Category: student media manifestos

Elissa Park

I no longer believe that we live in a world where technology can be avoided. It is the tool an endless amount of people, men and women from every corner of the world, utilize to do a countless number of things. A new era has begun; the era of digital culture.

I no longer believe that communication can only be properly done through face to face contact. Media has become the tool people use to effectively voice what they need to say. It has become the platform people seek for acceptance, discussion, participation, and knowledge. This platform has brought out various different expressions from different people. Due to the wide variety of networkers, many are shunned and terrorized for expressing their opinions and beliefs. I believe everyone has a right to their own voice; they should be able to type and say whatever they want to in a free and open environment.

There should be no fear of judgment or criticism.

I believe that free speech in the 21st century translates to a safe space for people to voice their opinions on the media. Because of the global expansion of technology, there are large groups of people who will agree with a single opinion. You no longer have to be afraid of being the black sheep in a field filled with a thousand white sheep. I know that when you say something that is not accepted by a group of people, you have the potential to be cyber bullied. It is a reoccurring theme in the digital realm, but I want there to be reform in the culture online.

As a daily user of media, you should protect the users along with yourself. If we form a community where voices can be heard, there is a higher potential for media to further develop into a tool that can be used for reform.

We must examine the digital realm; examine the limits that have been placed by large corporations, the government, and even societal norms. We have been taught to criticize those who do not conform, but we can no longer behave like this. We must band together, we are no longer separate and different. Through a computer screen we are not black, we are not white, and we are not this religion or that religion.

We are one and we each have a voice.

It should not be suppressed. This is not an issue that will change overnight, but with the union of the masses, we have a chance to reform this deep seated issue.

I want to live in a world where I am unafraid to say what I want to say.

A world where no matter what I believe in I have a community whom I can turn to.

What kind of world do you want to live in?

The Match and Spark of Media- Manifesto

Cassidy Lavigne

The internet: An online collection of information, communication, news, opinions, databases, and an infinite space of opportunity. Media is a match that sparks opportunity for change, debate, and reform. But playing with fire can cause destruction and devastation. The internet is a free place. A place where the people are free to comment, respond, and share their opinions and views all over the world. If that free place is taken away- there is no spark, and no opportunity. So, the people of the internet take that risk of starting a wildfire, in order to get an initial spark.

People are innovators who are constantly changing and evolving with technology- constantly improving and changing for better. The internet sparks change in democracy. It is a blank canvas where the world can write their ideas. It is a world in itself that lives unbounded between space and time. Every voice has the opportunity to be heard by their government, and the government has the responsibility, and duty, to listen.

In a democracy, it is not the right of the government to grant the people freedom of the media, it is given to the people as a human right. The people have the right to all information about their government. Just as the people have the right to post and communicate about their government-good or bad. The media is part of freedom of speech, and the right to know about their government and its actions. Media is a bridge of communication between the government and the people, and vice versa. Without the bridge, there is nothing- only a gap.

The main challenge between democracy and the internet is not everyone has access to it. While some people cannot afford the internet and have total freedom to use it, others do not. In order to make the internet the most democratic, it has to be available to everyone, and furthermore be subject to constant changes by all people, not just those with power. But like all power, small or large, it has to possibility of being manipulated. This manipulation of opinions and information should be taken seriously, as it is easily corrupted, and thereby becomes the spark that sets ablaze a bridge of communications.

Equal representation is a key element in democracy. How does every person-every group- get a fair say in the media? The internet is a place for everyone from everywhere- a constant global network for voices to be heard. If the group or individual doesn’t have a voice, they have to make a spark using the media to make a name for themselves. True- higher agencies have power to manipulate this spark and prevent equality, all opinions have the power to manipulate on the internet. Equal representation starts from a spark, and usually creates a wildfire. It is the risk of playing with fire that groups and individuals must take when trying to create more light.

The internet, media, and technology are constantly improving. There are many positive things to come with the internet and its ability to be changed and commented by all. The world has an area that breaks the wall between space and time. The possibilities are, and continuing to grow to be endless. It is an opportunity for everyone to connect from everywhere, and in the future, hopefully the access will be more available. Although all opinions may not have cohesion and the internet has dark areas, it is important to find the balance of regulation. This regulation, although necessary for some circumstances, will have a huge impact in the future of publicizing on the internet.

Internet access and the ability to get information and knowledge from the media is a human right, not a privilege. The media is the spark for opportunity to initiate changes with the risk of causing a wildfire. If there is no match, no spark, then there is no change- and the incredible opportunity that the internet has given people, groups, and communities, is lost.

Yuta Maezono

My manifest focuses on how to deal with media and information that it reports—about media literacy. Media literacy is a competency that enables people to analyze, evaluate, and create messages in media modes. Today this manifest advises you what you should keep in mind when you watch TV, read newspaper, or surf the Internet.

Be alert to information media reports to you! When we try to report one news to someone we more or less need to cut or edit one fact and create our truth. It is physically impossible to report all information about the fact because of limit of time and money so the happening someone actually sees is different from the happening media reports. Media sometimes report not only the distorted truth but also false things. Please be aware that all information that we can get in any media forms is done with the media’s editing and choosing.

Guess purposes of media telling you information! Media is also business, and gains profit from companies, organizations, or personal customers. When media discovers a truth that benefits or harms business partners of the media, it tries to exaggerate or hide the truth. For example, when deceptive camouflage of places of food Disney Resort hotel serves was revealed, few mass media nor newspapers reported this issue. That’s because Disney companies were one of the biggest ad rate customers for media and newspaper so that they could put pressures over the media. Even the media cannot oppose to its customer for the business. Please take into account the business connections of media.

Concretely, I offer three suggestions about ways to deal with people. Get information from as many media as possible so that you can get closer to facts. Be aware that even media has something that it cannot report. Think of purposes of media reporting.

Tomohiro Miyoshi

Political participation of indigenous peoples is essential for the true development of Latin America. But they have been excluded from the Latin American politics, and the politicians from the dominant minority have attempted to destroy the indigenous cultures. Moreover, indigenous peoples, especially women and young people, have been underrepresented in the media, which poses challenges to their political participation. It is very important to ensure indigenous peoples’ rights of representation in media because media have a great impact on public opinion.

The political inclusion of indigenous peoples can be achieved through their representation in media. Therefore, education and training of the indigenous peoples is necessary to help increase their knowledge of new information technology that boosts their representation in media. In fact, the UN Department Programme (UNDP) tries to provide some of the indigenous peoples such as the Aymara, Rapa Nui, and Mapuche with training sessions in Chile on how to make a better use of information technology in order to boost their political representation. This training session greatly helped the indigenous groups of people actually improve their communication skills and participate in political arena. Therefore, we should actively adopt this method to help even more indigenous peoples learn about media technology and gain more parliamentary seats by utilizing the technology.

Although there are, as I mentioned, some efforts to include indigenous peoples in politics, their political representation is still very low. So far, Bolivia is the only country which has numerous indigenous peoples in the lower house of parliament. In other countries such as Mexico, indigenous peoples represent less than 10 out of 500 members of the lower house of parliament despite the fact that they make up the majority of inhabitants in many cities.We should not just allow nonindigenous groups to dominate the number of parliamentary seats because those groups have exploited the indigenous cultures and tried to foster a development based solely on economic aspects. They have totally ignored the development on the basis of cultural values, so they have tried to oppress the indigenous cultures and make them assimilate into Western cultures. Now we have to acknowledge that political representation of the indigenous peoples is an essential step toward the genuine growth of Latin American society. It is indigenous representatives who can preserve their own cultural values and open a new path for Latin American Indians.

Si Min Chew

Luis Herrera

Media in its modern form surrounds us in every aspect of our lives. Media takes the distinct forms of television, radio, internet, newspaper, art, film, etc. Because of the different forms the media has today, it literally can present itself in every part of our everyday lives. For this reason, it becomes clear that the media can become a weapon for the powerful to use in order to influence our way of thinking about certain ideas. In this case, the government of countries is what uses the media to make sure that the people see only certain aspects of reality. In what is known as media conglomerates, corporate leaders take control of large chunks of the media and show only what benefits their interests. If a few media conglomerates had control of what is put on TV, the newspaper, and radio, then the people would be forced to take part in a government where diversity is limited.

Take the United States as an example. Much of what goes on television today is owned by a few TV conglomerates. Disney/ABC, CBS, and NBC are three giant conglomerates that own the majority of the channels on cable. What this implies is that the corporate leaders of these conglomerates decide what goes on in the majority of the channels that we can watch. We basically only have a little over three different opinions on newscast that we can view. Since politics in the U.S. is already extremely polarized, these TV conglomerates only contribute to the non-diverse politics present in the country. This was also the case in Mexico. Televisa, also a large television conglomerate, controlled the entire television world in Mexico during the time when the PRI political party was in power for 71 years. It is obvious that during this 71 year period, Televisa only showed programs and advertisements that catered to PRI. The same can be said about Grupo Clarin in Argentina and its manipulation of the media to support the military governments in power during the 1970s. There is no diversity, no voice for people in countries where the majority of the media is controlled by the minority.

For this reason, we must begin to demand that the government restructures the ownership of media and distributes these ownership rights to the people. In this way, we can avoid what has happened in other countries, which is the media manipulating the people and establishing unwanted regimes. By restructuring this ownership, more diversity will exist in politics which in turn can create more voices in the government. In order for this to function, we must look at Argentina’s Ley de Medios and analyze what they are doing right as well as what they are doing wrong and implement the same ideals in the United States. With enough voices calling out for change in media ownership, we can accomplish our goal of bringing more diversity to the media and creating more voices for the people.

For long time, people have been held suspicion of information of Television, Newspapers, and SNS run by government, corporations, and individuals. Where does the suspicion come from? It deprives from media’s wrong and manipulative broadcasts without social responsibility. Here, social responsibility denotes the responsibility of broadcasting accurate and fair information. The media do not explicitly violate this responsibility. What hinders their obligation of social responsibility? It is the rights of free expression.

Because of the unregulated rights of free expression, individuals, corporations, and even government announce silly lies, alluring advertisement, and manipulative declaration. That’s the reason why Venezuelan people faced the crisis of dictatorship from anti-Chavez party in 2002. That’s the reason why the curse of annihilation by nuclear contamination frightened people in Japan and all over the world in 2011.

Of course, there is no doubt that nothing can restrict anyone’s freedom of expression.

However, having the rights of free expression does not mean that people are welcomed to voice irrational information. Professor Mark Dinneen alerts that, “all [media] must assume responsibility for what they express, and cannot hide behind anonymity or convey messages that promote war, discrimination or religious intolerance” (38). Then, he continues that, “past experience highlights the need to regulate the conduct of the media more effectively, to improve the quality and accuracy of the information it disseminates, extend public access to and participation in the media and to encourage social responsibility on the part of its owners and employees” (38-39). As Dinneen declares, the right of free expression in media is only guaranteed when they conduct their own social responsibility.

In order to solve this mischief of the rights of free expression, any third party must establish an inspective organization and deploy the inspectors to all media groups. As people who desire getting rid of media suspicion, we need to move the society and to develop the trusting media.

Yoko Taguchi
January 2015, California, U.S.

Unbiased Media Manifesto, Nobuyuki Furuta

Don’t get deceived by mass media. Media are defined as something that mediates between people and this world. In reality, however, that’s not true because media are biased. They have complete power to decide what they broadcast and what citizens are able to know. They manipulate innocent citizens by giving only biased information. The relationship between media and us shouldn’t be one-directional. Media shouldn’t be biased. We, all citizens, have a right to know the truth. We have to change this society that is ruled by the huge influence of mass media.

So, we need something to control media. We demand that the government introduce new laws that guarantee that mass media include different voices in their broadcasts. Laws are the best tool to establish and maintain equality within media and people, since no one is allowed to defy and break them. Can we rely on the government for the role of controlling mass media, instead of introducing new laws? No, because, if the government could control media and decide broadcasts, mass media would be just the tool to convey the opinions of the government. We need absoluteness. Our right to know the reality has to be assured by laws.

Also, broadcasts must always include opinions from different perspectives in order to depict the reality as precisely as possible. Something that is unfavorable for media and the government could often happen in reality. Media have power to keep concealing these facts. However, they have to let all viewers know what is actually happening. Some people might suffer from the unknown facts that media don’t open. Media have to convey their voices as well because that is the role that media have to fill.

Join us and let’s make media unbiased. We have a right to know the truth.

Manifesto, Kaori Tsuji

Be an Active Participant, Freedom of Expression and Media Literacy

When I was in elementary school, I used to be obsessed with the TV because it showed me things that I have never known. When I was in middle school, I started using a cell phone. It taught me how to connect with other people. When I was in high school, I got a smartphone, which made me get used not to communicate face to face with other people. I am currently in the college and got a laptop. I am on online almost all day. Despite the fact that these devices are getting more and more complicated, they make my life so much more convenient. I do not need a newspaper or a magazine to know recent news or gossips. I do not have to go shopping at stores anymore. I can talk to multiple friends at the same time via the Internet. These devices provide us more free and useful world. I am sure many people feel the same. In the complexity, however, we are being trapped by the misunderstandings of freedom of the media. I would like to assert two fantasies that we are being led to believe.

First, we consider freedom as a state that we can do whatever we want. One of my classmates from my high school put a naked picture of his friend on Twitter without his friend’s permission. As a result, a lot of people who saw the picture felt uncomfortable and even were offended, and the friendship between him and his friend was destroyed. There was also an incident in Japan that a student committed suicide due to the bully on the Internet. The bullies took advantage of the anonymity of the Internet. On New Year’s Eve, a Japanese famous singer made fun of the honor medal that was from the Japanese emperor on TV, and many people found it as an insult to the emperor. Consequently, he had to apologize in public for his attitude. His reputation has been dragged down after that. How far can we have freedom of expression? I believe one’s freedom should be respected as long as it does not invade others’ rights or does not hurt others, and I believe we all should know that. However, the media can make us forget the common fact, because we tend to forget the small screen of a phone or a laptop is connected with millions of other people. These people that I listed above clearly do not know what they did on their screen could have such impact on others’ lives. Through the filter, we feel like we are free from any restriction, which is totally a lie.

Second, as we are witnessing the evolution of technology, we tend to feel that we are free to get any kind of information through the use of media. Although, we definitely have better accessibilities to a variety of information, and it is so much easier than before, just having those skills does not make you more notified. We all get to try to actively take advantage of it. Glen Greenwald criticizes people because they are just satisfied with a feeling of freedom, and not many people actually go access bunch of database and try to collect as much information as they can. Some people might say that it is fine just to have the option so that those who want to know more can gain more information. However, if people do not actively try to get information on the Internet, the authority would fool those people. It has been manipulating information people receive and the impression people receive from it in the history. Its propaganda system was less intricate in the past, but it takes advantage of the complexity of the media in the current society and shows people an illusion of freedom. For example, Greenwald states that the U.S government concealed information and its lies about the Iraq War to justify to go to the war. Greenwald also warns that there is a disparity of information that people receive depending on where they live because the government chooses what to disclose and what not to. Hence, the government of each country has its own subjective purpose underneath its media and tries to control people’s image of their own country or other countries. Due to the authority’s censorship, people could have hostility toward other countries, and it might end up fighting with them, just like the 9.11 attacks. These are the reasons that I want to emphasize the importance of spontaneity searching more information. We cannot allow the authority to deceive us anymore! It is not easy to transform it, so it is we who have to change to protect our freedom!

To prevent us from being trapped by the myths of freedom in the current society, I would like to declare that we all need a certain education about the use of media. I have taken a class about the use of computers. The class gave me knowledge about the history of technology and softwares or applications in the computers, but it never taught me the dangers of the media. The education in the current society must include not only how to use the media, but also ethics on the media so that people would use the Internet in accordance with the morality. Also, it has to be conducted according to universal curriculum so that a country can change to whatever beneficial for the government. In a way, the education can improve the inequality of access to the media, so it has to be mandatory for all students as well. On the top of that, it has to be done for the purpose of making students aware of the system of the media and its positive and negative sides, letting them have the skills to access the information by themselves, and growing them up as active participants of this digital world. As active participants, we all are required to follow ethics in order to protect others’ freedom and our own’s. If we see someone violating the ethics, we would be required to accuse of whoever the opponent. What if the government violates them like it has done so many times around the world in the history? Suppose only a few of us are active participants and accuse the government for hiding information that people should know and taking away people’s freedom to know, they would be marginalized because the government power is stronger. However, if all of us are active participants, we would be able to submerge the government’s corruption, just like a revolution. I believe being active participants means being free in a true sense. Before we lose our sight in the entanglement, it is the time!