The Face of Hateful Media
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President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s call to thoroughly investigate the Saracen group and its customers underlines a new phase in the government’s seriousness to eliminate the producers of hate narratives (Kompas, 28/8).
Saracen uses social media as a platform to spread hate and sell it as a high-valued commodity. The fake content was produced based on the order of clients and made viral through thousands of social media accounts.
Lesson from Rwanda
The ideology of social media that easily produces and disseminates information without censorship and requirements, makes it easy for nefarious parties to spread hate narratives among the public. However, history shows that hate speech was spread through the media long before the birth of the cyber world, which continues to grow today. The systematic genocide of a tribe or group in Rwanda was an example of how conventional media could turn into a media of hatred.
In early December 2003, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for Rwanda handed down life sentences to Ferdinand Nahimana, Hassan Ngeze and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza. The three were convicted of using the media to attack and destroy an entire tribe in Rwanda.
Nahimana and Barayagwiza were the co-founders of Radio-Television Libre des Milles Collines (RTLM). Meanwhile, Ngeze was the chief editor of Kangura newspaper. They caused the deaths of thousands of Rwandan citizens through radio and newspaper. Their weapon was only hate narrative and provocation for violence through the media.
The result was the genocide of the Tutsis by the Hutu tribe. Within three and half year, 800,000 Tutsi people were slain by Hutu (Thompson, 2007).
The ICJ trial concluded that Kangura and RTLM explicitly and continuously depicted the Tutsi as a target, claiming they were cursed, considered as evil and labeled as an enemy that must be destroyed as the tribe endangered Rwanda’s political stability (Thompson, 2007).
The ruling gained attention from the international media. Instead of criticizing the ruling, a The New York Times editorial praised the verdict and stated it was not a threat to freedom of speech. According to Times, the ruling demonstrated that the international community demanded justice against those who committed crime against humanity (Monasebian, 2007).
A study conducted by Mark Frohardt and Jonathan Temin (2007) shows that the media does not only inform about conflict, but also contribute to the build-up of conflict, albeit unintentionally. This could more easily happen to countries with a multi ethnic society than in a homogenous country. This condition worsens with poor journalistic skills, the low quality of the media and a lack of independent media.
Since its establishment, RTLM had been a propaganda machine for the government. Then Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana appointed Ferdinand Nahimana, a history professor at Rwanda National University, to be the country’s minister of information and lead RTLM.
In practice, RTLM attempted to surpass the coverage of Kangura. With its ability to reach the audience through the voice of its broadcaster, RTLM stepped up its scare tactics and provoked acts of violence as part of self-defense.
Fertilizing fear
Fear and chaos can be a construction of the hatred-spreading media, which convinces the public that offensive acts are valid forms of self-defense.
There are four media strategies to fertilize the atmosphere of fear (Frohardt and Temin, 2007). First, focus on past conflicts and the history of ethnic revenge. By reviving the past, the old wound would reappear. The Sept. 30 communist purge, inter-ethnic and native-non-native clashes are evidence of the narratives being used to revive old wounds in Indonesia.
The next strategy is to manipulate myths, stereotypes and identities by labeling the rival as “inhuman.” The Tutsi tribe was labeled as cockroaches by the media in Rwanda. This non-human labeling was used as justification to decimate the group. Also, the Tutsi were considered as irrational, and this justified the violence against them.
The media’s efforts to promote fear and chaos were also made through unjust narratives or barbarism.
The defamation of certain religious or community leaders, or allegations of a debt-making regime and economic inequality is the complaint for injustice, which is popular among the public. This is the third strategy.
The fourth strategy is consistently publishing negative reports. The key to this strategy is change. If the situation worsens, the negative reporting will not bring much impact, but a significant shift from a comfortable situation to an uncomfortable one will lead to the creation of negative reporting and pessimism. Such conditions can degrade the country and create justifications for people or groups to take over through violent measures.
Focusing on the failure of the government without giving credit to its success is one example.
These four strategies lead to the creation of an atmosphere of fear, which takes form in the belief that conflict is inevitable. The public, as the audience, will accept it and efforts to prevent conflict will be seen as useless.
The media frames conflict as part of an eternal process to create an impression that it is imminent. This condition is seen when the media promotes an ancient identity, prioritizing certain groups and claiming that maintaining peace with other groups was impossible.
These four strategies are the face of hateful media. In daily practices, the face of hatred can be covered up with freedom of the press, criticism against those in power or the believe in a certain faith.
The understanding that conventional media can be used as a tool to spread hatred may help raise people’s awareness.
The media does not only report about conflict; it also has the potential to stir conflict.
DODDY SALMAN
A lecturer for the school of communications in Tarumanagara University, Jakarta
