All the so called major media houses are located in the United States of America.
The USA is widely known as a continent of innovation. Silicon Valley is a city known for its sharp mind in the mass production of latest technologies of mass communication. If a country is rich enough to capitalise new researches in technology, should it be blamed for harbouring ambitions to create a new world order?
No, the country will be aiming higher to improve living conditions of its citizens and beyond. Anyone who has done an academic research, complains of its cumbersome challenges of completing one. Technological researches need a lot of money to see them to come to fruition.
The United States dollar is the world ‘ s international currency, which is the reserve currency of the world. So, the country invests heavily in these projects, because it has a huge capital base at its disposal. It also encourages young entrepreneurs to do the unthinkable. Imagine Elon Musk’ s initiatives in technology, the US is pouring all its resources into new technological innovations.
Unfortunately, it’s hegemonic, monopolistic and oligopolist stance on technology is being challenged by the People’s Republic of China. The United States is now unease, it has promoted protectionism against Chinese technological companies like Huawei and TikTok. It is also embargoing the exportation of micro-chips to China, so that it can disadvantage China in its pursuit of excellence.
The accusations against Chinese tech- companies is that they do spooking jobs for the Chinese government are yet to be proved. That TikTok, is to be banned in the United States, for threatening the U.S security has been quashed by activists and lobbyists as just another ‘ Alice in Wonderland ‘.
The United States was the first country to understand the power of mass media, through radio and television broadcasting, and print media. The advent of new technology like the Internet also boosted its ego to bend the world to a shape it likes.
Fortunately, the Internet is an American military invention, the US army used it as to communicate research and intelligence reconnaissance, it was an intra net for the Army combinations. In the 1970s some universities in the country started using it as an online education facility.
In the 80s, the Internet became the talk of the day and in the 90s it proliferated globally though with minimum penetration. The year 2000 (Y2K) changed everything as we entered the new century, it was feared that the world wide web, would collapse as it fails to realise the new century (2000). After midnight of 1999, everything was contained, the Internet didn’t collapse. The advent of the Internet was now in full force, though third world countries remained low consumers.
The most popular form of communication by that time was the email which was provided by TelOne. American entrepreneurs began to be more creative, cable news networks came into effect. All the major players were American companies, namely General Electric, Time Warner, Walt Disney, News Corporation, CBS and Viacom.
Let’s put America’ s feet in a Zimbabwean shoe, if it was Zimbabwe creating all those corporations, do you think it will tout other countries as the best or itself? Obviously, everything will be ‘ Proudly Zimbabwean’. That’s what America is doing with its inventions and innovations.
It’s not short changing us, it is simply promoting its political and economic interests. The Internet has provided us with a lot of opportunities, it is now faster and cheap communicating with family and friends in the world, it offers online education, entertainment, cashless transactions, Internet banking, shopping and Webinars.
It also has its demerits, like cyber bullying, identity theft, online fraud and spread of violence and hate speech. Although the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, the world is now a better place with the provision of Internet services.
As all the big- tech companies have headquarters in the United States of America, they are also accused of agenda setting. Their news in disparaging America’ s perceived enemies is the same and monotonous.
Journalistic ethics of being objective, impartial, and fair are ignored to further an agenda. That is where accusations of peddling neo- colonialist theories come into play. For example, in 1997 America attacked Iraqi under the guise of looking for Weapons of Mass Destruction, despite the United Nations not sanctioning the attack.
The western media saw nothing wrong by the actions of the American government. They set the agenda that, Saddam Hussein was an evil who needed to be neutralised and sure the American army did so.
In Afghanistan the American media was also running behind and embedded in rooting out terrorists hiding in Tora Bora mountains. Eventually Osama bin Laden was killed in nearby Pakistan. Osama bin Laden was accused of being the brains behind the Twin Tower bombings of 9 September 2001.
The world was brought to a standstill by this ruthless and unprovoked attack on civilians. So, the American President vowed to pursue the perpetrators anywhere they could hide, and Afghanistan was quickly designated to be a war zone between the Axis of Evil, against the whole civilised world. Osama bin Laden had taken opportunities to spread anti- American videos as infidels that needs to be taught a lesson. And places of the shooting of these videos were deep caves in the mountainous of Afghanistan.
It took twenty years for America to leave Afghanistan, and chaos is now the order of the day in the country. Afghanistan is rich in precious minerals and despite being a terrorist haven, the country offers a lot of opportunities.
Right now America is leading NATO countries to fight a winless war in Ukraine and labelling anyone who dares to oppose its excursion in the country. South Africa was bullied for holding military trainings with Russia, forgetting that Russia and South Africa belong to the BRICS alliance.
That is how the global media is accused of trolling any country accused of disobeying America. So global media houses instead of giving us objective news, they are pushing the agendas of our former colonizers.
The Zimbabwean government received such reception in 2000, when they expropriated land from white commercial farmers and distributed it to landless Zimbabweans.
Right now the country is reeling under economic sanctions authored by the European Union and are now being renewed annually by the United States of America under the code name ZIDERA. Human rights abuses and corruption feature highly as the reason of keeping and maintaining sanctions against it.
Aaron Gono
