International Relations Blog Posts

Jake Kazmierczak

 

Not so recently I skimmed past an article discussing the expansion of US military bases in Japan. This post had to have been published around early summertime, because it was fresh in my mind the day I landed there.

 

Anyways, the reason the article somewhat piqued my interest was the image.

 

I was on Facebook, literally skimming when I came across a rather intense photograph of Japanese citizens protesting in numbers. I remember seeing a sea of signs in both Japanese and English demanding the US military’s departure from Japan.

 

I was relatively torn on the subject. As a natural response I assumed the US was doing something stupid again which, mixed with my somewhat irrational love for Japan, made me obviously click on the link and somewhat skim the article.

 

After doing so I wasn’t sure I bought into the argument for the US’ departure. The image though was really jarring and I figured all those Japanese people know more than me about what’s good for Japan so I might as well take this Japanese article’s side.

 

As, I landed in Narita about a week later I expected to see some form of protest. I was prepared to feel out the opinions of those who seemed to care about the issue, just out of natural curiosity. So to my surprise when I saw literally nothing about it anywhere I was taken aback.

 

Now I’m positive that there is a group fanatically against the growth of US power in Japan. I just don’t know if that article accurately expressed the reality of the situation.

 

Now that I’m back at home I don’t have the blessing to walk the streets of Japan to figure out the truth of this but I have been able to click my way around the internet and read a few articles. In doing so I’ve come to one not so surprising conclusion, the Media is sided.

 

This fact is shocking even to me sometimes.

 

Here’s the thing, I don’t think many Americans think through much of the stuff they read, especially when it’s coming out of another country. Unless it’s the Middle East (which I’d argue we’re still clueless on), I get this strong feeling that Americans just assume everything written about another country, by another countries Media, is the word of some divine neutral faction. We don’t really second guess the content because we don’t experience it first hand, we’re all guilty of it.

 

This is a major problem.

 

We spit on our media outlets like dirt but we eat up foreign media because we don’t know who they are.

 

I still don’t know what side of the Japan argument I’m on, and in my opinion that’s a decent thing.

 

As consumers of world media, we need to understand that there are multiple sides to all things. Foreign countries media sources glorify their propaganda, just as the US’s media does, in attempt to convince us one way or another. We should be weary in assuming that “all those … people know more than me about what’s good for [their country] so I might as well take this [foreign] article’s side.” That is a dangerous approach to understanding the world.