Skip to main content

Contentions Over Eastern and Western Journalism


 Journalism

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Journalism is the collection, preparation and distribution of news and related commentary and feature materials through such prints and electronic media as newspapers, magazines, books, blogs, webcasts, podcasts, social media sites, and e-mails as well as radio, motion pictures and television.

A lot of people have divergent opinions on the term journalism as some define it as story telling with purpose. According to an American Professor Glenn Mott who lectured at Tsinghua University in China, a student called Weijun is of the idea that "the media gives us opinions not facts. Since prejudices are unavoidable in the reports of news. So maybe there are neither truth nor facts, and Journalism is about making facts and selling opinions and hence truth influencing people". The thing is that there's no specific thing called Eastern or Western Styles of journalism rather there are people who basically are divided into two with each of them habouring the idea that "the other group is against us".

How did it start?

During the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in an intense media diplomacy aimed at creating international image ( wether good or bad ) about each other. During this period, the US realized the continuous dominance of the Communists in the Eastern block and establish Voice of America and Radio Free Europe to counter their dominance. Scholar James Schwoch writes " Western inspired television programming and development in cold war Germany and Europe began as not so much a case of the unfettered free flow of information from the West to East, but rather as a strong counterbalance preventing or discouraging the Soviet- sourced first flow of the European television landscape". This counters from the West against the East and from the East against the West is one thing that has lingered in the minds of many hence bringing about this context of Eastern and Western styles of journalism. 


During America's invasion of Iraq in the early 2000s, one study which examined every evening TV news on ABC, CBS and NBC found that the news coverage of these media houses in a way conformed to the idea of the invasion and that officials of Bush's administration were the most frequently quoted sources whiles the voices of anti war groups were barely audible and the overall thrust of coverage supported a pro war perspective. Also Max Abrahms, writing in foreign affairs also criticized world media's coverage of the Syrian civil war saying that it's overly favourable to the Syrian opposition and fails to take into account extremist elements within the opposition.

Also Media Imperialism, a theory advanced by Oliver Boyd-Barret, Jeremy Tunstall and Elihu Katz in the late 1970s had it that " iniquitous flow of cultural production from the first to third world countries whereby the media of advanced capitalist economies were able to substantially influence, if not actually determine the nature of cultural production within the third world countries". This in other words takes us back to Weijun' idea about journalism. They're simply referring to a system where advanced countries in both the East and the West dictates to underdeveloped countries to think and behave in the ways of these so called first world countries through their media. There were times where some Asian countries considered restricting access to Western media because they considered them as possible threats to Asian values.

In 2015, Arnab Goswani, editor in chief of Times Now, India, criticized that the hegemony of Western media has ruined the balance of power that's required. He also said the US and UK contribute 74% of the source of global news whereas all of Asia contribute just 3%.

Also in China, the incident of the Kunming attack in which 31 people were killed probably by Xinjang secessionists in 2014 saw many Western media houses being criticized by the Chinese media and some social media users in the country, claiming those media houses placed the word " terrorism " in quotation marks whiles addressing the incident  accusing them of hypocrisy and double standards.

I personally think the world is divided into two main groups on this issue with each side playing the blame game against each other and influencing the thoughts and opinions of the neutral minority groups through their news reportage.


Let me know your thoughts in the comment section.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Instability In The Middle East

The Middle East is a geopolitical term that commonly refers to the region spanning the Levant, Arabian Peninsula, Anatolia, Egypt, Iran and Iraq. The term came into usage in the early 20th century in replacement of the term Near East which was previously used to describe the region. Countries that are mostly considered to be in this region are; Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Turkey. Throughout history the Middle East has been a major center of world affairs. The region has been strategically, economically, politically, culturally and religiously sensitive, making it one of the areas with most attention. Of late, the region has been a major hotspot when it comes to wars and conflicts across the globe. Tensions have been high in most areas of the region for several years and some of the main causes are Power, Control Over Oil and sometimes Religion. The Iraq invasion of Kuwait on Au...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why The West Is Against Communism

 Origin Communism is a political and economic system in which the state owns the means of production, but the citizens are allocated goods and services in a fair and equal manner. The term communism derives from the Latin word communis, which means "common". The communist manifesto was written in 1848 by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Brief history The communist system of government started with the formation of the Soviet Union which started from 1917. During this period the country was led by Joseph Stalin who ruled the USSR from 1917 to 1953. Currently communism is still the system of government practiced in modern day Cuba, Vietnam Laos and China as well. The whole ideology was developed in the 19th century as a political and economic theory. The real deal The West has always been against communism, and has been consistently trying to stop communism from spreading. However, the West's opposition to communism is not quite as clear as it seems. The West's oppositio...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why did Russia attack Ukraine?

It's been five days since Russia invaded Ukraine, fighting has since been going on between soldiers of both countries. Major landmarks in major cities of Ukraine have been taken down, civilian structures destroyed and some civilians killed. The question most people seek to ask is; What actually called for this war?  The North Atlantic Threaty Organization, NATO, was formed after the second world war by the United States , Canada,  England, Germany, France and some other European countries just to mention a few. Their main aim was to unite and stop a Soviet Union which kept on growing and gaining more power in Asia and some parts of Europe. This made it clear that NATO members were outright enemies of the Soviet Union and vice versa.  Fast forward in April 1961 when the Nazis have already surrended after WWII, the United States invaded Cuba, a sovereign country. Their reason was that Cuba, their neighbour had formed a Communist Government which makes them align to the Sovi...
Post a Comment
Read more