This is a picture of you. Your name is Bushra, and you are a 17 year-old Syrian girl hunted by your own family. Amir, a member of the Alawite minority in Syria is the love of your life. As a Sunni Muslim, you know there is a slim chance that your family will approve of your relationship. In a desperate effort to pursue his love for you, Amir begs your father for your hand in marriage. Your family not only coldly rejects his proposal, but orders you to marry your cousin. To you, a life of imprisonment to a cruel relative is equivalent to death. You run.
Bushra seems like an exotic character from a novel or movie. But her story represents the common plight of Syrian women--200 of whom are murdered every year by family members in "honor killings." Bushra's travails and the tragedy of honor killings were published in BBC News. So why haven't Americans heard more about his story? Because Bushra doesn't sell...Snooki sells. It is imperative (and in my opinion a civic obligation) to take more of an active interest in international political events.
As we read in the Pew Research Center Report, 37% of Americans are active participants in the news through contributing to it, commenting on it, and sharing links with one another. News is becoming a social experience, especially for people under the age of 30. In fact, 22% of people aged 18-32 rely on networks for their news, and encounter their news through "serendipitous consumption." In other words, they happen upon it. But I share the same views of our speaker David Johnson--international news about human rights violations, the desperately poor, foreign wars, and other global issues are too important to be left to serendipitous discovery.
So how can we control what news our generation seeks out? How can we provoke thinking past domestic borders? How can we expand the "social experience" beyond local and national communities? How can we challenge common perceptions? How can we, through participatory journalism, become better international citizens? With the rapidly increasing rate of globalization and interconnectedness, we must begin to seriously contemplate answers to these questions.
I propose three innovative solutions to the questions addressed above. The first solution brings me to why "you are Bushra." People read novels because they want to vicariously live adventurous lives through the main characters. They play video games so that they can be actively involved in an "adventure." However, I have never seen a true combination of the novel and the video game. The novel is missing the visually intense experience, and the video game is devoid of the developed main character.
I believe that the combination of the video game and novel experience provides a perfect opportunity to place people in someone else's shoes. This type of educative, interactive journalism would take the participatory news experience to another social dimension. This idea has parallels to David Johnson's discussion of creating programs in which people learn through "play." He gave the example of people learning about agricultural subsidies while playing Farmville.
My version would be more extensive, however, because it would allow people to choose a profile (gender, age, location, religion, socio-economic status, etc.). The game would be programmed to enable the players to lead the current virtual life of their personal profile. For example, by choosing to be Bushra, each day you played the game you would be encountered with issues that a person like Bushra would actually face in Syria. You might sign a petition against honor killings, engage in protests, or flee from violence into Turkey. In whatever role you chose to play, you would face real current obstacles. You would have to exercise judgment, engage in active debate, and make many sacrifices. The program could be updated constantly to fit current events. I believe this type of technology could be revolutionary, as it would combine entertainment with substantive issues to forge a closer and more understanding global community.
I recognize that this type of virtual experience could be controversial. It would have to provide safeguards against excessive violence such as murders, rapes, and torture. While the program could notify participants if violent acts occurred in their virtual experience, as this is a very real possibility, I would be against the program being used for perverse or distorted purposes.
Johnson's reference to the importance of video journalism, as well as the Zayyan and Carter article sparked the idea for my second proposal for engaging young people in international news. The Zayyan article referred to the way in which bloggers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories unveiled real experiences and truths that contradicted much of what was reported in the mainstream media. It discussed how these Palestinian journalists often wrote in English rather than Arabic in an attempt to make their plea for human rights heard. This story reminded me of a National Geographic documentary I watched about Guantanamo Bay. Prisoners began desperately shouting in English as the cameras entered the cell corridor. They begged the news reporters to have their rights recognized, denounced the unjust American system, and declared that they were only being treated humanely by guards because news crews were present. This episode caused me to reflect more deeply upon this controversial human rights issue. As a result, I became incensed with my government's policies and identifed more closely with the Guantanamo captives.
I think that provocative documentaries such as this one should be shown in classrooms across the United States. The documentary is a powerful learning tool for both national and international politics. Johnson described boring articles about the economy as so dry that one would rather "hang upside down by his toenails and read War and Peace." If students were shown the documentary Inside Job, however, they would both understand the technical details of the economic crisis and the corruption that was a prerequisite to the 2008 crash. This is only the first step, however. After watching the documentaries, the students would be required to either write letters to their Congressmen about their beliefs and observations, or blog (like this class!). This way, students would be actively engaging in insightful thinking about the news, and developing exposure to information broader than CNN and Fox. And, as Johnson said, regaining journalism must be a grassroots effort--writing to our Congressmen about pertinent issues is one of the most powerful checks we have on government policy.
My last proposal is the simplest, and it falls in the hands of parents, teachers and mentors. Although the PewCenter research focuses mostly on people aged 18 and older, I think that education about international politics and technological interconnectedness must start at a much younger age. Children as young as elementary school should develop long distance friendships with at least one student in another part of the world. This would be akin to a "pen pal," except the children could utilize skype, facebook, e-mail and chat to develop their relationships. Such a connection would remind citizens everywhere that they live in three distinct spheres--the local, national, and international. Often the importance of the last sphere is greatly minimized, and such a relationship would instill values of global citizenship from a young age. Then, as children grew into adults, they might be more motivated to independently seek out relevant international news, as well as have a better understanding of social mediums.
Technology ultimately presents us with an interesting paradox in its relation to journalism. Although information sources are more accessible today, our generation has become so obsessed with the soundbite and social networking that we are missing substantial international news. The solution is not to give up, assume that only "Snooki sells," and put pop culture trash in well-respected news sources.
The solution is to make news more creative and interesting. People watch political comedians because they are entertaining, but they are also imparting information about current events. Why shouldn't all news sources have this approach?
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