Thoughts about the importance of freedom in the means of communication

We are beings in permanent communication with each other. Communication provide us with essential tools for constant evolution. We would not be what we are right now as a civilization without it, which is why we depend on the extensions of human communication, constantly growing while societies do it in the same way. Blocking any mean of communication is therefore, one of the worst atrocities that can happen to a society.

A free mind will always be difficult to bend to the will of others. It doesn’t accept any paradigms without proper foundations or logic. It is a basic defense from the political actions of any government or social groups that seek to somehow condition individual initiatives.

The media transmits messages to people with different intentions, from carrying a message with the objective of informing, to even persuading them and try to convince them of a certain idea capable of replacing others and changing the way in which people perceive the world. The importance of the media simple relies in the dependence that some people have with it to develop their own understanding about the world, and the great influence it has on the minds of everyone who consumes information this way.

Information can be manipulated on a constant basis and this clearly doesn’t reflect the interests of those who hold that freedom, with its different individual manifestations, is above all things including governments and certain interests coming from powerful groups. But it is difficult not to notice that there must be entities committed to only pay attention and promote the stupidity, the lower and darker side of the people in order to expose to each person things that aren’t necessarily very educative.

Basically, whoever controls what is being communicated can control everything. If we realize the great influence that for example example, commercials and any type of advertising campaign have on us. They persuade us to give uses to the product they are trying to sell, and with this, it is possible to increase popularity and sales. We all know there are impressive tools that have been perfected over the years that connect the media with persuasion. Although it sounds exaggerated, a message broadcasted live from certain TV channels can make the difference between believing and not believing in a particular event.

The rigor that everyone with enough influence must possess is one of extreme caution. At the end of the day there are millions who see, hear and even feel based on the information they are consuming. They have evolved to what they are now because we have a strong need to always keep gathering new knowledge and keep ourselves informed to what is happening in our societies, it is in our nature.

On the other hand, censorship has always been present in many ways, especially when trying to repress ideas that, according to some people who don’t respect freedom, should not be shared. This often involves political and social backgrounds, where a single word can cause strong reactions and change the course of a fragile society in need of change, something that is obviously not convenient for the bad part of a nation that only wants to continue spreading lies and misinformation.

Thus, the manipulation of the media has a beneficial point for those who have such power that allow them to manipulate, persuade, substitute bad ideas for good or good ideas for bad. It can make it easier to implement a pattern of social behavior that might or might not be beneficial to the society. Who controls the media, for everything I just mentioned, controls everything and at the same time has an important advantage when it comes to gaining public support.

What should be promoted is a critical debate of reality with new approaches the analysis of any important event there might be, appealing to the only tool that can keep freedom alive which is of course, a critical mind. A society that has free means of communication is a society with a higher chance of having access to honest information and less chance of having widespread ignorance.