Perhaps it is in light of the recent events occurring in the Middle East, but the first event – or series of events- that jumped to my mind were the leading up months to the war in Iraq. Propelled by collective national anger at 9/11, Americans wanted revenge; we wanted to be able to even the score or we wouldn’t be satisfied. I was 12 years old and had my own memories of the horrifying events of September 11th 2001. Although I was too young to make my own informed judgments, I was quick to pick up on others’ viewpoints and latch on.

The one “event” that stands out in my mind was the coverage of the toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Baghdad. News stations (this was when my family religiously watched the nightly news) kept showing the same image, of cheering Iraqi protestors gathered in Firdos Square around a falling Saddam. Only a month into the war, it was a welcome sign of progress, some even taking it as an omen of victory. I watched these announcements with my father, who was (and somehow, still is) a devout supporter of President Bush and all his decisions. He felt vindicated and I remember him often talking about how this was proof that Iraqis needed us there.

At that point in my life, my only sources of information were the nightly news, my dad himself, or the newspapers he brought home (which, I learned later, were of his selected bias – e.g. The New York Post). I remember the Internet existing, but my use of the computer was pretty much limited to typing up assignments or Solitaire. Those broadcasts, especially after they were replayed the entire next day, shaped my early understanding of the War in Iraq, and the U.S. government’s motives.

In retrospect, most people’s view of the entire situation has changed. But, even the toppling of Saddam’s statue and its presentation in the media has been reexamined. In an in-depth article titled “The Toppling” in The New Yorker, Peter Maass revealed how the statue actually came to be toppled – and how the media had the biggest hand in creating the myth of the liberated Iraqis celebrating in the square.

“The media have been criticized for accepting the Bush Administration’s claims, in the run-up to the invasion, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The W.M.D. myth, and the media’s embrace of it, encouraged public support for war. The media also failed at Firdos Square, but in this case it was the media, rather than the government, that created the victory myth.”1

When we were discussing media literacy, this jumped into my mind immediately. The difference this time was that the situation and circumstances made the whole nation too willing to believe any good news – the whole nation including many news sources themselves. We all became willfully media illiterate. It’s also interesting to see how the concept of dominant culture being challenged, brought up in “What is Culture?”2, did not function correctly in those times. Many people who actively opposed the war or made blatantly anti-war arguments faced harsh consequences (reporter Peter Arnett of MSNBC was fired after a controversial interview) – the cultural mentality supporting the war was unchallengeable at that point.

All this is relevant again today – except this time, we see a media reluctant to broadcast anything about the actual revolutions happening throughout the world, from Egypt and Syria to Spain and Greece. In the end, it all comes down to whether or not we as consumers choose to let ourselves be deprived of this information or use the Internet as a means to bypass these limitations.

1 Maass, Peter “The Toppling” The New Yorker, 10 Jan 2011

2 Baron, S. “What is Culture?”

Photo: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=8335