Hamas manipulating media with photographs

Hello readers,

Its night here, but I can't sleep. There are loud explosion sounds and shockwaves that make my home including windows and doors shake. Honestly its frightening. I am afraid that while I will sleep I will be hurt by my window glass if it breaks. So I keep writing my papers to college or catching up on social media.

I don't know if I have told you, but I study culture, creation and production.

One of the courses I took this semester was about Stories and Narratives. 

And in this course we learned about stories, narratives what makes them, about the reader taking part in the process by processing details, filling in blanks, arousing his emotions and empathy, activating prior knowledge or experience. Story or narrative doesnt only have to be a text as in written text. It can be picture, photograph or movie.

You know who really is good at story telling? Hamas. 

So let me tell you how Hamas manipulating media with photographs

Hamas and their supporters work very hard over the internet, social/new media and news to tell a story, delievering a specific message to the world. Their agenda is to protray Israel as bad and themselves as defenders of palestinians. Although the facts speak for themselves, they had luck in the past and present, they had success manipulating the media and peoples mind.

So how they do it?

#1 Well first of all they use photographs that activate empathy and emotions.

Some of the photographs are staged, some of the photographs are from other places (syria/iraq/lebanon), some are very old, and some are "authentic".

#2 Triggering emotions is the most powerful motivator for someone to interpret a picture as a narrative, story or if you will as a fact. They add some details. Such as people injured in Gaza.

Now let me remind you many of those pictures are actually either taken from movies like final destination, staged, or from another country. But still saying this is from Gaza, they trigger your emotion and associate it with what happens in Gaza.

#3 Not sharing the whole details. They don't share the fact that they started escalation against Israel and target Israeli civilians. They don't mention they didn't agree to ceasefire twice and broke the third they "agreed" to. They don't mention that the IDF asked multiple times from citizens to evacuate and they avoid hitting civilians as much as possible. They don't mention they threatend civilians that if they evacuate after the IDF asked them, that Hamas will later on kill them. They don't mention how they ask civilians to ask as human shields. No, They don't share the details because they want you to "fill in blanks". Yes, They Trigger your emotions, Associated it to prior knowledge about Gaza, and the fact that Israel is running operation, but "forgot" to mention their responsibility for wanting to fight Israel, and that they refused cease fire before and during Israel operation, or using human shields, some of them children, in many cases against their will.

#4 They flood the internet and social media with those pictures hundred of thousands of time. They want people to forget or not to look up to most of this pictures and accepting them as "true" and delievering their "story" to as many people as possible. 

If you want to know more: Hamas reporting guidelines: The dead are always "innocent civilians"

So now you understand a little bit how Hamas use photographs for manipulating media and masses.

Share the truth!

Dov Trachtman - The Man in Fort