Week 12- Truth to Power

I am very interested in the way that the media was used during the times of the War on Drugs or the disappearance of the children for the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo  or the Aguas Blancas Massacre,  which I think is something Dawson explores as well.

To begin with, it is interesting that the documents this week were mostly videos, which in itself prompted me to ask what role does the media play when there is political and social injustice in a country?

In the case of the War on Drugs, the media has played to both parties because there was a heavy amount of propaganda used by the USA government to make the cause seem worthy, but a lot of media has come out recently highlighting what a colosal waste of money the initiative was. For the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, the media was seen as the only ‘way out’ of the corruption of Argentina by the mothers of children who were never to return, yet no one would help. Finally, in the case of the Aguas Blancas Massacre, the media put a spotlight to the corruption and outright lies from the Mexican police and was the conduit that led to the opening of a Human Rights investigation.

This of course is all very interesting, but how can media interest people about issues that they don’t care about? How many North American or European youth, outside of classes like LAST 100, are aware of the massacres  in Latin America? Personally, I think that this chapter and week most specifically highlight the responsibility that we ALL have in caring about issues that take place right under out noses and that ‘historic’ events have impacted people that are very much alive today, so they are not historic at all.

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