Although anti-government protesting in Egypt has been in the news for weeks, their struggle might be recent news to some Fresno State students.
“I honestly don’t even know what’s going on,” Karissa Warkentin, a public health major, said. “I haven’t been watching or reading the news.”
Although certain students can admit to being unaware of the events taking place across the world, it can be harder for them to explain why.
“We are ignorant because we live in a society where people are only concerned about what goes on in their lives and in their bubbles,” criminology major Kendra Chambers said. “If a situation is not directly affecting us then we have no reason to take a personal interest in it.”
Fresno State journalism professor Kelley McCoy conducted a survey in her global communication class about students’ awareness of foreign events.
“I asked students in my global communication class how many of them paid attention to foreign news ”” by reading newspapers, watching TV newscasts, going online, whatever,” McCoy said. “Very few raised their hands.”
Social work major Lilliana Villalobos heard about the protests in Egypt through a friend before she saw them on the news or heard about them through other media.
“For some reason our country is just not really interested in social involvement,” Villalobos said. “We are concentrating on our personal priorities rather than politics.”
A recent survey conducted by the Pew Center for the People & the Press found that 52 percent of Americans have heard little or nothing regarding the anti-government protests taking place in Egypt.
“Many Americans, because of the United States’ geographic isolation and economic military strength, are lulled into a false sense of security,” McCoy said. “There is also a certain arrogance, a sense of exceptionalism that I think shapes our perception of ourselves in regard to others.”
The Pew survey showed that the American public’s news habits have been greatly changed by the Internet and 24-hour cable news.
“In the Middle East, people have no faith in the media,” Egyptian student in the U.S. Sherif Fouad said in an e-mail. “For example, the regular Egyptians do not make a judgment on a political matter before exploring as many resources as they can. They also are interested in listening to the enemy media. As the Egyptian masses have equal suspicion in both the national and unfriendly media, they analyze both equally based on history, personal knowledge, and well-respected figure’s views.”
According to The Pew survey, the emergence of instant media in the American public has not helped to improve its knowledge of national and international affairs.
“I think our media concentrates a lot more on pop culture rather than what is really going on in the world,” Villalobos said.
The Pew survey also showed that “on average, today’s citizens are about as able to name their leaders, and are about as aware of major news events, as was the public nearly 20 years ago.”
“It’s sad to think that it would take gas going up to $6 a gallon for many Americans to become interested in foreign news, but that’s probably what it would take,” McCoy said.
