Use of the Media to Spread Fear as a Means for Controlling the Public in V for Vendetta - Movie Review Example

Use of the Media to Spread Fear as a Means for Controlling the Public Introduction For the longest period, numerous interest groups around the world have used fear, especially in media discourse. The technique of fear control operates by generating uncertainty and spreading it among the members of the public with the aim of creating for themselves a suitable environment for the easy achievement of their goals. While fear naturally manifest in people, some interest groups create fear among the people to intimidate them into not questioning their actions, according to Hanna (37). Such groups are in most cases involved in politics and use the media to spread fear among the people, as was seen in the movie V for Vendetta, which this paper shall use to highlight the issue of the use of media by political leadership to create and spread fear among populations. Marko (201) posits that a subject having political power uses fear control. Fear control means that such individuals are able to identify the potential that fear has to manipulate the masses and understand the content of the fear. The thesis statement for this paper is that in some societies, governments employ techniques in media use that espouse the spreading of fear among the people so that they manipulate ordinary individuals with relative ease, as portrayed in the movie V for Vendetta. The movie V for Vendetta, adapted from a book by a similar title by Alan Moore, has its setting in England and has poor governance and manipulation through the media as its main themes. The movie shows the actions of V, a revolutionary who seeks to destroy the government of that day. The reason for V’s vendetta against the government is the totalitarian tendencies adopted by the government. V himself is a victim of detention and unlawful medication that gave him a mental illness. V managed to break out from prison by planting explosive devices around the prison. After escaping, V set out to seek revenge against his captors, most of who had managed to secure influential positions in government, where they had considerable power. The party in government, the Norsefire, had seized power after the world had been through a nuclear war and suffered considerable damage. This party set up a fascist regime amidst the confusion and chaos that characterised Britain after the nuclear war, according to the V for Vendetta Study guide (n.p.). V says that fear became the greatest tool of the government of that day. To show the way the government used the media to spread fear, Sutler, the leader of the government, said: ‘We need a clear message to the citizens of this country. They must read this message in every newspaper, hear it on every radio and see it on every television…what I want is for everyone to recollect their reason for needing us’. Before V, no individual or group had opposed the totalitarian regime in place. The regime performed a vigorous campaign of social and ethnic cleansing, therefore creating fear among the population. Anyone that showed some opposition to the methods adopted by the regime was brutally punished. The government constantly observed the population through an omnipresent computer system known as ‘Fate’. The government had a media practitioner, Lewis Prothero, who broadcasted propaganda on behalf of the government, with propaganda being the strongest tool of the Norsefire government. On his TV show, Prothero spreads falsehoods about V and Evey, his accomplice, in an effort to make them unpopular with the public. He says this about the two during his show: ‘V and Evey, non-demagogues spouting hate messages, abberant and delusional voices…aberrant and abhorrent!...delivering the ultimatum of a terrorist…traitor…an ultimatum met with surgically precise, swift justice…no mercy!’. This shows how the political leadership use media discourse to communicate punishment for dissidents. The chief protector of the ‘Fate’ program was the leader, Adam Susan and the head of The Mouth (the arm of government charged with the duty of broadcasting propaganda) was Rodger Dascombe. Along with other leaders, mostly in the police force, the government had a well-orchestrated team that was effective in instilling fear in the people. Governments, especially in less developed countries, use the media in such ways. An example is how the Rwandese government used the media to spread fear before the 1994 genocide. V opts to blow up government structures with the aim of motivating the population to act against the government, since the people had suffered immensely under the government without any resistance for a long time, as written in the Study guide (n.p). The decision by V to blow up government buildings is a demonstration of the frustration by the people towards a government syndicate to rule through propaganda and fear. V says this to Evey to explain his mission: ‘A building is just but a symbol, so is the act of destroying the building. People give symbols power. On its own, a symbol has no meaning, but with enough individuals, blowing up one building can bring a difference to the world…’- the Character V. This movie is a good depiction of how a government can use fear to secure its rule. Fear, in the sphere of politics, has a connection with specific struggles for hegemony and certain ideologies in a society. The media is a powerful tool in the spread of fear. As such, the wordings used to spread propaganda are carefully crafted. Certain groups in the society create the discourse and vouch for certain ideologies (Marko, 203). They then communicate these ideologies to the people in a specified language. As seen in the movie, the main aim of creating media discourse is to instil conformity in the minds of the people, along with a feeling of helplessness. V says in the movie: ‘…something is terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Injustice and cruelty, oppression and intolerance...you have surveillance systems and censors soliciting your submission and coercing your conformity…you turned to Adam Sutler, the High Chancellor. He promised peace and order, and demanded your obedient, silent consent’. In most instances, among the first industries that the groups in power seek to seize control over is the media. The totalitarian government in V for Vendetta understood the importance of the media in the spread of fear. This recognition is evident in the setting up of The Mouth and the level of protection that the government accorded to this department. By using the media, totalitarian governments seek to exploit the ability of this medium to reach a large portion of the population within a short time because of the attention that the media gets from the population. The Study guide (n.p) explains that the media in the movie passed information to the people in the manner in which the interest groups desire them to be received by the wider population, to ensure that they communicate their position and ideologies in a clear manner. The media can also be effective in spreading propaganda about ‘others’. Such propaganda serves to spread fear among the people that the ‘others’, who may possess some degree of threat to the current leadership, do not have any good intentions for the people. Marko (204) gives an example of the Serbian media that forged a discourse against out-group communities during the Serbian wars between 1991 and 1995 as well as the armed conflict and the Kosovo crisis in 1999. The main targets of this media discourse were the Bosniaks, Muslims and Albanians. The media depicted these groups as enemies of the people of Serbia. The media plays an important role because it reconstructs news events based on the different discourses as opposed to passively recording and describing events in the news. The media has the potential to control the minds of the public, therefore driving the audience towards acting in a specific way. This makes the media an attractive tool for the spread of fear according to Altheide and Michalowski (476). The text by Marko is an effective critique of the happenings in the current political setup. People seek political power through any means possible, including spreading fear among the population about their opponents. After they use the media to spread such propaganda and get into power, various governments make use of the media to communicate their ideologies and spreading fear to discourage the people from opposing their positions on various matters according to (Altheide and Michalowski, 478). With fear, the people cannot complain effectively about the misdeeds of the government for fear of victimization. Such methods continue to gain favour from governments of nations where most of the population is poor and as such can easily be manipulated to conform to the whims of the political order. It is imperative to note that media discourse is not restricted to developing countries. The US media has faced criticism for spreading fear among the people in various instances. The widening of the democratic space in different countries in the future is a step towards eradicating media discourse. V says in the movie that ‘People should not fear their governments. Governments should fear their people’. Hanna (83) posits that the media should restrict itself to describing occurrences without changing them to fit the agenda of any party. The media should take up the role of informing the public on different matters and creating awareness on issues of benefit to the society as opposed to reporting the news in such a manner that would appear to influence the decision of the audience. The mean effect of biased reporting is the fanning of radicalism in any society. This effect manifests itself in the reaction by a group of individuals, led by V, against a government that no one had dared to oppose. The people may develop the view that the media operates as an agency of the government. In such an event, the media would not be informing the public on significant matters, creating awareness and so on. Conclusion Governments will effectively communicate their willingness to expand the democratic space by ensuring that the media plays a neutral role while spreading information. More people will appreciate the role of the media in the society when the media serves the purpose of informing the public without creating fear in them on behalf of the political leadership. The act of media discourse serves to alienate an individual or the people therefore contributing to lack of cohesion in the society, as seen in the movie V for Vendetta. In that light, it is important to use the media as a tool to unify the people as opposed to using this important medium to instil fear and create disharmony among the people. V for Vendetta portrays that the notion that the populace may potentially develop the view that the media operates as an agency of the government. Works Cited Altheide, David, and Sam Michalowski. "Fear in the News." Arizona State University. Web. 13 Nov. 2014. Marko, Davor. "Fear Control in Media Discourse." Southeastern Europe 1.1 (2013): 200-19. Print. "V for Vendetta." Study Guide: V For Vendetta. Web. 13 Nov. 2014. . Read More