Using media as a transformative force to highlight and prompt the good

 The media being an actual change-maker by influencing the heart of an opponent is the 

non-trodden path of peacebuilding through journalism

If the person (journalist) is involved in spiritual practices such as loving kindness meditation or heart chakra opening meditation, or Christ consciousness/the meditations that involve recalling the different names for God as in different cultures, it may help in the very difficult process of seeing the best in a person so as to make a shift in the mind of the person to take decisions for the common good. This means taking a fragment of good and amplifying it to the person (asking many questions around it/strategising the questions around that aspect). If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then this kind of journalism definitely could go a very long way, in transforming a negative reality (at least in most cases), either in the short or long term

By Surya Vishwa

Is this world fully bad? Is it occupied by people who only carry out terrible acts? Is peace within the human heart such a rarity? Can highlighting the bad in a person resolve anything? Will not highlighting the bad segment of a human being give more power to it and increase aggressiveness and negativity? Is each of us good all the time? Have we never done a single thing that we regretted later? Do we like when someone repeatedly reminds us of this? Does this make us do good things or make us degenerate further? 

What is the use of recalling negative aspects of ourselves or any others? Is it not better to highlight whatever that is good – in ourselves, our friends or people we think we do not like? Will not this make them also to be better people even if we say such things to their face or behind their back? These questions are asked in reference to everyday life where we deal with minor conflicts – within ourselves and with others. 

This is why the Buddha’s teachings are based fully and absolutely on the concept of conflict prevention through loving kindness, compassion and equanimity. This is a fundamental aspect of communication – intra and inter personal communication as well as mass communication. These aspects are relevant to the personal context as well as wider society. Failure to prevent conflict from becoming violent can lead to terrible debilitating long term consequences such as civil war as Sri Lanka well knows. 

Media can extend a major influence in ceasing tension. Yet, is the media as seen currently in the world dedicated to being a diffuser of conflicts? Or does it thrive enlarging even minor conflicts? What is highlighted more in the media across the world today? Is it about the hundreds and thousands of good acts carried out daily by people striving to be their best selves? Do we get a sense that these actions occur when we read the newspapers, watch world news on TV, read global and local news on the internet put out by various agencies? 

Psychologists often recommend abstaining from accessing media news for those suffering from anxiety. Getting a daily dose of mass media communication as we have today in the world will make some of us wonder why we are worried about dying and going to hell, when the media reports hell in every part of the world with our breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Is there a reality the mass media is not conveying to us? Where does this reality lie? Where can it begin? Can the media make this alternative reality grow from a tiny seed to a giant tree? Can the media be a transforming tool?

These are some of the questions this writer posed to a few academics and students of media of the Jaffna University, having been invited by senior journalist and foreign correspondent N. Parameswaran, with permission of the Dean of the Arts Faculty, Prof. S. Raguram, to share some insights on media and communication at a lecture Paramweswaran was conducting at the Media Resource and Training Centre in Jaffna. 

When these questions were posed there were many counter questions by the students on all the terrible things that occur and have occurred in Sri Lanka and elsewhere. There was emphasis on the concept of media ethics. The most interesting aspect pointed out was how the same event/issue/speech of an official, etc., is portrayed with a completely different hue depending on the language medium of the newspaper. While the Sinhala media will report it in one way, the Tamil media will report in another. The English media will write about the same event equally differently. Overall the same story is interpreted and quotations of any speeches are used based on the general slant of the institution concerned. 

Why is the difference of reporting slanted and biased according to language as seen in Sri Lanka? 

We as a country do not recognise that language is merely a language and that it is as simple as that. A person of Tamil ethnicity can master French and be as proficient in the language as that of a French national. A person of Sinhala ethnicity can master Tamil up to the highest level as ranked in the modern education system and for example attain a Master’s Degree in it. A Tamil can master the same level of language skill. If so, what is required in writing something is language skill. But why are we not seeing Sinhala writers who are Burghers or Tamils or Muslims as a general norm in Sinhala language editorials? Why are we not seeing those of Sinhalese ethnicity who have mastered Tamil language skills in a Tamil editorial?

The obvious answer is because our education system, assisted damnably by our media, has shaped our mind to believe that language is tied with a tightrope and in iron force to an ethnicity and to a particular identity. This thinking has become the basic consciousness of a Lankan media divided by language politics which sees every single phenomena from a particular coloured lens. This is not unique to Sri Lanka alone but could be said of many other countries. 

A human being is made up of a collective of thoughts. An editorial and an overall newspaper company is made up of a gathering of many human beings. This means a larger collective of thoughts. Therefore, while the power of one human being can have a considerable effect, when practiced in mass communication, the power of a collective of human beings energising a particular situation in a particular manner can have drastic or soothing effects.

The efforts of the Weekend FT Harmony page for the past five years was analysed at the end of my discourse with the Jaffna University students at the lecture conducted by veteran journalist Parameswaran. The general comment was that the stories, reflections, interviews and anecdotes featured were a ‘different’ in tone and subject, to what is generally published in the English media.

Overall, we were basically in agreement that indeed good things occur in this world 365 days in a year when one individual does not decide to start a riot or kick up hate speech in any part of the globe. We also agreed that searching out stories of people doing good even in the worst of situations, can actually, if sought and reported persistently, can actually prevent negative actions by the weak minded who thrive only on fuelling hate. We also agreed that the number of people in the world who want to fuel love, wisdom, peace, compassion, empathy and philanthropy may be far greater than those whose temporary/permanent or phased out/ erratic deranged, unbalanced and biased thinking override their good qualities. 

Indeed even an individual who we term as terrible also has some good qualities. These may be buried hundred or thousand feet within their heart, but they exist. If we shovel out their hearts with compassion and show them the goodness in them we can arduously strike at the root of this kindness and completely change such a person. Depending on the social influence or responsibility of such a person, we thereby may manifest a crucial change. Every single human being is a cohort of influence. A human being damaged in the heart keeps damaging others as intensely with each passing day. We see this in day-to-day life. 

If we look for one undamaged spot in such a heart and keep highlighting a good aspect of that person, the awakening in that person begins. If all of us does this to those we think of as our enemies or those who we think are jealous of us or have wronged us or we think as more successful than us or more lucky than us and thereby those who we don’t like, we would be initiating a change within, and we will impart it to them in the way we talk to them and of them. This will be the first step to change them. This is why Jesus said to turn the other cheek and by the Buddha emphasised love. These religious leaders did not state these things as utopian or fanciful imaginings. They said it out of their actual striving and practiced experience in real life replete with social discrimination, prejudice and wars. 

The questions I left the media students with were as follows:

Imagine a media which seeks out the good in the worst of circumstances.

Imagine a media which seeks out individuals (to write about) who were accepted by all persons and where good is said of them irrespective of who is saying them. Imagine a media which creates a protocol of interviewing that looks to understand the person (however terrible the actions committed so far), that commences the questioning from a humane standpoint which can create a powerful internal reflection in the person being interviewed. This is applicable however not only to journalism but in dealing with difficult people in any sphere based on the well-recognised premise in energy and psychology/neurological studies that a negative thought can multiply negativity and influence the resultant reality.

The media being an actual change-maker by influencing the heart of an opponent is the non-trodden path of peacebuilding through journalism. This may sound quaint and simplistic in conventional journalism as we know it today, which communicates to us headlines about turmoil, corruption and political as well as social mayhem. We have come to believe that this is the ‘norm.’

Because aggressive interviewing becomes second nature in the current media culture, the possible counter parallel of a model of spiritual holistic and reflective journalism that seeks to empower positive change is not discussed. 

To understand the depth of what is suggested also requires a major attitudinal shift. In normal interactions, in non-media related atmospheres, this may be easier.

Overall, to be able to seek out, focus and strategise around what is good and positive, may require a combination of intense inner work as well as intellectual based and wisdom oriented strategising based on diversely relevant local contexts as a problem solving and conflict mitigating/preventing alternative. 

A journalist who will conceptualise and communicate an issue to the wider public is one human from a wider society and is an ordinary human being with his/her own worldview/political opinion and biases. This is why there may be no such thing as a completely neutral media in any part of the world.

However what we are speaking of here in this article, is not mere unbiased reporting but a category of journalism on grey territory that could be called peace-journalism or inner consciousness facilitating journalism. 

If the person (journalist) is involved in spiritual practices such as loving kindness meditation or heart chakra opening meditation, or Christ consciousness/the meditations that involve recalling the different names for God as in different cultures, it may help in the very difficult process of seeing the best in a person so as to make a shift in the mind of the person to take decisions for the common good. This means taking a fragment of good and amplifying it to the person (asking many questions around it/strategising the questions around that aspect).

If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then this kind of journalism definitely could go a very long way, in transforming a negative reality (at least in most cases), either in the short or long term.

This calls for a major movement away from conventional journalism and even surpassing holistic/peace journalism to include spiritual-activist journalism that triggers the deep conscience of a human being.

In a larger framework this can work as an actual strategy of using the media to bring about peacebuilding. To enable this as highlighted, a journalist becomes a gentle facilitator of consciousness. A requirement from the journalist would be a mild tone, a measured manner of speech and a non-threatening body language as well as a mind-heart combined commitment not to be drawn into aggressiveness by the party being interviewed. 

Note: The Harmony page of the Weekend FT was initiated to introduce to the Sri Lankan English language print media, a brand of activism driven holistic- journalism catering to themes such as mother-earth consciousness, spirituality, inner reflection, holistic education, peace-building facilitation, traditional knowledge/wellbeing, native farming, intangible heritage based entrepreneurship and to use media to directly intervene in people related problem solving using especially indigenous knowledge as well as modern innovation.

We are thankful to veteran journalist, Prof. S. Raguram, the Dean of the Arts Faculty of Jaffna University for assisting in the peacebuilding efforts of the Weekend FT Harmony page. The Department of Media Studies of the Faculty of Arts under Dr. Raguram and with the unstinted support of the Vice Chancellor of Jaffna University, S. Srisatkunarajah made the intangible heritage (drama, poetry and art) based North-South exchange held at the Governor Secretariat of North last February a major success. The Harmony page was an initiating media partner in that event and hoped to support in organising similar events in the near future.

It is also our pleasure to learn that Jaffna University Senior Lecturer in Media Studies Poongulaly Srisangeerthanan will be carrying out an academic research on the FT Harmony page and we look forward to giving our fullest assistance in this task, to mainstream holistic media coverage.