"American Misconceptions of Syria"
by Feras Aboukhater
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 |
Introduction“Let’s go to the Opera House in Syria this summer!” You would probably think that this is just a joke between two friends because it is implausible to go to an opera house in a war-torn country like Syria. However, in reality this is not a joke, and it can actually be done because there is normal life in Syria other than the war everyone talks about, and there are live concerts every week in the Opera House in Damascus. It is true that Syria is living in a horrendous war these days, but that does not prevent Syrians from preserving their culture and traditions because they are people who love life and are determined to live normally no matter how bad the circumstances are. Since 2011, Syria and its people have been constantly associated with war and destruction in the eyes of Americans. Unfortunately, this misconception about Syria is probably the only thing that pops up in the vast majority of Americans’ minds when they hear anything about this country or interact with its people. This becomes a significant challenge for Syrians to prove to Americans that their country is not like what they’ve been led to believe. In this paper, I argue that the media’s framing of the war in Syria on news channels like Fox News is the main reason Americans have this horrific view towards a culturally significant country like Syria. I also show what these misunderstandings are and try to put forth an approach to journalism through which countries like Syria would not be defined by war. Fox News is one of the most important media sources that give the wrong view about Syria because it only shows Syria as a country where everything is destroyed and where there is no normal life whatsoever, and that’s a false idea. Since it is impossible to take every US citizen to Syria to change their view about the country and the Syrian people, a report about normal life in Syria should be made by the United Nations (UN) and put on American TV. Through this solution, the first step towards waking Americans up about what is really going on in Syria would be accomplished by making them curious to know more about normal life in Syria, challenging the mainstream news they are watching on TV. This solution is very realistic because there are many UN reporters and employees in Syria and in Damascus specifically, in addition to the fact that Fox News and American TV channels more generally rely on UN reports because of the great importance this organization possesses. |