Civil Rights in Politics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Civil Rights in Politics - Essay ExampleThe media is a powerful tool when it comes to shaping public opinion. One give-and-take story that negatively affected American public perception towards the U.S government in particular the NSA is the Snowden undercover work claims. Mainstream media spotlighted the story creating mis think for the government by the citizenry. The media provided details of how the government was intruding into personal privacy by reading peoples mails and text messages. One can argue that were it not for the widespread media coverage the Snowden story received, there would have been little impact on the U.S citizen perception of the U.S government. Today, the average U.S citizen does not trust the government, all due to the media coverage of the Snowden and by extension the wiki leaks story. The second event where a media story has negatively affected public perception of the government and in particular the institution of the presidency is the Iraqi weapons of mount destruction story. After the 9/11 attack, the U.S government convinced the public by capitalizing on the maddened emotions at the time that Saddam Hussein was the problem and that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction. However, all this euphoria around Iraq was crashed when the mainstream media revealed conspiracies around the Iraq war including CIA reports showing that they had prior knowledge that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam was never a scourge to the United States. The media also increased negative public perception.