Anshita Awasthy on January 12, 2018
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” – Marcus Aurelius
Knowledge is power. Source of External knowledge is considered to be information. The individual who is more informed and conversant gets stature and prestige within the society and likewise he can ameliorate himself.
There are varied sources of information. An individual cannot make his perspective upon something untill and unless he has an overall view of the scenario. To get an overall picture of any information he cannot just rely upon any nearby sources. He needs to gather information from trusted and widespread sources such as media, internet, journals etc.
For example, An individual cannot perceive condition of Indian women based upon his immediate surroundings. As we know India is a diverse country in terms of religion, cast, class, language, culture and we cannot travel around to each and every place to know about the circumstances that Indian women face within the nation. We rely and trust larger mediums for it, which gives a whole lot of knowledge by its various sources around the world. A large population rely upon internet as it is fast and quick accessible sea of information where we can get information about anything in a blink.
Now questions arise,
- Is our trust on internet worth it?
- Is it providing us the real facts?
Let me simplify by an example. Europeans believed Aristotle’s theory for two thousand years that heavy objects fell more rapidly than lighter objects when thrown together. It was conveyed as a fact and people believed it and conducted their research based on this theory until and unless Galileo a revolutionary scientist denied this theory and proved theoretically if we remove air resistance then heavier and lighter objects fall at the same speed. Gravity treats them equally.
So, by the above example we can see that the media and the world perceived Aristotle’s theory as a fact and people did believe it and made a strong perspective for it.
Thus, we can see here that people do believe medium of information and generate an opinion and perspective based upon it. Every information cannot be validated by experiments and surveys consistently. They are believed as they are seen on the internet. Media is well aware of this fact.
Hence, in this era it is true that media/internet portray information and facts based upon its own interest, be it for capital or supremacy and people do believe it to be true and make their perceptions based on it without thinking. This can mislead their point of view and make them dwell in an illusory globe.
Yet we cannot deny advantages of internet but internet can also block perspectives of people. Internet is definitely a great boon to mankind and an unexceptionable medium yet all good things come at a cost.