This will be the final blog for the sub topic I have
discussed surrounding ‘geography and the media’. It continues with a similar
theme to my last post in that, as the nature of the media is to inform its
audience, much of its content tends to be more negative highlighting recent
happenings from around the world and therefore, as a result, the media can often
also portray various cultures in a similar light.
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| News reports often show the damage litter can cause on beaches across the world. |
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| Holiday resorts in the news are often presented as rowdy, drunken getaways, not heritage and cultural hotspots. |
At the start of my blog I mentioned that I would be travelling to Mumbai, India. Well that time is now almost here. I travel out to Mumbai in just two days and I am a complete mix bag of nerves and excitement mainly because I just don’t know what to expect. This got me thinking. What is it that gives us preconceived ideas of a place and its culture, and what role specifically does the media have on this?
Take for example if right now, this minute, I chose to look at the top five recent news reports on Mumbai. Well here they are:
From this impression, if I was to blank out all other
knowledge I have of India I would currently be terrified of going to a city in
a country where... there is a “huge waste dump affecting the health of the
local people”, where children are poorly educated because there are “not enough
teachers for the number of students”, where there has been a near car crash due
to the poor driving of the people in the city. Add to this the fact that three
boys have attempted to rob a train and two men have killed their own father in
a recent property row. Scary stuff – right?
Well maybe so, but this is because if you do choose to use just
one media type this is the probable view of a culture you will get – both
negative and scary. As a result, to get a more holistic look our views
on culture need to be shaped from one or more perspective. In that case then, let’s
take another media type...a tourism video of Mumbai from Youtube:
So how has my opinion changed? Well the city looks like it
is absolutely full of beautiful, boldly coloured architecture. It illustrates a
vibrant culture of both past inhabitants such as the cave remains at Elephanta
Island, amongst present daily rituals such as the vast outdoor city laundry at
the Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat. After being presented with this type of imagery and
scenes how could anyone resist going to experience this for themselves? Yet
again this is the catch. This type of media is again biased as it’s predominant
purpose is to demonstrate a culture or a place as exclusively positive and exciting
as possible in order to encourage the many tourists that flock to Mumbai
each year. So perhaps somewhere in
between these two cultural representative extremes lays the truth of what
Mumbai is or could be like – this is something I will happily report back on
once I have arrived in the city.
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| Elephants Island, South Mumbai |
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| Mahalaxmi Dhobi Ghat, Mumbai |
Classroom Activity
I think that it is really important to indicate to students early
on in their education how various medias can be biased in what information they provide. That way when we encourage them to go away and research independently
they can understand not only what they are reading but the quality of the source
of information they have picked up. This is a really key skill for them to have
particularly in the later years. To get students thinking at this level I would
firstly change the classroom set up and seat students in groups around tables
that represented a specific country. I would then produce a variety of sources
giving information about the country – current news articles, a tourist clip or
brochure, government statistics etc. I would expect the students to record key information
after being given each source type and indicate in the chart whether this has
persuaded or dissuaded them to visit a country and why. After this they could
then write a short piece on which source gave them the strongest view of what
they thought the culture would be like in that country and why that source
specifically made them want to, or not want to visit the country or area.
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