War and social media

As was unfortunately all too predictable, the fighting in Ukraine continues to this day, increasingly bloody, destructive and gangrenous on both sides.
One almost perceives the feeling that the will to seek a solution to the conflict has been lost and that we are moving forward by inertia in a trickle of death and deaths to be waved in the face of the West.
It is increasingly evident that the media machine of Putin on the one hand and Zelensky on the other, amplified by the American and European bass drum in tow, has become the real needle of the balance of this strange war kept in place to redraw the map of world balances. between the new and old superpowers, the new and old economic interests, and the old and new poor of the planet.

War of propaganda therefore, where there are simplistically only the good ones on one side and the bad ones on the other, where doubts are not allowed, where information is drowned by opinions and there is only one dominant thought; whoever does not comply faithfully is accused of being Putin's friend. Alongside a small number of reporters in the field, brave young journalists who move without any cover and document the destruction of bombings and missile attacks, on the major Italian broadcasters there is a plethora of "experts" who for various reasons, comfortably seated in an armchair, they comment and sentence on all human knowledge, creating further confusion and anxiety in public opinion and indirectly promoting massive support for the rearmament race. The TV talk show political theater has made school, and for most of the Italian newspapers it is much more important to make a show than real information. The images "artfully fished" from the net, the one-way truths and the sources considered "authoritative" but not verified, are the basis of the narrative of this war and, day after day, contribute to watering down the profound meaning in public opinion. and the extent of this human tragedy. The risk of addiction, boredom and ultimately oblivion, the greatest enemy of peace, is a great risk. Is it really a risk that we can afford to transform the horror of images into a simple yet effective backdrop that makes the limelight and its protagonists shine in the spotlight?


Michelangelo Dotta
NP May 2022