Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 8

I do not like to memorize past events. I like studying history and the wonders of the past, but I did not understand why we had to read through textbooks and remember every little detail of what former kings and emperors did. Loewen states that the American History textbooks recounts events and details that involve someone with authority alone. I think this is true for any country. When I was in Junior High School, I had to take a Japanese History class, and was forced to memorize details of wars and revolutions. It may seem as though we were learning about the public movement, but it rarely mentioned 'nobodies' who participated in those fights. It was always people with power that appeared in texts, even if they were not so closely related to the war. Strictly speaking, there are probably not many documents left of an individual citizen, but there are tons for people of authority. They left official documents, and their diaries and letters were preserved safely.

 The fact that the textbooks take up a lot of space for kings and the details of their lives, is not favorable, but understandable. However, what I can't agree with is their portrayal of the authority. The textbooks create feel good stories to try and convince the students that their country is capable of being 'good', 'moral', and 'just.' As Loewen says, the textbook facts are turned into morality plays. They do not even have the courtesy to admit they were wrong. It is always a 'misunderstanding' or an 'unfortunate turn of events.' 

 With history books, despite the evidence and documents, it is still hard to define for sure what happened, seeing as though it is all in the past. Yet, feel good stories are still made from current facts and events. The government is publicly criticized, but the main stream media tend to show them as 'just' when there is no doubt a load of crap happening behind the scenes. The media try to convince the public that they should trust the government to make the right decision. Despite results of polls, and the down falling of the support from the public, the media still tries to perceive the government as 'right.' Although in Loewen's book. the CIA and other federal agencies are seen as the 'fourth branch of government,' I think that the media are the fourth branch. The federal agencies are basically apart of the government. They move with the government, they conceal inconvenient truths concerning the government, basically, they are obligated  to be censored. 

 Concluding my thoughts, the distance between the government and the public has been a problem for centuries. The lack of details on the public in textbooks, encourages the kept distance. They try to separate citizens and authorities, making the citizens feel smaller than they truly are.

Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 7

This chapter made me realize that we don't see much about the difference in social class, and the effects they brought about in the past.  Although this book talks about the American textbooks, and how they try to conceal negative facts of the American history, it provokes readers to think about problems still existing.

 I think that the American textbooks try to convince U.S citizens that they are all equal, and have equal chances of success despite their class differences. However, critically speaking, it is not as simple. The best example would be the television sitcom, The OC.  Ryan, the protagonist of the series comes from a family of low income, with a alcoholic single mother, and a brother who spends half his time in jail. Although he is a bright boy with high hopes, the lack of money deprives him of his chances, and provokes him to follow his brother's footsteps. He gets caught trying to steal a car, and is saved by Sandy Cohen, a lawyer that represented Ryan after his misdeed. Sandy takes Ryan to his home in Orange County, where he is able to provide his family with no worries of money. Although Ryan has potential, his parents inability to support him, makes him feel he is deprived of chances and should give up on going to college.  On the other hand, Seth, Sandy's son, gets a high level education at a private school which sends students off to high level universities. His dream is to become a comic book artist, and he knows his way to get there. Opportunities appear right in front of him. Coming from a high social class, he has many connections in a variety of fields, giving him a chance to go after what he wants.

As Ryan adjusts to his new life in a wealthy family, he starts to discover his potentials. He tries to work for his future, rather than give up and simply 'work.' Social class develops stereotypes, depriving those in lower classes of chances and opportunities they could of had, had they not given up.

 Social backgrounds make the adolescents have different level of motivation. Although this is a naive point of view formed through tv sitcoms, it seems that the lower the social class one is born in, the lower the potentials are from the beginning. Children have big dreams and are not afraid to chase them.
However, when they turn into adolescents and realize the difference in social class, they are faced with reality and are forced to adapt their futures to fit with their background. The difference in social class is no doubt a huge part of the problems today. Omitting the facts of class differences and how they effected lives in the past, moreover how they are implanting stereotype motivations will not help change anything. Trying to convince students that they all have equal chances, despite their class, will result in low class student's low self esteem, moreover will kill their futures.

Power of the people

The sponsors, the government, all these authorities are controlling the mainstream media, leading to a lack of variety of opinions and view points. The Web 2.0 has restored the public's voice, and we are free to express our thoughts. What is even more powerful is the fact that anyone from anywhere can see it. "Sharing" online has the ability to bring people together. It creates the power over the authorities, and reveals the facts that was formerly hidden from public eyes.

 When I saw the clips of the peaceful protestors being maced, I couldn't help but notice the disgust on the faces of the students in our class. The police, who are supposed to 'protect' us, becoming the people who 'attack' us. It's unbelievable, it's horrifying, it's plain wrong. What scares me most, is that without the videos on youtube or the independent media, we would never have known about the facts. If we were naive and believed everything on the mainstream media, we would have never known.

 A while back, there was a riot in London, and it made me wonder whether the media was showing us everything. According to my friends in London, the riots were pretty much what it looked like on television, but if they got there information through the British news, then there is a possibility that the mainstream media were hiding something, which made it seem as though the riots were just meaningless attacks. I'm no expert and haven't done any research on what happened, but the thought of someone causing such a huge riot for no reason seems strange.

In my media class today, we were given an article and told to find parts of it that we thought was odd or seemed to be hiding something. My group found about 10 in one short article. The professor from that course wrote an article on how Minamata city was trying to hide their past of the illness minamatabyou, and sent it to the local paper there. As can be predicted, the article was not published. The mainstream media dislike any critical views, and won't post anything that would reveal their negative points. If the internet was not as developed as today, no one would ever find out about the issues that the mainstream media do not pick up. No one would have a chance to share their thoughts. Thanks to the internet, even little people with no power what so ever can post blogs and help make a difference.

Web of power?

The mainstrem media have issues they cannot report due to their relationships with the government and their sponsors. The public are deprived of information which they have the right to know. However, due to the development of the internet, the power has come back to the people.

 The internet allows us to search for any topic we desire. This ability to find anything online has got the public thinking they are more global than before the arrival of the net. But, it makes me wonder, has the internet brought the world closer or drawn them further apart? Information wise, of course people are connected in ways which would never have been possible. You can send a message to anyone who owns a computer despite the locations. But, the fact that you can access to almost everything online, means some might think they don't need to "get out there" and search for themselves. Who needs to go to a library when they can search for everything online? Why should you spend a load of money to research a monument when you have all the information you need on the internet? The efficiency of the internet has made it worthless to go into the field to independently research something. By using the net, it is more likely that people stay inside, oblivious to what is outside, in the real world. I love using the internet, and I love how efficient it is, but thinking that the web makes you more global is wrong. There are things you cannot find out unless you physically go there and witness it for yourselves.

This blog post was pretty off topic, but I will be posting another one about the lecture!

LLA class: Media Manipulaton

The main-stream media is not trustworthy. This statement seems rather harsh, but how much of the news on television do you trust? What was supposed to be a source of information has become a source to develop critical thinking. What I mean is, we as viewers or the receivers of the information must define for ourselves what is true and what should be questioned.

 
In my Media Studies class in High School, we watched a film called Wag the Dog, which is based on the novel American Hero by Larry Beinhart. The movie is about a spin doctor played by Robert DeNiro, who teams up with a Hollywood producer played by Dustin Hoffman, in order to create a fake war. The film starts two weeks or so before the election of the next president, and the current president, who is unnamed throughout the movie, has a scandal with a young girl. His opponent uses it to his advantage to get ahead in the polls. This is where the spin doctor comes in to work his magic. He draws focus away from the scandal by creating a fake war against Albania. He assumes that the American citizens probably know little of the country, and would believe the story with a few visual aids to support it. After filming a few scenes that would convince the Americans that there is a possibility of a war, he leaks the information to the main stream media. They were easily controlled, because the minute, the war story came out, the media dropped the scandal and focused on the fake war alone. The media, who are supposed to be the watch-dog of the government are easily manipulated. True, the movie may seem a little extreme, but no one can deny that there are issues the media have no control over. The receiving end, or in other words the public, must define for themselves what is true and what is not so as to stay truly informed.

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Lies My Teacher Told Me Ch 5

 This chapter, as everyone would know focuses on racism. It discusses how the African Americans were discriminated and used as slaves.

 In High School, during Christianity Week, we had to choose a class that got us to think about Christianity through something other than our regular courses. I chose a class where we were to watch a movie and write a short report on what we thought. We watched the movie Amazing Grace, a film about William Wilberforce. The movie is a bibliography of the man, who campaigned against slave trade. William Wilberforce was a member of parliament, and spent 20 years trying to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire. He once nearly gave up on trying after being rejected over and over again. However, with the support of his wife and allies, he returns to the government to fight against the slave trade and succeeds in 1807, ultimately abolishing it.

 Yes, this movie was about the ‘British’ empire, not the United States. But, after watching this movie, although it is hard to believe how immoral some people were, it was unfortunately true. It frightens me to think had William Wilberforce given up, how different the world might have been today.

 I don’t know much about the slave trade, so I can’t say for sure if only African people were traded. However, from a ‘white’ society’s viewpoint, Asians would probably have been on a lower status compared to them. In other words, Japanese people could have been traded as slaves, had there not been a person who was brave enough to admit that slavery was immoral.

 It can be said for anything in the past, so there doesn’t seem to be a necessity to actually write this, but one difference, and our lives would have been so different, I can’t even begin to imagine it. When studying history, we are forced to memorize facts. However, no change would come without analyzing and critiquing for ourselves the information given to us. To ensure that history does not repeat itself, students need to learn to challenge what is being taught, not just memorize it. 

Book Review

Yesterday during our presentation, I panicked and ended up not getting to say what I wanted to, so here it is!

 When you hear the word fashion, make up, shoes, clothes, you probably automatically hear superficial airhead.  If I were to ask how many people flicked through fashion magazines every morning to choose something that would impress the guy they liked or that would make them look like the 'it' girl, I can guarantee that most of the people in stream 1 would think me stupid. Why would you stress over what to wear every morning when you can just throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt that was on your bed?  

 Clothes and make up can be seen as a statement of one's identity, and most people would criticize that by saying that "it's what's inside that counts." True, one's identity isn't defined by the clothes they wear. But, there is a reason as to why that person is wearing that particular piece of clothing. Whether it is because they like efficiency and choose slacks and a simple shirt or they like pretty frilly clothing and wear pink skirts and a blouse is not something that just instantly comes to one's mind. It's not like one day you wake up and your brain decides your likes and dislikes. There is always some source behind your interest, and the same applies for fashion.

 Unknowingly we are exposed and effected by what we witness on television and movies. We see a scene in a tv sitcom and decide for ourselves whether the clothes that wrap the actors are to our liking or not. even if we are focused on the storyline, it is hard to ignore what is being worn. Our sub conscience  inputs the reaction to the fashion and by gradually developing that, your taste in clothes start to settle.

 The book I am planning on writing a book report on is a collection of essays written by mostly professors of film studies. I've only read part of the book yet and haven't reached a conclusion as to whether I agree or disagree with the editor Professor Rachel Moesely. But skimming through it I saw that the essays connect identity of an actor due to the parts they played and the clothes they wore. The book is not exactly what I imagined it to be. It talks about how the actors were effected rather than the audience. But there is a strong connection to my essay topic so I'm really eager to read on and finish the book ASAP! Well, the faster I finish reading, the better, so I am off! Tah tah for now.