False Hope: an Obstacle to Change?

We ended our class discussion on Thursday talking about how hopeless the situation seems to be as far as how the media covers war. I wondered the same - is there any hope for this situation? I'm not sure if there is, but I realized that if there is NOT any hope for the situation - we were still going to leave class with some kind of false hope - because who wants to leave class on a sad note? Don't get me wrong, I think that hope is a great thing and can motivate us to change and innovate and question, and all sorts of good and progressive things. But I think that false hope can be a major obstacle to serious change in any of the topics we have discussed in class including our most recent discussion on the media's portrayal of war. I realize that last class at one point there was an overall feeling of bleak hopelessness for the situation, and it created a dissonance in my mind that was uncomfortable and required discussion and thought. I am fairly confident that most students in the class were racking their brains trying to think of why the heck we should be hopeful about this situation! (Which is a very good thing). We ended the class on a lighter note as we shifted the discussion somewhat, but I wonder what might happen if we ended class on a dull and dreary hopeless note. We might have each left the class concerned and alert about the very present and real problem that our media uses war for profits and whatnot. Instead I left the class with a clear conscience because I didn't have the same uncomfortable feeling of hopelessness, which is completely fine - but I didn't change, or critically think, or brainstorm, or discuss anything with my friends about our problem with the media. Maybe sometimes we should allow ourselves to end conversations some discomfort and maybe a little bit of hopelessness for the sake of change?