{"id":85,"date":"2025-09-28T15:21:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T22:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/?p=85"},"modified":"2025-10-03T14:20:36","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T21:20:36","slug":"gaza-and-the-failure-of-mass-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/mdia300\/archives\/85","title":{"rendered":"Gaza and the Failure of Mass Media"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Never before has a genocide been both the most documented in history and the first ever livestreamed in real time. And never before has the world scrolled past such unthinkable horror.

Carpet bombing entire residential neighbourhoods, erasing streets, homes, and entire families in seconds.
A boy screaming into the night after Israeli airstrikes wiped out his entire family.
A father collecting the scattered remains of his daughter in a plastic bag because there is no body left to bury.
Premature babies pulled from incubators after hospitals were bombed.
Doctors forced to operate on children without anesthesia, using vinegar and sewing needles because medicine has been cut off.
Hospitals, mosques, and churches bombed to rubble.
UN schools turned into mass graves.
People burning to death because bombs ignited their homes, trapping them under rubble and fire with no way out.
The deliberate murder of journalists, medics, doctors, nurses, UN staff, aid workers.
White phosphorus and other internationally banned chemical weapons raining down on crowded refugee camps.
Children starving to death, due to malnutrition and Israeli-made famine.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

They are my family. Many of them have been murdered. Others are still buried under the rubble. And for nearly two years now, my people have been forced to livestream their own genocide to the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this genocide did not begin in 2023. It\u2019s actually the latest chapter in a 77-year Zionist settler-colonialism <\/a>of Palestine. It\u2019s a continuation of the Nakba of 1948<\/a>, where 750,000 Palestinains were forcibly expelled and 500 villages destroyed to make way for the creation of the colony of “Israel.” It has carried on through decades of apartheid<\/a> policies and military occupation<\/a> of indigenous Palestinian lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A UN ambassador<\/a> described Gaza as \u201cthe most documented genocide in history.\u201d<\/em> According to the latest UN OCHA<\/a> update, Gaza\u2019s Ministry of Health reports 65,419 Palestinians killed and 167,160 injured since October 2023. International law is shattered with impunity, and war crimes are committed in plain sight. A genocide carried out by a settler-colonial power, protected and armed by Western governments, and sanitized by Western media institutions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is the contradiction I cannot shake. Billions see it but nothing changes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think this paradox, of hyper-documentation alongside silence, denial, and complicity from institutions of power, is what makes Gaza one of the most urgent media events of our lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Messages, Means, and Agents Under Attack<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To understand this paradox, I turn to John Durham Peters\u2019 chapter on Mass Media in Critical Terms for Media Studies<\/a>. <\/em>The author explains that media always involve three things: a message, a means, and agents. The \u201cwhat,\u201d the \u201chow,\u201d and the \u201cby\/to whom\u201d (p, 266)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Gaza, all three are under attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The messages<\/strong> Palestinians send are live footage of their mass murder<\/strong>, but by the time they reach Western newsrooms, they are twisted into biased reporting<\/a> that flattens, sanitizes, and outright misrepresents the truth. And this in turn, dehumanizes Palestinains to justify occupation and genocide.<\/a> What is really the genocide of an indigenous population, carried out by a colonial state on illegally stolen land, occupied for 77 years, is reframed as a \u201cconflict.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The means<\/strong> are our devices and social media platforms<\/strong>. One would expect them to amplify oppressed voices, expose injustice, and make Palestinian suffering impossible to ignore. Yet these very platforms censor, shadowban Palestinian content<\/a> and suspend accounts, silencing the very voices they should be carrying to the world. In fact, a 2025 report<\/a> revealed that Meta, under an Israeli-led censorship campaign, complied with 94% of government takedown requests, removing or suppressing over 38 million posts about Palestine. At the same time, Israel has launched coordinated propaganda campaigns, paying influencers up to $7,000 per post<\/a> to spread pro-Israel narratives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the agents<\/strong>, the local Palestinian journalists<\/strong> on the ground who risk everything to document the truth, are being targeted by the illegal Israeli occupation, murdered one after another. The occupation has deliberately murdered over 270 journalists and media workers<\/a> during this genocide, an unprecedented number in history<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a systemic war on truth.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Power as the Ultimate Medium<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPower is perhaps the ultimate mass medium: it speaks to whom it will, multiplies symbols across space and time, and immobilizes audiences\u201d (Peters, p. 278). The colonial state and its Western allies are not only waging war on an indigenous people and their land but also on the narrative<\/a> itself. What the world sees, and what it is kept from seeing, is shaped by the machinery of power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere mass media are, there is usually power\u201d (p. 277). The myth of neutrality collapses when Western outlets uncritically reproduce and parrot the colonizer\u2019s talking points, from the debunked \u201c40 beheaded babies\u201d<\/a> claim to justifying the bombing of hospitals as \u201cstrikes on Hamas targets.\u201d <\/a>This is not journalism but propaganda laundering, justifying genocide and the 77-year-long illegal occupation and colonial oppression of Palestinians. Every accusation is a confession<\/a>. Power multiplies these frames until they dominate the discourse, drowning out the voices of the oppressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peters calls mass media \u201cthe playthings of institutions\u2026 under the management of the palace, the market, or the temple\u201d (p. 277). In Gaza, the palace is the state power of the illegal Israeli occupation and its Western allies, which provide the political cover and billions of dollars in military aid<\/a> (funded by our own tax dollars<\/a>) that supply Israel with the most advanced weapons and military equipments in the world. The market is the military-industrial complex and corporate platforms, where profit is tied to both arms sales<\/a> and digital control<\/a> over information flows. The temple is the settler-colonial and ideological narratives that justify the occupation and genocide of Palestinians<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And when truth does break through, power immobilizes. Billions witness livestreamed massacres, children pulled from rubble, and entire neighbourhoods flattened yet visibility yields no action. Audiences are numbed, while those who resist and speak out are harassed, censored, fired, or cancelled<\/a>. Cancel culture is weaponized<\/a> against anyone who challenges these narratives, from journalists to students and professors, ensuring that speaking truth to power comes at the cost of their lives and careers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaza exposes mass media as a battlefield where power itself is the ultimate medium, deciding what circulates, what is erased, and how the world responds\u2014or fails to respond\u2014to the most documented genocide in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion: Solidarity & Awareness as the Counter-Medium & Our Responsibility as Media Students<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaza forces us to confront the failure and limits of the media. Never before has the world been so saturated with real-time evidence of genocide and war against humanity itself, and never before has that evidence been so easily dismissed, reframed, and silenced by those in power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet despite censorship, despite propaganda, the truth is inevitable<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Citizen journalism in Gaza has created an indestructible archive<\/a> that history will remember and hold power accountable. And global solidarity<\/a>, from university encampments to mass protests and digital solidarity campaigns, shows that resistance and awareness are growing more than ever<\/a>, worldwide. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If mass media are the “playthings” of power, then solidarity and awareness are the counter-medium. It ensures that even when headlines distort and platforms censor, the truth still breaks through, carried by those who refuse silence and ignorance and choose to stand on the right side of history. Gaza teaches us that while mass media can immobilize, it can also mobilize when audiences choose<\/em> to resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Malcolm X said: \u201cIf you\u2019re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.\u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And as media students, that choice is ours. We are not passive observers. We are agents who can decide whether to reproduce power\u2019s narratives or to challenge them. To study media critically is to recognize its dangers but also its possibilities. Our responsibility is agency, and we have the tools to question, to respond, to expose, to resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Maryam Abusamak<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Image Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n