This speech was apart of a project that I had to complete in Year 10, as part of my English Language GCSE, to which I received a distinction for.
HOW THE MEDIA INFLUENCES YOUR OPINIONS AND VIEWS.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are here in this pristine classroom, in which we are all very smart people. However, did you know that most of you in here have been subjected to lies that the media have influenced you into thinking is true? I know some of you are thinking ‘oh here we go again, she is going to talk about Russia.’ Well, you are all right. Today, ladies and gentlemen I will be giving you an insight into a whole new perspective, on the current events in the world, and the misconceptions the media have told you about Russia and also other stories that have recently been in the news.
Russophobia: A strong disliking towards Russia and Russian things, especially the political system or customs of the former Soviet Union. This is the dictionary definition of Russophobia. I would like to begin with a few misconceptions of Russia that I can and will prove to you, are just misconceptions. The first of many and probably the most popular misconception of Russia is that its current president Vladimir Putin is quite a malicious character in the world. As you can see on the board behind me there are many different news articles which try to manipulate you into actually believing that the current President of the Russian Federation is indeed evil. There are many famous newspapers and online information sites such as the infamous Forbes and Vanity Fair. However, the most surprising of these lot is the very, very famous news provider the Wall-Street Journal. This is a very highly acclaimed Newspaper and it is not just known in the United States but also all over the world, I am pretty sure that most of you in this very room have heard of it before. To me, this is an atrocious form of an attack of hatred on not just the president but also the whole of the Russian community world-wide. One thing that I found of interest in this particular article is that it was mainly based on the accusations of Russia interfering in the American elections. One of the first lines reads ‘I was alarmed by the interference of Russia in the American election’. Now at first glance, if you do not do any research on this topic yourself or happen to be an American reading this supposedly ‘trustworthy’ article you will immediately be influenced into believing that Russia had indeed interfered with the 2016 US elections. However, if you really truly think about it you too will realise how ridiculous this sounds. This is the American election. The United States of America who has one of the best security systems in the world, could not supposedly stop someone with interfering in the US elections? Would they not have realised it straight away? I think that they would. Secondly, to support my argument there is absolutely no evidence to support this case, none at all. Hence why all of these articles have no evidence to support their views that Russia did indeed interfere with the elections. All they say is that it did happen and many people believe it as it is constantly repeated to them over and over again. Whether that be on their TV screens, on social media, in movies, in books, all around you and through-out many years Russia has been portrayed as being bad and evil in the eyes of the media and film production. I think it’s time to open our eyes to this.
This leads me on to my next point, which is that Russia as a whole has always been portrayed as being the evil people who are all spies and etcetera. There is even a whole James Bond movie based around how Russia is an evil place filled with evil people, as it is titled ‘from Russia: with love’. Even in the movie ‘Gravity’ that was filmed with only three actors throughout the whole movie and it is about space was able to represent Russian’s as being evil, as they were stuck in space because of a Russian Missile. In very popular movies such as The Avengers, Black Widow, who is an avenger is portrayed as being a Russian who is a spy and a ‘talented assassin’. Even though she may not be considered a villain, she is still being portrayed as being a spy and an assassin. This is constantly being fed into your minds in many popular movies and books, so it is very easy to manipulate people into actually believing that all Russians are bad and they are all spies and so on. I re-iterate ladies and gentlemen, it is time to open our eyes.
Many of you are aware that currently, the world cup is happening in Russia. In which Theresa May publicly announced that neither she nor the royal family would be attending. In my opinion, I believe that is this simply senseless, the world cup should not be about politics it is a time for people to go and support their nation in the fight for victory. Theresa May is making it seem as though it is not right to go visit Russia to watch the world cup. Due to this, many people from the UK have gone into Russia believing that the streets were filled with riots and gangs, however, ITV News did interview some people there who came from the UK and they said, that they ‘were very lovely people’, and they ‘felt sympathy’ for them as one even asked ‘why do you hate us?’. These scenarios indeed help to prove my important point that you shouldn’t believe everything you read, many of these media links and ‘reliable’ news sources all are indeed designed to mislead the public into believing what they want you to believe. It is interesting to note, that major news providers such as the BBC and CNN are owned by the government. This could perhaps mean that the government could be controlling the news they are showing you and are doing this knowingly in order to twist the truth to favour themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, I urge you to open your eyes.
I know that I will get opposition from my viewpoint, in which people will say ‘But Russia also deliberately change their news in favour of them’. However, I will say that I know that this is true. Every single news article, information post, the textbook you read will be biased even in the least possible way, this includes all news from all around the world. In addition to this, I do not believe that Russian headlines are any more propagandistic than America’s or the Uk’s. In fact, in Russia, I believe you have two different viewpoints on all current events. I have come to this conclusion as I watch the Russian news as well as the Lithuanian and British news and my family and I usually compare them. They mainly will have the same headline stories that are known worldwide but will also be biased in order to favour their audience and usually themselves. Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to look at the bigger picture.
Not only are there misleading news articles about politics but also about other stories that are in the tabloids daily. There are a couple behind me one of which has been around for many years. The belief that Left-handed people die younger. It is interesting to know that this article is actually yet again from the very highly critically acclaimed ‘New York Times’. However, this theory is simply not true. If you do your research you actually find out that this is all based on a survey carried out from the 1800s to the 1900s. At that time, it was not seen as socially acceptable to be left-handed so many people were forced to write with their right hands. Since there were more right-handed people and less left-handed people it seemed as though the left-handed people died earlier, but in reality, there were just much fewer left-handed people to right-handed people which gave an unfair sample size causing this outcome. The media, however, decided not to tell you this and just wanted another shocking story that would give them more publicity and would mislead their readers. The same can occur with many other topics such as politics and other important issues around the world. So, yet again ladies and gentlemen I urge to open your eyes and look at the other side of the story, but most importantly don’t believe everything you read.
Thank you for listening and I hope next time you will think twice about believing something you hear or read.
7/7/2018