How does the media affect our history?

Question

in terms of culture, race, and identity

Answer 1

The media affects our history in every which way but especially in the terms you've mentioned above.

Culture can be taken in many ways. In past history we can learn about another culture through media. Would we know as much about Egypt for example if we didn't hear the stories of the diggings and finding that are made there and the information they get from those.

To culture today - I guess this Fiji coup is an example. The army is taking over Fiji and want to take the Prime Minister captive. This will one day be history - no matter the outcome - that is Fiji's culture. The military and it's leaders try to overtake the police and Prime Minister.

For race I guess a past example is the Jews. The media surrounding it has affected history. Because of what happened back then the world is learning from it's mistakes and realising how much dictators can do. We realise that what the media shows us is only a portion but imagine what did happen.

A current race example would definately have to be Muslims I think. Since 911 we have never known so much about the middle east. It affects it because there are good Muslims out there - it's just the extremists.

Identity in past the could be in regards to any of the wars that have been held. That is how a nation gets it's identity - fighting for its freedoms etc - how heroes are made etc.

For the current I guess it could go majorly with trends. There are the goths, the emos, the chicks that want to look like Paris Hilton etc. They identify with these people through the media and believe that that is their identity too.

Answer 2

History has to be written to be understood. Unfortunately by writing history subjectiveness plays a part. The media is there to record history for the moment. Later on, scholars review the history and try to make sense of it by taking many different sources into consideration, then stamping their own opinions on what the history means. So the media is the first step of understanding history. The last step is when a university scholar writes a book about that moment in history.

Answer 3

The media has a profound effect on how we learn about history. Past events are presented to us from the biased point of view of a particular ideology or particular political party. In other words, history is very politicized. For example, conservative media always praises Republican presidents, liberal media praises Democratic presidents. Conservative media (such as Fox News) will always criticize President Roosevelt and President Clinton, liberal media (such as Air America radio station) will always criticize President Nixon and President Reagan. The same historical events are evaluated differently depending on the favorite bias of the media outlet. The conservative media tries to diminish the role of ethnic and religous minorities in the US. The liberal media, on the contrary, emphasizes the importance of the contribution of African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, etc. to the culture of our country.