The Middle East

The numer of foreign and diverse groups that are alive in today's society are countless, and they are all subjected to cultural stereotypes. Any time that I browse through CNN.com, I always catch myself clicking on the 'world' category at the top first. Under this tab, multiple options arise for me to dig in to, and they are all divided into different categories: Asia, The Americas, Europe, Africa, Middle East, and World Sports. Under each category is a list of news reports that you can click on. I find myself inwardly snorting everyday, from the fact that 'The Americas' never seem to fail on having some sort of optimistic event going on, today's being "Giving Hope to Haiti's hungry", while the rest of the world is left with abductions, murders, and protests. The main thing that shocks me every though, are the news reports under the 'Middle East' category. Not once have I stumbled upon a hopeful casting. What were today's?: 'Shalit protesters prisoner exchange', 'Security in Syria opens fire during funeral', and 'Plot reflects Iran's reckless behavior.'

Here was one of today's reports.

The title: Security forces fire upon Yemen protestors

The caption: What's behind escalating Yemen violence?

Reading the image....

According to the title, and a brief overview of the full news report, the picture above documents an open fire on demonstrators and protestors that had a planned march in Sanaa, injuring 54 and killing 6. When looking at the image, it looks less like a protest and more like a riot. In the back you have a fire blazing, with a few brave souls running to (or from?) the forces being armed against them. Towards the right side, we see a man with his arms up, in defeat or protest, we do not know.

This image, as well as many others that we come across daily on the news, are doing a whole lot of political work, constructing our views on how we're supposed to view the Middle East, and it's inhabitants. These images do nothing but manufacture our idea of normal. The video on Stuart Hall that we saw in class proposed many interesting views. He stated that the things we consider to be terrible, horrific, and out of place are the things that break our "order." When news reports about America giving foreign aid and doing everything in it's power to help countries in need are immediately followed by reportings of riots in the Middle East, it does nothing but classify this region of our world as 'bad.' We are handed the ideas that the members of our society in this area do nothing but terrorize the world we live in, and being the many other optimistic sides of this culture are not shown, a great number of people are falsely led to believe what they're handed.