Forget College Lets Watch TV Essay, Research Paper

Parents all over the world like to tell their children, education is the key to success, but what is the key to education? To often people believe that the one form of media or another is a valid source of education. This belief is, however, false. Media is defined at mass communication, so exactly how does education fit in there? The simple truth is that almost no form of media provides an unbiased education and more importantly it’s not their responsibility to.

Mostly, when people think of media, they think of news, a fast and efficient way to communicate information. This concept of media, for the most part, is true. News does deliver accurate and up to the minute information. At this point, people begin to misunderstand. The majority of the people who absorb news in some way truly believe that since the they are getting information presented in a professional and consequential way, they are being educated. This, again, is a false belief. The news, no matter how it is presented or conceived, is only present to serve as a form of entertainment.

This is precisely the reason why news based media focuses on human-interest stories, death, destruction and crisis. The news is on TV and in the morning paper simply because people want to see what havoc has occurred in the world. As long as human kind is interested, the news producers will keep finding it.

Recently, many groups and individuals have been attacking the world media accusing them of only reporting, if at all, African stories that have no positive over tones. After taking a comprehensive look at popular news media it has been discovered that whenever Africa is mentioned in the news it is only to present a negative point.

A skeptical person, or a person with great faith in media education, might disbelieve that an important nation such as Africa, one that is so directly linked to the U.S. as well as the rest of the world, could be reported on in such bad light. To set the record straight I browsed through several reliable news sources, such as CNN, The Internationalist and The World Policy Journal, and collected all the headlined news articles that related to Africa. What I ended up with was a comprehensive stack of bloodshed, crisis and conflict. Not one headline was discovered discussing Africa in a positive way.

To better explain, the first article I came across was in titled “Military say 100 die in Nigerian oil clashes”. It discusses how after the inauguration of a new leader a local ethnic group tried to take back control of their land in violent blood shed. A US based oil company, Chevron, of course owns this land, hence the reason for the story being released in the U.S. The next article I came across read “Why Africa Stays Poor and Why It Doesn’t Have To”. This article describes how, in the last 30 years, the U.S. has reported Africa as a pathetic, starving and meager country. It then goes on to state that although Africa was once in such a condition things could change for the better in the distant future. Instead of stating how the nation could pull itself out the proverbial media gutter, the author goes on to say how dismal of a state Africa is currently in. He has a jolly good time Africa bashing for about 4 paragraphs, making sure that the readers get a good idea about how horrible the conditions in Africa “really” are before briefly mentioning how Africa might one day improve it’s self. This article shows that even reports on positive aspects of Africa are dragged down with the lingering adverse images of the motherland.

Another article named “Academics fear what they do not know” was written in regards to South Africa’s strict education policies, placing major restrictions on the curriculum at colleges. Students fear that their education will not be adequate when compared to that of a U.S. student’s. The article goes on to explain that their fears are not ill founded. Some experts say that this education or lack there of, could inhibit South Africans from stepping into the competing career world. After reading all these articles that cast dismal clouds over Africa it is hard to believe that any good news is reported, and if it is it surely does not dominate.

Although no good news is reported from Africa, news that intrigues people is reported from Africa. Is it really the media’s fault that people enjoy carnage over benevolence? People need to realize that the news is nothing more than entertaining information that has no educational value. If people really want to receive unbiased information regarding Africa they must look to another source.