Journalism's Affect on the Colonization of the New World and the Imposition of Democracy in the Middle East

When reading Hariot’s travel journal, I was keen to keep in mind how his accounts were meant to persuade his European audience to support this colonization. His audience was living in a time of little prospect for social mobility, and thereby highly vulnerable to the appeal of a land of boundless opportunity and possibility. By exaggerating and accentuating the native cultures as being primitive and simple, Hariot depicted these native populations in a way that Europeans wouldn't feel as badly about colonizing or, if need be, killing. I believe these alluring ideas about the potential this new world would hold, led to the acceptance and rationalization of European supremacy over the seemingly savage native population and any land they held. This tactic is one that would not fare in our humanitarian global society that we live in today.

Just as governments in power during the time of these travel journals used these writings to promote and gain mass support for the colonization of the "new world," perhaps the governments in power today are utilizing the reports and writings of journalists and news correspondents to gain the support of imposing democracy throughout the Middle East. The difference is that we are living in a post-colonization, post-slavery, post-WWII society. Strict ethical codes have been established that all nations are expected to abide by. In today's society we would not accept learning of more primitive cultures and agree to their colonization or mass killing. However, if a seemingly less civilized society--or nation of people--was deemed as being savage and a threat to innocent people, especially our own nation, we may see the great majority agree to the use of military force to establish a democracy that we see fit.

I am not calling everything we learn and read about in the news to be propaganda or some kind of conspiracy theory. I just think it would be reasonable to suggest there is a distinct possibility--just as society has evolved in so many ways to become more humanistic based on the trials and tribulations of history--that the methods of delivering information to the public, by those aiming to control what we’re told and steered to believe, have evolved to cater to this new social context as well. Therefore a practical way for a government to succeed in an agenda to radically change a group of people's way of life today, would be to convince their citizens--through journalism and the media-- that the elusive "other" is in some way a threat to innocent people, and to promote the establishment of democracy, by military force, as socially acceptable and even ethically obligatory.

So the question I leave you with is: Is the journalism we form our opinions with today necessarily any different that the travel journals, such as Hariot’s, that Europeans based their opinions on during the years leading up to colonization? One could say that the travel writings catered to describing the native populations in such a way that would make it easier for their audience to support questionable treatment of these people and their land, for the better good of themselves. Just as one could also say that news journalism of today reports on and describes the Middle Eastern populations in such a way that would make it easier for their audience, us, to support questionable military action and imposition of our political ideology, for the benefit of feeling safer and possible control over oil.


What I am offering here is not necessarily a directly paralleled situation. I do not believe that our nation has ulterior motives, or is in any way seeking to claim territory through our involvement in the Middle East. My only intention is to highlight how we are now, as we were then, only as informed and aware of our nation's political agenda, as the reports and writings that they provide us with--specifically aimed to shape our beliefs-- through journalism and the media.