Some wars, like the Syrian war, get a lot of publicity, which can lead to more of a push for resolution, while others, like Yemen's still raging war, are widely ignored. There are some obvious reasons, like the magnitude of Syria's war is way larger than Yemen's. Sometimes it's just about the numbers.
But most of the problem has to do with the near-provincial way Americans are mainly inward facing. There are less minutes on American news programming about the rest of the wold than there are about America in the rest of the world. To those that need aid, American attention seems vitally important, but unfortunately it is also increasingly elusive. That's because in America, inattention is the default, not the exception to the rule. Conflicts only get burn in traditional American media when they have a compelling storyline to the public and reflect positively on the views of the political player that news channel sides with, for reasons incredibly complex, and not just having to do with the numbers. What American news sources are really looking for is identifiable good and evil forces, and to know who to root for, and for a recognizable impact on American interests. This is why wars like Sri Lanka's, South Sudan's, and of course Yemen's are largely ignored.
I think that it is stupid that Americans are so self obsessed that our news doesn't heavily cover the ENTIRE WORLD THAT ISN'T AMERICA. There is literally so much world that isn't America. And I care about these things, so I don't know how I didn't know about that earlier. I also think the media has too much influence over what the American public care about, just by the accessibility of information. I think that this problem has everything to do with "the American Way of Life" which is a self obsessed concept, and I think that is a problem. The countries in most of the rest of the world are small and share many borders, which causes them to feel more globally connected, while America goes "from sea to shining sea", so we feel kind of removed from everyone else. I think that the new generation needs to show that global news is important to us so that the media knows thats what they should cover.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/world/why-some-wars-like-syrias-get-more-attention-than-others-like-yemens.html?ref=world&_r=0
Yes, I completely agree with you. Many people are so uneducated about what's going on in other places in the world, but I hope people will begin to see what is happening.
ReplyDeleteSome wars get more coverage than others because it depends on how us as America the great, are effected by it. The Syrian war is more popular because we are drone striking the hell out of it.
ReplyDeleteThat's an interesting point the article makes by a public standpoint from what we as people understand by the amount of publicitie it gets in the first place.
ReplyDeleteyea, i agree with Evan because we only know much information about wars that had something to do with the shaping of the united Stes or somewhere else that is sort of paired with us.-Jada Brown
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