NOURNEWS: The bloody war of Israel with the people of Gaza will reach six months by next week. These six months mark one of the most bitter stages in the world's contemporary history with unprecedented violence and civilian murders. Over the past six months, nearly two million Palestinians have been displaced, about 32,000 have been killed, and over 100,000 innocent and defenseless individuals have been injured in the Gaza Strip. Women, children, and the elderly account for the majority of these figures. Based on these statistics, describing the situation in Gaza as a "humanitarian tragedy" makes complete sense.
The world community is now aware of the large scale of this tragedy. As a result, the largest streets of the world, from the eastern parts of Asia to the western coasts of Europe, and from the largest American cities in the far north to the southernmost parts of Asia, have turned into scenes of inspiring and glorious rallies. These rallies aim to support and empathize with the suppressed people of Gaza, as well as to condemn the brutal regime of Israel. This has happened despite the desires of politicians seeking war and those fighting against the truth.
Media, the second trench of war
The large-scale empathy with the people of Gaza stems from enlightenment contributed by the media at various levels. While the suppressed and displaced people were suffering in Gaza, the media also acted as influential narrators of the Gaza tragedy, portraying the pains and grief of the people.
In fact, the media arena was the second trench of this war. Although some "super-media" resorted to the most complicated communication tricks to switch the roles of tyrant and suppressed, the reality in the streets across the world showed that "manipulation of reality" and "engineering public opinion" are no longer as easy with the emergence of "Human-Media".
Uniform-free and amateur citizens with non-professional smartphones acted as the soldiers of the media war, which could change the destiny of the battlefield.
In addition to "Human-Media," which played an effective role in conveying reality, "Super-Media" such as Al Jazeera and Al-Mayadeen were able to defeat their rivals by showing documented images from the entire battlefield to the world. However, the media war resulted in the martyrdom of 136 journalists and media activists from various news sites.
According to this, the media battlefield must be recognized as the second trench of the Gaza War, and the maps of media operations must be unveiled alongside those of military operations.
Conflict, tension, and war are professional gifts! It is known among media activists that conflict is the adrenaline of media, raising excitement and tempo. According to this, the higher the level of conflict and war, the more excitement is expected. Based on this, official media are very interested in breathtaking war and conflict, considering the requirements of their profession.
Super-Media turns war into entertainment and includes their "messages" within this entertainment, conveying them to the audience. On the other hand, war and its conditions increase both news production and the demand for it. It is said that the Persian Gulf War increased the viewership of CNN by tenfold. Given these two important facts, as soon as the flames of war ignited in Gaza, all media outlets quickly moved to find the best and most advantageous position in this highly newsworthy field to craft their narratives.
The conflict between “Human-Media and Super-Media”
The media, under the influence of Zionism, portrayed the killing of people in Gaza within the framework of "war against terrorism" when preparing their news packages and analyses.
However, these super media outlets did not make room for "Human-Media" in their calculations.
Scores of news data and images recorded by amateur citizens flooded social media to counter the portrayals made by pro-Israel Super-Media. The Super-Media outlets like Al Jazeera, Al-Mayadeen, CNN, and at times BBC could not avoid utilizing the potentials of these amateur news and visual data.
This led to an increase in the world's citizens' awareness about the realities of the war in Gaza and the bloody violence of Israel. Although over the past six months of Israel's war against Gaza, Al Jazeera's narrative "ranked top", it must be taken into consideration that pro-Hamas Palestinians emerged successful in organizing and collecting news and visual data of Human-Media. They managed to publish them directly on social media as well as sending them to Super-Media like Al Jazeera and Al-Mayadeen, along with a number of other media outlets, to provide their news feed indirectly.
In this regard, the heroes of the media war in Gaza have been primarily Human-Media who, either independently or by feeding the Super-Media, have been the narrators of truth.
Intelligence of Palestinians in using Media strategy
The intelligence of Palestinians has managed to employ "media technology" as a Western product. Perhaps the European and American creators of this technology thought they could continue their economic and political domination over citizens of other nations through these tricks and skills.
In its media war, Hamas seized the same technology in its own favor, using it for the benefit of the people in Gaza through reverse engineering.
The other important notion was that the designers of the media strategies of Hamas have identified the "Ohod Striate" of their rivals and, through a lesser-known shortcut, dragged the battle to the back of the battlefield, triggering the world's public opinion, particularly among nations supporting Israel. They have dug one of their mysterious and puzzling virtual tunnels into the minds of people across the globe and shared images of Zionist brutal violence with the world through these same virtual tunnels.
Another important point was that Hamas and its media designers identified the Achilles' heel in the rival's front line and, through a lesser-known shortcut, dragged the war to the back of the battlefield, stirring up the global public opinion, particularly among countries supporting Israel. For several months now, under the shadow of this strategy, major cities in countries traditionally considered strategic supporters of Tel Aviv have become scenes of fervent protests against their countries' supportive policies toward Israel. With this clever trick, Hamas seemed to have dug one of its mysterious and puzzling tunnels in the minds of people worldwide, sharing images of Zionist brutalities through these very virtual tunnels to reach the global public conscience.
The media strategies of Palestine offer another important lesson, especially for us Iranians: We should not overlook technological innovations with strict and limiting policies. Technological tools and platforms such as Telegram, Instagram, and other virtual networks can play an effective role if they are used to produce smart and purposeful content.
Media doesn't just have a defensive and protective function. It can also have an offensive and impactful nature. The efforts of Palestinian Human-Media and the seriousness and intelligence of the Super-Media present in the Gaza field have shown that investing in producing purposeful content can change the course of war.
NOURNEWS