been terroristic in nature, and later that afternoon a
Twitter account that is reportedly associated with al-Shabaab claimed they were
the ones responsible for the attack. As of now forces continue to secure the
perimeter of the mall as they close in on the shooters. Many still remain
hostages.
Officials also told Embassy workers to stay
home and only monitor the local media for updates. These officials who could be
in danger in their own homes turn to the media for guidance. I think this has
been pretty typical in the past with domestic situations. Everyone turns on the
news when they hear about some breaking news, but for an American living
overseas to be able to turn on the news and find out what’s going on around the
corner from their foreign homes is amazing. To think about how media coverage has
grown—and so quickly—is something very interesting to think about.
I think there certainly is something to be said about how fast it has grown. Today, a person can be connected with those all over the world as opposed to those who just live in his immediate area. However, what we have seen in Kenya showed the downside of this. Mass media, social media are tools for any human to use. In the hands of a terrorist, it was a tool used to claim responsibility for a deadly attack. In some cases, to those who use twitter as their news source, they are subjected to find that messages from an al-shabab group as soon as they post it. Yet, we also saw how a Middle-Eastern man from google garnered enough support from a facebook group to overthrow an oppressive dictator in Egypt. Though other factors were of course involved, that is still significant. Two sides to a coin.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is remarkable how quickly the media has grown. Live coverage of many events is beneficial to Americans both at home and overseas. With the edition of social media, it has been made that much easier for the public to communicate with mass media and even government officials. This also allows for the media to more quickly inform the public of what is going on around them. The fact that terrorist groups are able to claim responsibility for an act through social media is astounding. It definitely allows the government to better understand what they are dealing with. However, this quick spread of information can also sometimes be damaging. With information spreading so quickly, misinformation is inevitable and many times people only get part of the whole story.
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