Taksim taught us the real meaning of westernized media.
What our family and friends were reading of the protests back home naturally had them worried that we were still traveling through Istanbul.
Once there, however, we realized the accounts and interpretations they were consuming were not even close to what we witnessed.
This was later reemphasized by an article bashing western media’s presentation of the Egypt protests, which sparked the question of how often does this happen and why has it become our media culture in the mainstream.
From the outsider’s perspective, Khaled Shaalan sums up his analysis of the situation.
Our media relies our their specialized correspondents or experts, however it is obvious these specialists have not been shaken out of their western lens. They still interpret situations and pose the news in a way that caters to the typical mainstream style of victimizing groups, creating others and analyzing from the top down instead of in the streets within the minds of the people.
Shaalan reverted me back to Morocco when he mentions the “emergence of a true grassroots democratic alternative in the Arab world’s largest country.”
Though he is speaking of Egypt, the fear of these movements in various countries is a challenge to western domination. It is something westerns do not understand, are not used to and therefore fear.
Instead of reporting from the angle of the people, which is the ground level demand for their democratic freedom, western news is focusing on the usual and droning up angles or applying thinking that is much out of date and touch with what is actually happening.
Between these instances and the cry for true and understanding American journalism in Morocco, it is obvious our media is under well deserved scrutiny from non-westerners and will continue to be if we treat them as such.
What our family and friends were reading of the protests back home naturally had them worried that we were still traveling through Istanbul.
Once there, however, we realized the accounts and interpretations they were consuming were not even close to what we witnessed.
This was later reemphasized by an article bashing western media’s presentation of the Egypt protests, which sparked the question of how often does this happen and why has it become our media culture in the mainstream.
From the outsider’s perspective, Khaled Shaalan sums up his analysis of the situation.
Our media relies our their specialized correspondents or experts, however it is obvious these specialists have not been shaken out of their western lens. They still interpret situations and pose the news in a way that caters to the typical mainstream style of victimizing groups, creating others and analyzing from the top down instead of in the streets within the minds of the people.
Shaalan reverted me back to Morocco when he mentions the “emergence of a true grassroots democratic alternative in the Arab world’s largest country.”
Though he is speaking of Egypt, the fear of these movements in various countries is a challenge to western domination. It is something westerns do not understand, are not used to and therefore fear.
Instead of reporting from the angle of the people, which is the ground level demand for their democratic freedom, western news is focusing on the usual and droning up angles or applying thinking that is much out of date and touch with what is actually happening.
Between these instances and the cry for true and understanding American journalism in Morocco, it is obvious our media is under well deserved scrutiny from non-westerners and will continue to be if we treat them as such.
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