Why Americans seem to know less and less about the world

Real short and simple video that says something about how and what people are exposed to by the media in USA.

What is cheapest; to recycle the same news over and over, or getting real news?

When was the last time you heard news about Iran? (Every day?)
When was the last time you news from India? Germany? Norway?
And what about BRITNEY, BRITNEY, more BRITNEY SPEARS...

Alisa Miller on Global News: (3:51 min)
youtube.com...

reply to post by Daniem

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Hello Daniem

For the most part I would agree with you. Most of my friends are either too busy working and paying bills or focused on the local news to care about the global picture.

I find myself sometimes the odd man out when discussing whats happining in the world. I find that a lot of them make giant generalizations and rehash old stereotypes of people and places and show very little in the way of factual knowledge of what, say for example is going on with Iran or the EU etc.

Whats really funny the old timers seem to be more in tuned with the real world than people my genaration and younger they see whats going on and a lot of what we discuss seems to play out in the world .

IMHO

SLAY

Americans are being victimized by a deeducation process which is stripping them of classic family values and global awareness. However most americans do seem to have above average technical skills, so I don't consider America a nation of ignorance by any means, but they do seem conditioned to be unaware of how America fits into the modern world, probably by design. This process is happening in many other countries I suspect, but it seems to me the achiles heel of US culture is the lack of emphasis on family values. The "your momma" joke exmplifies this. The result is kids don't get a backup education from their parents and are thrown out into the world early and unprepared.

Some selfishness of the baby boomers might have helped the current situation. That said, the Internet generation which is growing up now has nothing to do with generation X, which is the unaware and uninterested generation I hinted to. These new kids are interconnected to a degree previously unknown, and I'm willing to bet they are plugged into the world as a whole. Great things might yet come of them, despite the caveats of their cultural circumstances.

all of my friends, either go to church alot, and dont watch anything but local news. or are too involved doing numerous other activities to even watch any news, so if i try to talk about whats going on in the world, they have no clue, i try to do my part and at least get them interested, but to no avail.

its not that all americans are ignorant, just that they dont care to look any further than the news, local or not.i try to look at everything i can.....after all i do live in the world, im not trapped in a safe little box that will protect me from everything.

im sure alot of you on ATS feel the same way, we actually get multiple sides to every story making our understanding a little better. whether or not we believe everything we read, its just nice to hear whats going on in the world from multiple perspectives.

peace

I know that obama just went to Berlin, Germany as though he weren't a candidate here, but rather already a President representing our country's socialistic views .

The news around the world is available to those who care, but yeah, a lot of Americans don't. And can ya blame them? The more of this bigger picture that I see, the more it becomes obvious that we are being locked into something around the world.

People see what they want to see and the televised news is a reflection of what Americans (as a whole) want to see.

reply to post by justamomma

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i will have to respectfully disagree, i think america is being fed what someone wants us to see, not exactly what WE want. perhaps if more people realized what was going on in this world as a whole, or at least in america, then maybe we wouldnt be locked into something, its hard to lock someone into something if they know whats going on. however, if we had no idea what was going on.......it would be easy, just like it is happening now.

peace

I think it can easily be said that most of the population of the world doesn't care one whit about you or I. Does the Chinese farmer know that a husband killed himself and his family today? Or is that farmer, pulling weeds and tending the garden that feed his family and provides him with a meager income?

What about the worlds stereotypes of Americans? When I met my future wife she told her parents that she was dating someone and their first question was "does he do drugs?" I was stunned. Is that what the world thinks of us? Now the world thinks were stupid; why wouldn't they. They watch our news and see our celebrities acting foolish and so "all americans are stupid".

We call the french rude. I've been there and they are just as rude as we are. Aside from my poor french I felt very much at home, careful who i talk to or look at. They are so much like us we don't like them and vice versa.
Obama pandering to the rest of the world is very interesting though. Is he running for President of the US or is he running for President of the World?

any who...

I fully agree with you on this. People tell me they "don't have time," or "are not into that stuff." I think the real problem is people do not read anymore, except what happens to be in the various offices we visit. I read book, a lot of books. I will read a good book, then look in the back for other titles to order. I also do a lot of internet reading, typing various words and combinations of words into the search engine and reading the results. To me, knowledge is power. Read much, anyone?

reply to post by WarBow

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Right on the money it's not just Americans that are ignorant about the world the reverse is also true

My X wife was from Guatemalla and she and her family had all kinds of the weirdest ideas about Me and the rest of America She wanted to know if I did drugs also and how many cars did I have etc

Many points made in this thread I completely agree with.

It saddens me that in this day and age of of so much information readily available at our fingertips.. the main focus of most is to see what trouble celebrities have gotten themselves into today.

It's almost as if people do not know how to absorb such a wide array of information, that they just veg out and and only eat what is being forced down their throats by the MSM.




[edit on 25-7-2008 by TwiTcHomatic]

[edit on 25-7-2008 by TwiTcHomatic]

reply to post by autowrench

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i love to read, i also think of something of interest and google it and read what comes up, good source of info if you ask me. i often make trips to the library, checking out books from all sorts of different things.

i love history especially. ya see its not just news where we could get info, but from alot of different places. some people dont understand that.

peace

I agree with WarBow. Americans aren't alone in their ignorance - I've been to plenty of places where the locals have only the vaguest knowledge of the world beyond their borders. It's human nature.

Funny story: while living in Germany, my girlfriend introduced me to one of her friends. This girl asks me where I'm from, and I respond, "Kentucky." There's this really long pause, and then she goes, "Kentucky fried chicken?"

A couple of years later, I'm speaking with an old friend of mine (an American), and I mention that I've moved back to Kentucky. There's this long pause, and then he cracks up, "Is the Colonel around?".

Sometimes I resent my state's lame claim to fame.

reply to post by Kontagion

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That is funny!
Surprisingly most Americans when they travel abroad will say the State they are from instead of The US. I realised that a few years ago I was asked where I was from on a trip to Denmark and without thinking I said California

Yeah, I've noticed that, too. I guess we still have some of that old colonialism in us.

I think we do that because it's fairly obvious that we are from the US as soon as we start talking.

Just a thought.

as a European I can say that many European people think that Americans are not very smart and lead war against countries without knowing where they are.
Apart of that Americans think they are the world and rule the world.
Patriotism can easily be seen as arrogance.
the image of the usa has suffered since bush is president.
I assume that obama went to berlin to revive the connection of berlin and kennedy.

I blame a lot of it on the media.

I know many people who would be interested in what is going on in the outside world, but all we get is shock news. A family of five was killed last night...that sort of thing.

Oh no Britney Spears is in the hospital again.

Fortunately they brought the BBC here so we can hear what is going on elsewhere. But basically we are the product of what we are being fed.

And it has been like this so long that people don't wonder if there is anything different.

It is plain habit.

Besides, it is human nature that you are more interested in what is going on with your own people then on the other side of the world.
Not a bad thing, just human nature.

But it is just conditioning and habit and Americans don't realize it. You turn on the news, watch a little or read a bit of the paper and go and make dinner and think about what your doing at work tomorrow.

I totally did not realize it till the last election, I was on a message board, and someone from Europe said: I am so sick of hearing about your election, we just elected a new president, did you hear about THAT? Who was it?

They made a very powerful statement to me because I didn't realize how cutoff our news is.

I listen to NPR now because they will do more world coverage.


A lot of it is decided for us. That I agree.

I will never forget that interview with Jesse Ventura when he was being intervied by Hannity and Colmes. And he accused the media of being controlled. Hannity said" no its not!" and Jesse's reply was: Did you really want to report on what was going on with Anna Nicole Smith for three months?
Hannity didn't say anything...

[edit on 26-7-2008 by nixie_nox]

I think it is a bit to easy to blame the media-in general the tv news.
you´ve got internet access and could inform yourself about anything in the world.
I guess it is only natural that people are more interested in britney,though it sounds paradox, her life is closer and more real to the people.
do you really wanna know who dies in war?see their faces and know about their lives?
I guess it is a form of self- protecting not to know what is really going on,to keep these things distant.
I do not say it is right...

reply to post by Daniem

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Well I might have been over you but lady your all that Ive got

I traveled to Denver in mornig the boxcarz are all holdin alot

Trian time whisltes and nothin to complain

Sending down the line I cant stay all the same

I just wish I could be happy like Cranbook and ride

Blue line in the morning

Orangeville county rain

Here comes that rainy day feelin again

New rize in the dawn of the early mornin haze

Goes on and on aint no way to complain

Oh I wish I could keep singing all those songs about rain .

reply to post by alexenia

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This is a little more daunting then you think. How does someone know where to start? You just don't want to pick up any ol periodical and then find out it is the UK equivilant of the Onion.

Then you have to learn the politics of a country. Sure you can go to wiki and learn how the government is setup. But it still doesn't teach you the "politics".

It is really hard to know where to "begin."

And I am not sure what a solution to that would be.