Countries you think about so little …
Some of you, who’ve read my other Medium posts might have noticed by now, that I often write about the HBO-show Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. This is not only because I like the show, which I do, but also because it is so self-reflective: It is news media reflecting and criticizing itself. If you look at the shows main subjects, there are two things that stand out: Politics and news media. So one could say if a show like this has a regular segment, an inside joke or an often discussed issue it definitely says something about its producers view on the world, in this case news media.
Last Week Tonight on Countries
One of the most frequent and one of my favorite inside jokes of John Oliver is the “A country you think about so little”-joke, which he usually makes at the beginning of a new topic and uses as an introductive sentence about the country in focus. John Oliver then says something like “For our next story, let’s talk about (insert country name)…” Simultaneously a map of said country is shown, while Oliver continues “… a country you think about so little, you didn’t even realize that this isn’t (insert county name)”, mischievously smiling into the camera, explaining to the audience that he had shown a wrong map to illustrate how rarely some countries are discussed in the news media.
(Sorry for explaining a joke, here’s a video)
Representation of countries in News Media
This silly joke made me think about the focus of news media on the western world, on big countries, nations of importance — which is coherent with the news values of “familiarity” and “reference to elite nations”. But why do we care only about issues which are close to us, although there are interesting stories all over the world? I guess in the end it is important for humans to stay informed, the read their environment with the goal to finally have a better and safer life and due to the fact, that we impossibly can get all the news and filter out only those issues which matter to us.
In my opinion it would be good for all of us to look at issues off the radar, topics that seem far away at first, but can have an impact on our lives in a not too far future. At the very least we learn something about a foreign country, at best we can draw consequences for our own world. Maybe we should care just a little bit more about issues, even when something has happened in country we know so little about.
