Pompt 3: Expert Commentary, Academic Feilds and Intellectual Diversity

When thinking about which academic fields are most well represented, I automatically think of business, economic and political science being most represented in the media nowadays. On the other hand, literature (English) or history seems to be less common and less focused in the media. The fact of differences in these represented fields may result from what we, citizens, care more and less, rather than intention of the media. There are specific programs and academic news of the less common fields such as History Channel, but these are optional and barely shown in the news.  Also, sociology takes part in the sphere where the media broadcast to the public but only when issues relate to safety or political matter. Occasionally, civil rights (for people of color, LGBT and women) get focused in the media. Still, these social issues seem to be less recognized when comparing to other well represented topics.
In terms of diverse in intellectual, in my opinion, perspectives or opinions tend to focus on how the United States can be affected and what the president should do about it. In other words, objective perspectives of certain issues are needed to be more diverse. I ‘m not a political person; I am not the best person to ask about how the media shows us political news, but even from the view of non-political person, the media in general seems to focus on what the president can do to protect us from other nations and how he can bring us jobs: economic concern. Thus, I believe that these are the over-represented in discussions in the media.

As of today, all we see on televisions and social media are what is going on in Syria. The media focuses on this topic because this issues can cause serious problems in the United States and with its citizens. Also, discussions with news about Syria also correspond with another issues which is the president’s plan with the policy on refugees. If there is nothing that relates directly with the United States, I feel that the media does not even mention about it. The best example can be the reality of how many children and women around the world dying from working for companies that sell us products. Most of the products we purchase in the United States are produced by people who work under awful condition. Do we care about it when we are fortunate to buy cheap products even though we are indirectly “killing” lives of others? The media may even avoid to discuss these topics that are beneficial to us today although the problem can be worth being a huge topic. 

Comments

  1. UnknownApril 10, 2017 at 4:35 PM

    Namiki-- I really appreciate your thoughts about the media in the United States. Specifically, I think you made a great point about how the media does not focus on issues that are happening outside of the United States. I think this is so dead on. I feel in our America Society we can sometimes be selfish and only care about what is going on around us. In reality, much like you said, things happening outside of the United States should be shown in the media. We need to be informed of what is going on around us because one way or another it can and will affect us.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Major is Business and I Have Music Class (Op-ed)

My Major is Business and I Have Music Class By Namiki Tanaka APR. 18, 2017 Last summer when I went back home in Japan, my mother introduced me to her friends and proudly said, “She wanted to study psychology in the United States, and now she is getting a master’s degree.” I was very confused. Every time I told my parents what I was studying in college, they gave me questioning looks. In 2015, I earned my bachelor’s degree in global studies with emphasis of international business. My parents even came to see me walking on the stage; they still don’t know what exactly I studied unless I explain again and again. Sitting in my biology class, back in 2011, I was wondering why I had to learn about a subject that I would not use after the final exam and studied in high school. In the first two years of college, I went to a community college before transferring to a four years institution. In the community college, more than one professor said, “Well, I’m assuming that you...
Read more

Op-ed topic

There are different college education systems in different regions of the world. For one of my op-eds, I am going to discuss about how the U.S. college education does not have to be for four years.
Read more

Is Polarization a Bad Thing?

How we perceive opposing opinions is different and yet very important. We can take opposing opinions as if they hate us, or we can try to observe and even learn how the others view the same fact differently. For instance, when I meet a person who has a totally different personality from me, as I get bothered at first, I become more interested in knowing how s/he lived and what her or his background is. Similarly, I became curious to know what makes people to support certain politicians when I didn’t know much about the politicians.. Having polarization, depending on how we utilize, can be beneficial to expand and raise our level of knowledge. In order for polarization to be good or beneficial, I believe there should be appreciation and respect to some extent while being an opponent. Then, the media has an important role to make the balance of divisions. Since the media has such strong influences, they can give the audiences impacts on how we take different opinions. Thus, the media ...
Read more