{EOP}Weapons of psychological warfare used by media

Media holds a crucial position in our life in the modern world. It has certainly helped this earth in becoming a global village. It has made the man more aware, systematic and sophisticated. But here we intend to discuss the other aspect of media which has caused havoc in our lives with out our realization.

Various techniques are used that are aimed to influence the target audience’s value systems, belief systems, emotions, motives and behavior. It in fact controls the human mind and heart.

We are truthful to say that it has rather become a weapon of psychological warfare.

Psychological warfare may also be defined as:

"The planned use of propaganda and other psychological actions having the primary purpose of influencing the opinions, emotions, attitudes, and behavior of hostile foreign groups.”

Psychological warfare employs any weapon to influence the mind of the enemy. The weapons are psychological only in the effect they produce and not because of the weapons themselves.

There are various techniques used by the media controlling elite to monitor psychological warfare. The greatest social messages are promoted through movies, dramas in short by television, throughfixation of motive sequences (not logical or factual) but emotional sequences, thrusting their point across in an emotional way which gets registered and fixed in the back of the viewer’s mind without even he realizing it. Since the mind is being fed with entirely new ideas, the censor part of the brain is inactive thus being unable to reach a conclusion about what is being fed.

Social engineers have refined techniques designed to control large populations over the past 200 years and what they show on the screen or broadcast through the radio is a cautiously designed heap of merciless propaganda in disguise of entertainment, which not only numbs the viewer/listener’s mind but also his soul.

The cultural industry initiated by Soviet Union is called cultural industry for a reason. All this really took off when television hit the market and men started becoming busy in sports / talk shows while women started getting busy in soaps, dramas, high dramas and films, fashion shows and fashion industry advertisement programs on the weekends. Already purchased journalists and advertisement industries started corrupting the masses even at a wider scale when television satellites started launching one after another which made the TV broadcast possible over the entire globe worldwide, from the shoe maker’s home to the president’s house and public shopping malls.

Advertising is a form of communication intended to persuade an audience (viewers, readers or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideas, or services.

It is a powerful tool in any society run by the mass media. It actually fuels the engines of the television.

Covert hypnosis through Advertisements:

Lets not go far and be precise, we will ponder over a few native advertisements which our shown 24/7 on our screens.

“Jiger aaj kya irada hai?”

”Mall aaj jana hai,

Shopping ka bahana hai...”

“SMS ki bharmaar! Pura hafta LAGATAR..

It’s fun to be young!”

Let’s analyze the above statement of a telenor Ad.

It rather sounds a cool offer, If you are able to justify the usage of this very offer. But what does “It’s fun to be young” depict?

Is it a call to invite the youngsters’ to keep messaging th x.y.z the entire week?

Yes! it is.

Where we had youngsters like ‘Muhammed bin Qasim’ who invaded Sindh at the age of 17, our youngsters are being taught to keep messaging 7 days of the week.

Another Ad which invites to “Jagty raho- saari raat, free mai baat”

This is an Ad which gives a free baat for saari raat!

What do you assume, it invites for?

It encourages the audience which largely comprises of the youth, to get involved in sheer khurafaat.

If you look into the matter, their offer is a severe one, the youth gets attracted to such offers, avails it and get indulged into mere degradation, resulting into serious consequences.

On the other hand they are suggesting to waste the entire night on the phone and of course you won’t talk to your ‘Khala’ the entire night. It is also seriously harmful from the health and scientific point of view to stay awake all night and that too with a cell phone on your ear.

" Do you marvel at this statement, and laugh and do not weep, while you amuse yourselves [proudly] in vanities? Rather, prostrate before Allah and worship Him." Soorah An-Najm[1]

Where as we are the inheritors of the glorious traditions where are pious ancestors used to spend their entire nights in prostrations’.

Kabhi eh naujawan-e-muslim! taddabur bhi kia tune

Wo kya gardoon tha tu jiska hai ek toota hua tara

The media, especially television is playing a vital role in bringing up the children and youth of today. Sopractically they are being brought up by the television.

And the role of television doesn’t need to be explained.

You all might have watched an Ad, probably of Habib Bank. In that Ad, the lady talks about her budget being tight for minute desires. For that she is reluctant to praise her husband either. To that she finds a solution of a monthly saver account (Munafa) provided by the bank, so that she can easily be extravagant.

Here, munafa is actually ‘suud’ (interest)

Visualize the features of a single 50 seconds Ad:

1. They are promoting ‘suud’. ( which is like being at war with Allah and Holy Prophet p.b.u.h)

2. Giving women ways to be extravagant.

3. Encouraging women and children to open bank accounts out of no need.

4. Encouraging house wives why to praise their husbands for minute desires.

“Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, due to what God has given the one more (strength) than the other, and due to the sustenance they provide from their own means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband’s) absence what God would have them guard.' [AlQuran (4: 34-35)]

Fikr-e-Arab ko de ker frangi takhleeqat

Islam ko hejaz-o-yemen se nikal do

The magnum Ad is an Ad of an ’ice-cream’ bar. The ad speaks itself that it is actually advertising the model but not the ice-cream. Vulgarity at its peak! They have tried to expose the model by every possible way despite of knowing these channels are watched by the families.

“And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what must ordinarily appear therof;’’ (Quran 24:31).

It rather gives an awful impression on the audience which in some cases has an extreme impact, indulging the audience into sinful activities.

Hind k shair-e-surat gar-o-afasana nawais,

Ah! Becharon k a’saab per aurat hai sawaar

Our ideology is Islam which gives the women, a dignified, honorable social status. Woman who means‘hijab’,where as media is far beyond ‘hijab’,’honour’ and ‘dignity’. That’s what it’s teaching our girls and women today. On the other hand it’s inviting man to vulgarity and indecency.

The ‘slice’ mango drink Ad advertises idiotic aspects of the model with sheer vulgarity instead of advertising simply the fruity, sweet juicy drink!

The improper scenes actually invite to obscenity, encouraging the girls and boys of today to do wrong deeds, not only the youngsters but even the aged ones.

  

“And abide in your houses and do not display yourselves as [was] the display of the former times of ignorance” (33:33)

Unknowingly we are getting so much influenced that we our self have forgotten the true social and religious values.

~Hum Mashriq k miskeenon ka dil maghrib mai jaa utka hai

In a ’Capri’ soap Ad, the girls proudly say “compromise karna toh humein aata hi nahi”. Through their media they are injecting the secularism in our youth so that we could be able to harm the purpose of creation of this sacred land.

Iqbal ko shak iski sharafat mai nahi hai

Her millat-e-mazloom ka Europe hai khareedar

In a fashion show, the program co-ordinater ’Tahmeena Khalid’ justified the liberalism and westernization depicted from their apparels by saying that they are promoting a ‘softer’ image of Pakistan. They want to tell the world that Pakistan is much more than bomb blasts, burning the schools etc.

"And there are among men those who purchase idle talk in order to mislead others from Allah's path without knowledge, and who throw ridicule upon it. For such there will be a humiliating punishment" ( Surah al-Luqman, ayah-13)

~Hath be zor, ilhaad se dil khoogar hain,

Ummati bais-e-ruswaie paighumber hain

Yes, they must tell the world but not on the cost of selling our ideology and murdering our identity. Half nude apparels, boldness, illicit relations are not helping to give a ‘softer image’ of Pakistan at all. We have our ideology-Islam for which our identity-Pakistan came into being. If we lose our Ideology, our identity will ultimately be lost!

Who zamane main moaziz thay muslaman ho kar

Aur tum khuwar hue tarik-e-Qur’an ho kar

There are several more advertisements that can’t be summed up in this article which are a source of corrupting the minds immensely. Every Ad is a weapon itself now. Not merely Advertisements but the television itself. Westernization CAN NOT be the key to our success at all.

Candidly for once, keeping the ideology of Islam forth along with your identity, analyze, where this media is taking us.

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Mujh ko to gila tujh se hai Europe se nahi hai