In Noam Chomsky’s influential piece “The New World Order”, Chomsky, a critic of U.S. foreign policy, addressed the way in which the U.S. exploits other countries in order to maintain their dominant position within the world. He also addresses the ways in which the media supports the actions of the U.S. instead of questioning them. Joe Kincheloe’s paper “Chomsky, the Empire and Media Literacy” builds upon Chomsky’s piece and shows how Chomsky’s comments and insights were still relevant in 2006. I agree with Kincheloe and feel that Chomsky`s piece is definitely still relevant in our world today and while sometimes it may seem that the media is more critical of governments and the status-quo in general, that really is not the case.
It was evident that by the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, many media sources, especially news channels that were considered to be more “liberal” were questioning his effectiveness as a leader. These news stations were reporting on how dissatisfied the American public was with Bush as a leader and how many American’s did not agree with Bush’s decision to declare a war on Iraq. Additionally, Sarah Palin (shown in the picture below), who was the Republican Vice Presidential candidate in the 2008 elections and who also supported the Iraq war, was criticized heavily by more “liberal” news media and especially by independent bloggers.
http://culture11.com/blogs/ladyblog/files/2008/08/sarah-palin.jpg
However, while it may appear that the media has become more critical and questioning of U.S. foreign policy, I still believe it is incredibly important for us to continue to be critical of the media. Firstly, it’s important to remember that while many American’s did not support the war in Iraq (US Soldiers serving in Iraq pictured below), it was not, as Joe Kincheloe points out, the fact that millions of Iraqi’s were dying that bothered people as much as the fact that America was losing a war. Additionally, we can also remember that while Sarah Palin was critiqued, it was not so much for her foreign policy views but more because of her lack of experience. Additionally, there were just as many news media sources such as Fox News who supported her as a Vice Presidential Candidate.
http://stliraqwarvets.files.wordpress.com/2007/01/iraq-war.jpg
In addition to that, in the video below we can truly see how the U.S. government and the U.S. media are so closely intertwined. The video addresses the way in which the U.S. government continues to spend money in order to create advertisements to shape public opinion on the military.
Clearly, after watching this video it becomes apparent how the U.S. media continues to support the agenda of the U.S. government and how Chomsky’s piece still rings true today. This reinforces the idea and the need for media literacy that has been brought up in earlier chapters of Media Literacy: A Reader and Rethinking Technology in Schools. It is so essential for people to be able to critique the media that is out there and question instead of just taking it at face value. Schools are important in this regard because they can educate students on media literacy and allow them to develop the skills necessary to critique the media. I guess the most important thing for me to remember is that as a consumer of so many different media sources every day, I need to remember to question everything!
