It may not be new to say that the image has become the most influential media element over the last years, but the spread that happened over the last days, and even the huge tyranny of the circulating images of human carnage suffered by the Syrian city of Aleppo, proves that the image has moved from the box of impact to the box of “power”, and has become a master on the seat of media sovereignty in the Internet age.
The power of the media has been completely reduced in the image, and there is no longer a need to compose articles and publish opinions, or to explain, interpret and analyze any media content. This new media power has emerged as a result of the merger of two superpowers at the moment, namely the power of social media, and the power of the image with its halo and its elements of high impact on the recipients or the public.
The image in the age of television, and of the press before, had a strong influence. But its mixing with the power of social media, has given it an additional tremendous impetus, and carved for it a new authoritative influence and power area. In the last decades of the twentieth century, media academies and institutes taught the attributes of “the era of the image” and its effects. And there was a succession of the historical development of the image and its transition from the “margin” to the “body”, or from the technical support position of the event, for the sake of attracting attention, to the image becoming the effect itself, while the text has become subordinated to it.
As for social media, they have given the “image” absolute power in shaping public opinion trends in hours, even minutes, as it is usual to move the feelings of millions in a region or a country toward an event or a particular person. This event or person becomes the center of attention , positively or negatively, and the controversy and interaction, be it negative or positive, and regardless of the negative and positive criteria with this event or person, become a momentum and a tremendous pressure card shaking States, institutions and governments.
A few years ago, the most important question in the media debates was about the future of the printed press, and whether it would be able to compete with its electronic counterpart and survive, or retreat, leaving the arena for the interaction of electronic media, and whether the journalist function would remain the same or will witness further changes under the pressure of what is known as “citizen” journalism, after hundreds of millions of people around the world have turned into media people, by the means of social media, and even among those there are some who possess “accounts” and pages whose followers exceed the readership of some of the most famous newspapers around the world!!
A few decades ago, the press was called the fourth estate, then Western literature dealt with what is known as the fifth power, which is also associated with the media in many specialized discussions, as it is viewed as an expression about the power of social media, while others expanded the conceptual circle to electronic publishing in general, and there are of course many other descriptions of this virtual power.
In my personal view, the image has become a power in itself, regardless of its rank within the traditional pyramidal construction of the powers of society. The image has come to dominate the media themselves, and it has reduced the media to the mechanisms of its circulation, and so it has become the unique master that expresses attitudes, trends and opinions.
Under this domination of the image, it becomes obvious that this powerful tool can be manipulated using technology, and it becomes obvious to transmit distorted or falsified images or ones that have undergone minute technical changes, or even involving old images in real-time events, as it often happens in some Arab countries.
What is important is that the media conflict, which aims at controlling the scene and thus owning public opinion, has moved to a conflict on the image, as it is the axis of influence and the compass of the emotions of the masses that are eager to receive visual effects.
What I mean is that the media is witnessing extremely fast shifts, and it is difficult to look at the media from the angle of the past, or to limit the vision to a specific framework that perhaps obscures a lot of effects and interactions that no one can respond to or deny the occurrence, especially in light of the difficulty of building separation walls around communities and nations in the Twenty-First Century.
The scene is now reduced to the following equation: that who owns the image owns the compass of public opinion in many situations! Here we should note that the image is not real nor realistic in all cases, but it can be fabricated and synthesized in the “Photoshop” laboratories, and no one checks nor waits for those who want to verify, as everyone is involved, following, commenting, either positively or negatively, a human flood that follows the first one to add a footprint or to perform the first act, or to press the first button.
