Has no mouth but speaks, has no hands but touches, has
no life but breathes, what is it? Answer: media.
In every waking moment of our lives, we use media –we
watch the television, listen to radios, read magazines and newspapers, yet, we simply
neglect its power. One of the most
powerful things in today’s time is media. It has greatly influenced our lives.
It helps us make a decision, may it be the kind of soap to use, what car to
buy, food to eat, movies to watch, or who to vote as president and so on. A
famous line from Spiderman says, “A great power comes with a great responsibility”.
The media may be a source of many positive implications as to every aspect in
human development, however such cases like human trafficking and phishing is
still present –thus, the great power of media must be used appropriately in
order to avoid such events.
One of the positive impacts of media is its promotion of
citizen journalism. It encourages mundane individuals to let their voice be
heard. Many people have so much to say, yet suppressed because of the fear of simply
speaking out. So, what they do is they let their written works talk for them. They
get a pen name or post their works anonymously over personal blogs. Consequently,
it also helps build a strong belief system and teaches people to be opinionated
enough without sounding dogmatic and snotty. However, just like everything else
in this world, some things just go off the positive side of the tree –it can
also develop problems such as making the dissemination of fake news and the prevalence
of biased articles easier. Another can be going against the libel law. The
libel law states that anyone who disdain, bring into disrepute or dishonor a
person publicly shall be punished under Article 353 of the Revised Penal Code (Attorneys of the Philippines, 2017) .
Another use of media that plants positivity is the
ability of it to advertize tourism. Through the help of internet, a less costly
way of advertizing local tourist spots can be achieved. Picturesque sceneries
can be uploaded over the internet with inviting captions to entice people to
come and visit the place. Since the internet can be accessed anywhere in the
world, the post can reach many people and might just cause excitement to the
global village which can lead to possible robust of tourism. However, photos
taken must not be manipulated to deceive people. It must be kept genuine,
although minimal enhancements will be okay. Articles about the place must also
not be exaggerated that it may already wax poetic lies in the heads of
people.
Human trafficking is any form of illegal employment,
using people by means of business transaction as if the person is simply a
commodity that can be traded off by money (UNODC, 2018) . According
to the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (2012), 27% of all the victims were
identified to be children, two-thirds of which are girls. More than half is
trafficked for the use of sexual exploitation and about 36% is for forced
labor. From 2007 to 2010, it has been reported that majority of the victims
were trafficked across borders and others were trafficked interregional. In
today’s time, human trafficking has been made easier since one click on the
internet can immediately disclose information about a person. The most
prominent portal of this lies to the social media platforms. These social media
platforms cater all the information needed in order to capture a potential
prey. A different thing in line to this is phishing. Phishing is the act of
tricking people by sending emails containing false information to gain access
to account passwords or pins (TechTarget, 2017) . Thus, this yet
again, puts to show that the internet can be a channel of fraudulent actions.
To
avoid such repulsive events to happen, what we can do is be very mindful of our
internet wanders. We must be wary of the things that we will post online and
observe tact when expressing an opinion. Consequently, being a media and
information literate can be helpful to minimize such incidents. Let us all keep
in mind that the media is our digital mouths that could influence the minds and
touch the hearts of people. It is a mere object yet it is as if alive,
manipulating our every decision. It controls us –frightening but true.
