In Uganda, a professor who owned the prestigious St. Lawrence Academy Schools and Colleges passed on. After his death, newspapers, tabloids and social media broke the news that he had slept with almost every beautiful female teacher and that he had also impregnated over 80 girl students in his schools. To be honest, I personally do not believe this is true. I think this is one way the media is used to control public opinion, to incite the parents, and to tarnish the image of the schools.
One of the disciplines I have invested my money and time in is Philosophy. It has helped me understand many things. In Philosophy, under its branch known as Epistemology (which is the study of how we know what we know), there is a psychological concept known as ‘Framing’. According to Professor Kelton Rhoads,
“A frame is a psychological device that offers a perspective and manipulates salience in order to influence subsequent judgment”.
When you look at this definition you will notice that it mentions three elements:
- Offers a Perspective,
- Manipulates Salience, and
- Influences a Subsequent Judgment.
A frame “offers a perspective”. It manages the viewer’s alignment in relation to the issue. Just as a picture frame can obscure a painting from a diagonal view, so a psychological frame invites the observer to view the topic from a certain restricted perspective. People are no longer looking at the death of this professor as a national loss but as a blessing in disguise.
Secondly, a frame “manipulates salience“, that is, it directs the viewer to consider certain features and ignore others. A psychological frame encourages the observer to attend to a feature of the stimulus within the frame while disregarding other features of that same stimulus which lie outside the frame. What people are hyper with is the allegation that he slept with these women and students, but not that he changed the face of the academic industry by constructing these prestigious schools.
Finally, a frame influences “subsequent judgment“. After a frame has offered a perspective and manipulated your salience, the information received after the frame is delivered is organised and resized to fit within the parameters established by the frame. So the judgment one is likely to make is drawn within the parameters of the frame. This is what we call the ‘frame of reference’.
The media has puffed up this event through social media, and tabloids that the gullible society is not even asking whether there is one single witness to this issue. The public has passed judgment on the late professor as guilty based on what it has been told but not on what has been proved. The frame not only contains, but constrains. The frame helps create the picture we view.
The media is the primary perception framing agent of modern societies. People believe what is said on social media, radio, TV and newspapers and act upon it as a doctrine. The media controls not only public opinion but even determines public judgment and behavior. It shapes the way we view current issues and this is what is known as “Agenda Setting Hypothesis”.
We live in a world where people think what they have been prepared to think and understand what they have been made to understand in the way they should understand. And in the process they fight, kill and die for these mind-setting creeds. This is what in philosophy is known as ‘Conditioning’.
This requires that we ask a fundamental question:
“If media elites can effectively shape public opinion by emphasizing certain issues and ignoring others, what is the nature of a modern, media-dominated democracy? Does public opinion reside in the minds of citizens, or is public opinion manufactured elsewhere and then merely deposited in the minds of citizens?”
We all know what the general answer is. We live in an information age but we are disabled by the very diverse information to make a balanced assessment of any given situation. Some of us have gone to school and have been conditioned and fixed by philosophies of professors and books whose sources we do not know. Many of us are religious. Some kill and die for religions they have never bothered to scrutinize. They believe everything without questioning. The doctrines or church leaders are never questioned. We have been taught, trained and prepared to give an answer but not to question a thing.
I am not defending the late Professor Mukiibi and other public figures, and am not saying that he did not do what the media alleges he did. I just want to say two things: the first is what I have just labored to unveil to you by reminding you that the media is a psychological tool designed to manage and shape public opinion. Do not always believe it without question. Even pictures and videos are always doctored to suit the director’s intention. So, don’t just believe and act before you pose and investigate.
Another thing I need to point out is that; let us assume this professor slept with all these women and impregnated all of them. Does this make him more sinful than others? Okay perhaps he is more sinful than some of you but I would like to officially inform you that: professor Mukiibi was not as sinful as I am and if am saved by the Grace of God then Mukibi could have been saved by the same grace of God. If the late professor Mukibi was a symbol of sin then am the sin itself, and I cry, wretched man that I am, WHO SHALL SAVE ME FROM THIS BODY OF SIN?
Sinners causing alarm over the promiscuity of the late professor Mukibi should thank the Lord that he does not pay us as we deserve. If God paid us as we deserve, the professor wouldn’t have died a blessed man. He was a respected man in his life. He was rich and successful. If he really was this sinful, then we should thank God for being this generous and gracious. Imagine God knew the good and the bad that this man did in his life. But he (God) was quiet about his sins.
I want you to draw a contrast between God and us. It was after the death of this man that his sins were revealed. Perhaps some people knew but they were bribed to keep quiet, God knew and he just kept silent without any bribe. Can you imagine how much God knows about you? He knows things that you alone, not even your wife, children, friends, workmates, employers know. Have you ever imagined if God publicized everything he knows about you? Imagine if God had a newspaper, a radio station, a TV station, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Internet etc where he posted and published all that he knows about you?!
Trust me, if God behaved the way we behave with our fellow sinners, some of us would commit suicide. We have a tendency of exposing others and depicting them as the worst sinners just because they have been unlucky to be caught in the same act that we ourselves confidentially participate in. Am sure there are people who have slept with more women than this man is assumed to have slept with. I know of homosexuals, thieves, corrupt officials, paedophiles and murderous robbers who are castigating this sinner.
We are like the Pharisees in John 8 who took an adulterous woman to Jesus to condemn but left the man she was sleeping with. We always tend to exercise FRAMING in our reasoning as we judge others. We forget how sinful we are and magnify the sins of others and print them in the headlines of our news reports. We make alarms and blow the trumpet of how sinful others are while the God who knows everything about us and more about those sinners we castigate is silent.
When this prostitute was brought to Jesus, he maintained silence in the presence of the accusers, he kept his head bowed down, and he continued writing on the ground. He never joined the accusation side and neither did he join the accused side to defend. When he was pressed hard, he posed a challenge: He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Notice that God, in this, did not deny the sin of his daughter but questioned the moral authority of her accusers. God’s silence about our secret sins is not an approval of them but rather a protection of our esteem, reputation and safety from other sinners.
After these accusers left, Jesus turned to this woman and told her to go and do it no more. God wants us to expose the devil, his demons and his teachings but not fellow people. You can expose the teachings of a cult but not the individuals in there. This is what it means TO HATE SIN BUT LOVE THE SINNER. The innocent children of this man are affected by the reports that the media has decided to publicize about the late.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I want us all to understand that there people like me who confess like Apostle Paul that we are not merely sinners but CHIEF OF SINNERS. The Bible says in 1Timothy 1:12-16 that:
I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners–of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.
Friends, we should thank the Lord for his grace and patience. He knows too much about each of us. Personally, if God displayed all my sins on the clouds, some of you would not listen to my preaching anymore. It is a fact of life that 97% of the existing happy marriages thrive on the ignorance of either the wife or the husband. If we knew what our spouses do behind our backs, we wouldn’t be together. Imagine if your boss knows everything that you do not want him to know.
Look at a scenario of a political leader having his academic papers exposed. Imagine if your husband decided to run a DNA on every child in your marriage. Do you know how many people do not want to test for H.I.V? Brothers and Sisters, let us stop playing with information, while it is important, it can be detrimental to weak information managers like us. My dear friends, we are not merely saved by Grace but we exist and survive by grace.
God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON and FAITH
Am Pr. I.T.WHITE
The Gospel Hawker
iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24) 