For the past month,all eyes have been on the Egypt. Starting with a series of protests and demonstrations in Tunisia,which later threw parts of the middle east and North Africa into a chain reaction of demonstrations and rallies. It is unlikely that anybody has gone through the month without reading or even hearing about the protests. The story has been on front page news for most major media outlets. Now the country that pretty much has been in the spotlight was Egypt. Being a highly populated country and a close ally of the United States,I can understand why it was so closely covered. With the situation mitigated in Egypt,Libya in the past week or so, has taken over the forerunner in the news with their own protests against their government and leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Now protests and violent clashes with people and their government is nothing new,it happens all over the world;but for the events in such countries like Libya, I can think of reasons why the U.S medias are covering this story so closely.
Unlike for example Egypt and Tunisia,Libya is probably the one country that will have a definite impact on average Americans in the weeks and hopefully not,the months to come. Ever since the emergence of the 21st century, the world demand for oil is higher than ever in history and more vehicles are available now than ever before .Now you might say that is a given but then you should know that it is also a given that the U.S is extremely dependent on foreign countries for oil.Libya produces just about 2 percent of the World's oil supply,it may not seem like much of a startling number but the industry of oil production is far more complex than it seems. With the country of Libya in unrest,oil production has once again greatly dwindled, and the 2 percent that come from Libya is considered the highest quality of crude oil on Earth. Experts say if the unrest in the region continues, production of oil may be inhibited and in-turn create a domino effect of a rise in oil prices around the world. This is a great example of the media as an agenda setter. In this instance,stories like this diminish the once feared fragmentation media where people are informed of what interests them rather than what they really need to know.
Furthermore,in the days to come the whole world will be curious to see how this whole scene in the middle east will play out. Violence reached a high when protesters were killed by government soldiers and reports of Gaddafi ordering air strikes on certain protesters. If Muammar Gaddafi steps downs or is overthrown it would see to be a shift in power for Libya's governance for more than 4 decades. In an interview earlier this week,Gaddafi told Jeremy Bowen of BBC that “My people love me” and said “They will die to protect me”.When asked about the protesters in the city,Gaddafi went as far as saying “Where?”.Sure Gaddafi your people love you, but they sure have a funny way of showing it. See the interview for yourself http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12603086 .
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I absolutely agree with your position that the U.S takes a greater interest in countries that are oil wealthy, for oil is a crucial commodity for the defense of this country. The U.S needs oil to fuel its many battleships, aircraft carriers, and fighter jets. And just as important, Americans need oil for their cars and other oil guzzling vehicles. Therefore, the U.S is rather paying closer attention to events in Libya, and considering that oil prices around the world has already began to climb, the U.S and other world leaders want to bring an end to this fiasco as soon as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe media is absolutely creating an agenda setting for viewers across the United States because oil effects everyone. At this point, Libya is at a cross road and the media is impatiently reporting each event that occurs because each individual will be greatly effected. Your blog has a clear cut main idea and you stick to it throughout your entire blog, the media is setting an agenda and the public is completely consuming it because the situation in Libya effects our situation at home.
ReplyDeleteSure the media in US is covering Libya as the most important story and I can see how the effect on oil production and distribution is effected and in play but I also think that the situation there affects us in many other ways.The situation in Libya is of concern to the UN and being that the US is in the Security Council and has a great say on the type of action should be taken the crisis has to be publicized. The situation there also triggers people to migrate to different parts of the world which is of concern European countries but sure it would be to US as well eventually. Although I agree with you I think that beside oil there are many other factors as to why this story is being put into spotlight.
ReplyDeleteThis blog made me laugh because it's so true! The crude oil crisis has became the big topic, with Americans chewing their fingernails away with worry and threat of gas prices continuing to soar. This blog was straight-forward, smart and humorous, I could've kept reading more.
ReplyDeleteI think you are on the right track here with the agenda setting argument you make in the post -- maybe you can make this a more central theme from the start. One thing that is a bit unclear here is whether you are claiming that the U.S. media is focusing attention on Libya only because of the direct effect on American consumers with regard to oil. But is that really the main bent of much of the coverage of the situation there? This would probably be difficult to argue. Instead perhaps you can focus on the agenda setting issue, and how the media bring an event to the public's attention that might not otherwise be focused on, and why this would be important in this case, etc. A few style and grammar issues: you should put the links into the content of the post I think, as they relate to the content that you have written (so for instance that AOL news link is primarily about the oil prices issue). You want to take away the "s" after media here: "U.S medias are covering this story" and the second sentence of the post is a sentence fragment. Lastly, I am not sure the final paragraph fits with the focus of your post, since it is more about the actual events in Libya and not media coverage of them.
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