"American Misconceptions of Syria"
Download PDF About the AuthorFeras Aboukhater is a third-year undergraduate student with a Biology major and a minor in Medicine, Health, and Society at SUNY Stony Brook University. He wrote this research paper for his WRT 102 class in his freshman year. Feras plans to go into medical school when he is done with his undergraduate degree and he aspires to become a Cardiologist. ContentsHow Fox News Frames the War in Syria What Living in Safe Parts of Syria Looks Like Balancing Between Conflict and Peace |
How Fox News Frames the War in SyriaOf course, not every American citizen watches Fox News; however, Fox News is a typical example of how American TV channels depict the war in Syria. It is also reputedly President Trump’s preferred source of TV news, as previously noted. The visual representations of international news to American audiences have been well studied throughout the years, and the results show that it is more likely focused on violence and disaster than on peaceful solutions, unlike mainstream news in other countries. A great example of this is the Syrian war. As I have said earlier, there is a whole section for Syria on the Fox News website with not a single article or report on the normal life there. I will give you in the next few paragraphs some examples of what you can see on the Fox News website. “Trapped in Syria's besieged Ghouta: ‘life has ceased, the children are waiting to die.’” This is one of the many articles that talks about the destruction and helplessness (McKay). How would Americans react to an article like this other than being sympathetic? Would they not have an idea that children in Syria are uneducated because of the war? Would they not be surprised if I say that I was studying in an international school in Syria during the war and that its language of instruction is English? Being sympathetic is one of the most important factors affecting the view towards a country’s people, and it makes those people feel inferior because of how they are being looked upon. Again, I want to be clear that there is a big war in Syria, but that does not mean that everything there is destruction and death. “UNICEF: More than 40,000 children at risk in Syria's Raqqa” is another title of an article talking about children’s helplessness. We can see that there is a big focus on children because of how easily Americans and people in general feel enraged and intrigued when they see or hear about an instance of a child dying. “Humanitarian photos are composed, edited, narrated and circulated with an eye toward creating a specific effect: to stimulate emotions, such as empathy or outrage, in viewers, and cause them to act” (Fehrenbach and Rodogno 1125). However, this framing is destroying the picture of the Syrian child. The Syrian child is now being used as a commodity by Fox News to present highly rated news, and that is specifically non-humanitarian and unacceptable for any human being. |