Opinion article by Mónica Soares, Researcher at the Research Centre for Human Development (CEDH) and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Education and Psychology of Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Even more accessible and more terrifying, the world remains dependent on those who decide what to show. This dispute is now described as cognitive warfare, a struggle for perception. In the maelstrom, the spectator oscillates between quick certainties and chronic doubts. On screen, everything seems clear, except for what was left out. The result: tiredness, confusion, and demobilisation.
War has become an everyday spectacle. Millions, far from the battlefields, endlessly watch its cruelty and suffering. So far removed that, at times, they feel detached. We hear it is “just another conflict,” somewhere we hardly know, where people live and die whom we would never otherwise encounter. To a large extent, it has been the media and communication technologies that have “brought” these wars—whether distant or nearby—into our world, that is, into the world we perceive, the one we see and hear.
