This week our class discussed textbooks, and what the textbooks focused on, determined by how many words were in a section. I found that American textbooks generally have an optimistic bias towards America's past. Chapters focus less on rebellions against corrupt public officials, which would paint America in a bad light, and more so on topics related the ways the government is revolted against for doing good, such as protecting Indian rights with Bacon's rebellion, which demonstrates a fair government.
Textbooks about American history are written in an optimistic way because the publishers want their product to be purchased. Negative textbooks ripping America are not as likely to be bought by boards of education because they feel they should promote patriotism and allegiance to the country. In the same way that textbooks are created for their audience, the media are also selling a product. American media (newspapers, television, etc.) does not focus as much on international issues as much as American topics. This is because their audience, the American public, wants to hear about topics directly related to them, and not about issues of importance to other countries.
Recently, floods in Pakistan have devastated millions of people, killing many, and leaving others homeless. In America, coverage for this particular topic was rare. Is this because Americans are shallow people who do not care about listening to topics that do not pertain to them? Does our media control what we have access to, and the less coverage of the topic the less we care about it?
I think you ask a lot of great questions. In our society I feel that people are really focused on taking care of themselves. It is kind of like that thing on airplanes, with the air mask "first fit the mask onto yourself before helping others."I really like how you connected the textbook exercise to the priorities of the American people's interests. We learned in the textbook reading that the writers are just going for the greatest audience, much like the American media. The sad thing is majority of people do not care as much about floods in Pakistan over a extremist church group in Florida having a Koran burning. As we talked about in class, Americans love DRAMA! The news tries to extract and create lots of DRAMA. They way to create the biggest amount of drama is by striking something that is important to lots of people. Which is another reason why I feel that the media usually focuses on national issues. I don't think that the media defines how much we care things but they do regulate how much we know. Which is why we have to try and go find the answers ourselves. I really enjoyed reading your post!
ReplyDelete