Radio Aum Shinrikyo

It must be coming up for 10 years since I heard this station on the radio. I vaguely recall hearing it on mediumwave via Russia, and a quick search on Google shows that the station was on 1494khz back in 1994. I don't recall much about the broadcast - I assume it wasn't fantastically listenable in that I believe I only ever listened to the broadcast once, however it was truly bizarre, and naturally rather shocking, to discover the following year that the people behind a programme I'd listened to were also behind the gas attacks on the Tokyo subway.

I'd long since forgotten of any motive for these attacks by the group, if indeed any were ever discovered. However the sentencing of Aum's leader this week has cast the attention of the media once more upon the group. It seems, as with terrorists the world over, that it is those disillusioned with the state of things around them who take to such extreme actions. Curiously, the quality of life of those in Japan is generally high, yet still the stresses and nature of the Japanese capitalist culture nevertheless proved too much for some to handle.

I wonder how differently news of the Aum attacks would have been received around the world had they occurred in 2004 instead of 1994...

The power of the media

A documentary programme shown yesterday 'Sex, Lies & Michael Aspel' told the until now hidden story of how mild-mannered BBC presenter was the secret father of the likes of Spice Girl Mel B and Danniella Westbrook. The fact that my parents initially took the programme to be a true documentary, although it was actually a spoof, reflects the real power of the media. Although benign in this example, when the vast majority of people rely on the reports in national television, radio and websites to inform themselves about issues of the day, is it any wonder that media outlets can so easily be turned to malevolent ends by governments?

Even in the mainstream Western media governments can manipulate public opinion by encouraging certain evidence to be reported: the imminent risk to British interests in Cyprus by Iraq, to give a recent example. Such stories receive considerable coverage in the media at the time, but when the government decides to stop endorsing this evidence, who notices? Yet how many people keep on believing the original report, as they've not happen to catch the little coverage of the correction, if indeed there has been any? Democracy requires informed opinion to function successfully, but how accurately informed is public opinion in practice?

Updates

Following around a month without updates, much of the World Media section of the website have been updated - in particular the links to station websites.

I got a free program with a PC magazine that offers to build a database based website, which I might give a go if I can find the chance. One problem with trying to maintain a sizable website using static HTML pages is that any changes in designs or even just sections means a lot of work. Blogs in a way represent just one of the developments available in making websites easy to update.