The Genocide Will Be Televised
How the Hamas-Israel conflict played out in the (social) media
In my previous article, I wrote about the moral dilemmas around the Hamas-Israel conflict. You should read it, it’s pretty good. In it, I proposed that there is a complex, multi-dimensional moral landscape that demands nuanced analysis if we are to really comprehend what’s going on. Simply put, my first article was about the “theory” of moral complexities. What follows is an analysis of – or at least a semi-rigorous attempt at analysing – the ways in which the events that transpired since October 7 have appeared in the media.
To be clear, I am not on the ground, I have no friends who have been killed or kidnapped, so naturally my points are made from the privilege of detachment. Nevertheless, I feel compelled (even as an observer) to dissect the various aspects of this conflict.
Exploring the relationship between media and war is a well-trodden path. We’ve all seen too many videos on the internet exposing all the secrets that the “media” (add your choice of adjective for an ominous-sounding baddie: 'mainstream media' is one of the more classic flavors) is not telling you. Ironically, I believe that “mainstream media” is still much more reliable and has fewer side-effects (or at least they are easier to mitigate) than god-damn-fucking social media (in my view, the worst of the bastard progenies of father media).
Let’s start from one of the best starting points possible, shall we? A book with no immediate relevance to this specific conflict. In 1985, a man called Neil Postman wrote a book called Amusing Ourselves to Death. In it, he talks about the role television has on public discourse and how the medium shapes the way information is conveyed and received. It is a brilliant book, especially as even though he’s talking about television, its arguments can be extrapolated to other types of media.
The main thing that I want to highlight is his point that television is primarily about entertainment. He also warns about all the dangers that this potentially means for our societies such as how politics can end up resembling TV-shows (insert Orange Man Bad joke) or how we can so easily turn from participating citizens into passive spectators. Another one of his points is the stark contrast between television and written text. Meaning: less argumentative-logical and more emotional-intuitive. These are all crucial points to keep in mind as we continue to explore my argument ahead.
Allow me to present Marshall McLuhan (media-culture demigod of the 20th century) and his statement, “the medium is the message”. McLuhan argues that the medium through which a message is conveyed fundamentally shapes its meaning. Your brain receives information very differently from a scholarly article that you read in print, a movie, a meme or from a TikTok video (just think about Trump speeches kinda make sense, and then try to read it - it is a wildly different experience!). McLuhan argues that this difference is so fundamental, that the message itself fades into the background– the medium does all the heavy lifting. Here is a good video on this topic, if you want to explore more, it focuses on how this theory applies to YouTube.
Okay, so the main takeaway here is that how you consume stuff matters.
Let’s now wade into the deep end for the current conflict in the “Holy Land”. Arguably, this has been the first major conflict (unless you count the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022) which has been directly “televised” through social media (research shows that about 20-30% of US adults use social media as a way of getting news).
Smartphones have become one of the most intimate and indispensable parts of our lives. Consider this: the average American spends over seven hours a day on their phone and Europeans aren’t far behind, averaging six hours of screen time. This is nearing the time we spend sleeping or working a full-time job. Our phones are with us when we go to sleep, when we wake up (if we’re being honest, probably the first and last thing we check when we’re conscious). Our phones are there propped on the counter as we cook, when we’re with our friends, and of course, when we’re taking a shit. All. The. Fucking. Time. (I’ve just read about this research which shows that large percentage of children feel neglected when their parents pull out their phones during playtime. Just think how dark that is, your literal CHILD is less interesting than your phone). Nowadays, 86% of US adults consume their news through their phone. I’ll wager that most “young” people use social media on their phones as the main (or only) way they stay up-to-date with the news.
And so, this is the digital context in which the terrible and absolutely inhuman attacks on October 7 and then the atrocities in Gaza unfolded. Now take a moment to consider how the “the medium is the message” applies in this situation. How do you think you’d perceive the situation if this happened a hundred years ago and all you had was print newspapers? You’d wake up, grab the morning paper and read one or two articles about it. Perhaps later, if you felt more engaged and inquisitive about the issue, you’d pick up the evening post. Of course, there would be no (or few) pictures, and while you could keep thinking about what you read, it would only actively “be with you” an hour or two a day. Maximum. Now, let’s fast forward to the 60s and 70s.
It has been argued that the Vietnam War was the first war that was “televised”, and the terrible atrocities committed there were beamed directly “in the living rooms” of Americans. This seriously hurt the public image of the Vietnam War and America’s involvement. (And this is one reason why, as time went on, war correspondents became increasingly managed and controlled—take, for example, the Kuwait intervention in the 90s. Baudrillard penned three incredibly thought-provoking essays on this, rich with meta insights and captivating observations.) Despite television exposing the brutal realities of war, it had serious limitations. Whilst TVs became indispensable in our lives, their arrival still wasn’t a phenomenon as ubiquitous as smartphones are now (only some people with very questionable taste would put up TVs opposite their toilets). Now, let’s turn ourselves back to the present conflict.
From what I’ve seen, most of the content we are repeatedly fed can be broken down into three distinct categories. The first is what I’d call “testimonials”, or “first-hand reporting”. These are either people living through the conflict, capturing their own harrowing experiences, or journalists on the ground, documenting events as they unfold in real-time. Second are “summaries” or “explainers” that often include “testimonials” but also feature references to articles, other events, etc. Third are what I have named “denouncements” in which the video focuses on something negative – the “silence” of a given government, the “hypocrisy” of someone, the “hidden truth” behind something. The second and the third categories are often the ones that have the floating heads with an insane word to minute ratio (a format that makes me want to poke my eyes out and stick a pen through my eardrums).
Okay so let’s take a deeper look at these three categories – what do they do, and how the medium is affecting the message. Testimonials offer invaluable, first-hand insight into the reality on the ground and are likely to form the core evidence in any future war crimes indictments when this conflict is over. They also provide the people affected with a voice which is of critical importance in a situation where the flow of information is – as in all war zones – seriously restricted. So far, so good.
The flipside of it is where the limitations of the medium come in. Unlike traditional reporting, these videos are instant, emotionally evocative visuals with the added power of a personal connection. After all, what kind of monster would say “no” if a father holding his dying daughter in his arms asks you to share the video while cursing their enemies? With social media, these photos and videos come into the lives of those watching them with an unprecedented force. Let it sink in for a moment: the level of human suffering beamed right into your retina 24/7, is something incredibly recent. This is also coupled with a feeling of utter helplessness – because in this situation, you’re a voyeur, watching images filled to the brim with pornographic (that is to say full-on, unmitigated) images of violence and devastation. And you can’t really do anything about it – which coupled with the fact that through social media, a formerly unknown level of identification with the victim(s) also takes place. Given the sheer volume of content circulating online, it’s important to note that it’s possible that not everything is verified or truthful in what you see – or at best, it’s deeply-deeply subjective.
Category number two—the 'explainers.' On Instagram, videos can vary widely in length: in-feed videos can be up to 60 minutes long, stories are capped at 60 seconds, live streams can run up to 4 hours, and reels (barf) have a maximum length of 90 seconds. However, Instagram videos with the most engagement are about 26 seconds long. These videos (I refuse to call them reels, they are fucking videos) are usually a mish-mash of a number of articles – a headline from the New York Times, half a paragraph from Al-Jazeera, a morsel of a sentence from The Guardian, sprinkle on top a sub-heading from Wikipedia and bam, you just got yourself a 30-second-long video explaining the Palestine situation. These are usually the videos that people point to when they say that social media can be “educational”, but I think we shouldn’t ignore the critical flaws of these videos.
The medium—its length and format—is simply not designed to portray nuance, illuminate complex situations, or shed light on the overlooked dimensions of an issue. What it excels at is presenting a topic from a specific angle, triangulated with various sources while remaining true to the original message. Add in the personal narration (those cursed floating heads), and you end up with something that seems credible (you might even say, 'I’ve read it somewhere'). But let’s be honest, you’re not likely to do much fact-checking after watching the video.
This is accentuated by the fact that the algorithm gives you essentially two kinds of content – either one, that you already agree with (so you won’t bother checking its accuracy and just engage with it) or something that you think the “Other” would do (this is the bit that strokes your anger and indignation – once again, you don’t double-take but go rage-mode). These “explainers” masquerade as something that they are not. They are not long-form journalistic pieces, nor are they meticulously researched pieces of writing, and they are certainly not well thought-through arguments attempting to uncover the truth. At their core, the most popular among them are short videos that create strong emotional reactions and to keep you doomscrolling. The message itself is incidental – the algorithm will promote the ones that get the reactions most suitable for the platform. Not the ones, which get closest to the truth.
The final type of content is closely resembles the “explainer” however with the difference is that it’s explicitly positioning itself as something morally righteous – the “denouncer” will do the usual floating head thing and then typically in between two article titles admonish a government/organisation/politician/journalist for doing/not doing this or that. Again, the pitfalls are very much the same as for the previous category. This is, to put it simply, a “nicely” (and I don’t mean aesthetically, I think they are terrible and annoying but they are á la mode) edited shitstorm. Obviously, you will not see the perspective of “why-don’t-they-stop arm supplies, although I will admit they have indeed been pushing for a ceasefire on diplomatic channels”. Obviously not. This is the format, where you can really display your moral righteousness, and just like in a denouncement session of a more theatrically poised autocracy, you can stand in front of a crowd and prove your virtue. This format elicits anger and rage – rocket-fuel for the algorithms.
In all three formats, the personal (or social) aspect of the medium is highlighting the personal and piecemeal nature of the information that is conveyed. You get a super-subjective take but because it’s so close to you, it seems much more reliable. (Just think about how your parents might be prone to share absolute crackpot theories on Facebook, just because someone they “know” online shared it originally.)
Additionally, we should never forget that the algorithms that power these platforms are not interested in helping you keep informed or to present balanced information. They are attention merchants and your attention is the product. If they can keep it by showing you violence porn, that is what you will get. And the more they can profile and “radicalise” you (that’s to say to push you into an extreme but easily definable position) the better they can hold your attention and keep you using the app. The medium is the message – it doesn’t even matter whether the people making the videos had good intentions, the platform (the medium) on which it’s offered skews your whole informational diet.
Now, let’s briefly address mainstream media and challenge the notion that it’s as problematic as many assume. I think that while mainstream media has many drawbacks, at least it’s something you can argue against, it’s something that you can challenge. Take for example The Guardian. There is a high chance that it will present you a reading of the conflict from a broadly left-leaning point of view. You go in expecting that, you read the article through that lens. Yes, it might be a biased argument but at least it is one. That is to say, at least it’s a narrative and one can propose a counter-narrative to it. You can’t counter nonsense with a counter-narrative. You can’t argue against the ever-shifting Hydra of social media reportage; it slips through your fingers, dissolves into air, and never forms anything solid. (I have a whole additional 5 pages in me about why “mainstream media” gets a bad rep and I don’t think it should but this is not the time and space).
Sure, it is easy enough to intellectualise this issue but let’s channel our internal Lenin: what is to be done? Well, fuck if I know. All I can do is to flag up two things that I’ve been mulling over.
1) What actions can we take to actually help people? This is super important to ask ourselves if we don’t want to confuse social media activism with actual action. Unless you’re on the ground, the easiest way to genuinely assist is to donate money. There are plenty of resources around but you also might want to consider that with all the media attention on this particular crisis, other serious conflict zones have seen donations falter – maybe your money could be better used elsewhere? Social media attention is like the eye of Sauron – when it focuses on an issue, god save us, but it can only focus on one thing. Just have a think, maybe if you do have some money for altruistic causes, maybe it would be better spent to buy malaria nets for children in Sub-Saharan Africa or to help Venezuelan refugees.
2) What responsibility do I have about “not turning away”? A challenging and haunting question. I propose a thought experiment and then you can decide for yourself. A boat sinks, you're in one of the only life rafts and yet you still see a lot of people around you, drowning – however, you cannot help them safely. It’s impossible. What is your responsibility now? Is it to witness their death? Is it to convey their message to others? Do you have a duty to maintain your own mental health? Ponder it and decide for yourself. For the record, I haven’t found the right answer yet.
Let’s circle back to the beginning then– what is your goal when you consume media content about this current Israel – Hamas conflict? Is it to get to the truth? Or is it a perverse consumerist attitude towards violence and suffering? We must strive that we don’t merely become passive observers and consumers of such horrors. Maybe it would be wise to interrogate the various emotions that are elicited through our exposure to such content – and this is what I’ll do in my next article.