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Originally Posted by Taylor514ce
So I'm always suspicious when someone speaks about a "typically American" outlook. Which America?
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The one reflected in mainstream media.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Taylor514ce
The US is big. Even people born in the US don't realize how big. To make a generalization such as "that must be a US viewpoint" is to make a BIG generalization. When I travel outside of the US, I encounter two viewpoints which I will call "NYC" and "LA". That's how most of the world tends to view Americans. Even many Americans do that, because that's also what the media does. The US is not NYC and LA, though. It's Nebraska, and Arizona, and Maine, and Oregon and Kansas, and Texas. Radically differing viewpoints. Heck, Texas is Dallas, and Houston, and Austin, and El Paso... each having radically different "viewpoints".
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Agreed. And 40 years ago, each of these areas were much more different from each other than they are today. That's because the majority of Americans consume their news from the same national outlets -- the major networks, CNN, and the newpaper syndicates. The regional perspective is dwindling to some extent.
On the day that the US attacked Iraq, I was flying from the US to England. When I took off, there were rumors of war. When I landed, it was a fact. For the first 4 weeks of the conflict, I was able to view the BBC and other European news broadcasts as well as the CNN International channel carried on the hotel television. It was quite interesting to see the differences in what got covered -- even though the UK troops were allied with the US -- and point of view was even more divergent.
I have to work very hard to expose myself to other points of view. Even with satellite TV, I still do not get unfiltered news from the rest of the world. I'd love to receive CBC news as well as BBC news (not BBC-America). At least some of the public radio stations carry the BBC radio news broadcasts -- often in the middle of the night, though. So the best way for me to see how world events are perceived elsewhere is to use the Internet. I believe, however, that most Americans rely on television for their news.