By Guest Writer John Entingh
Abstract
This paper initiates discourse on mass-mediated terrorism literacy at its most basic level. Terror groups use wanton acts of violence to create a culture of fear in an attempt to gain mind control. The media then usurps the control and perpetuates the culture of fear for its own ends. More often than not, government entities manipulate the media’s control through a controlled release of information. Because terrorism is a very real danger to all, and new forms of media are vying for control, people need to have the ability to understand where the true threat actually lies. The core principle is that humans have a tendency to become desensitized by over-stimulation. Consistently perpetuating a culture of fear will inevitably desensitize human awareness to very real dangers. The most practical method for avoiding desensitization is through literacy of a mass-mediated culture of fear. In addition, by cultivating a culture of fear, the general public is distracted from asking critical questions on agenda setting. Without asking critical questions, agendas lack any sense of objectivity on all fronts. This brief introduction is not intended to be a comprehensive media-literacy course, only to initiate discourse on a growing phenomenon of the Fourth Estate and hopefully to encourage literacy of such. The general public has only one defense against cultivation, mind control, and the culture of fear, and that is Fourth Estate literacy.
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