Joei Saito yearly reflection

     This year I have learned numerous important things, but I think these three topics were especially important and surprising for me: the five filters of media, cancerous corporations and American hegemony. Firstly, the fact that media deliberately don't report the truth has completely changed my view of the world. I thought that I was able to read the news critically enough but I realised how ignorant I was. I thought this topic was very important nowadays because there is too much both true and false information in the world, so media literacy skills are in demand for every citizen. However learning that every news we get from the mass media is filtered, carefully selected and manipulated, made me think that we would never be able to make the right decisions or do decent discussions. Throughout the year, we learned various examples of media distorting reality, and since each example fitted within Noam Chomsky's five filter model, I realised how accurate his model was. Personally, the Israel-Palestine conflict was the most memorable example. The cruel reality of the conflict is that Palestinians are shoved into a small area in Israel and being attacked by Israel's high-tech US weapons and not being able to leave the country because their freedom of mobility has been deprived. What's more shocking is that none of the major media in the US or in Japan doesn't report this. Fox News even altered the death toll data to manipulate the public. I was shocked to realise that such important incidents aren't on the news at all, as if we are being censored by the media elites. Just because the US media aren't reporting the truth, we can't be sure if other sources are valid and plausible, so I had concluded that we can never be sure if something is true or not.

    Secondly, the documentary on corrupt corporations was the most shocking lesson throughout the year. I didn't know that these giant corporations had such dark history of unethical corporate activities. For example, Monsanto's rBGH, a growth hormone for cows that are widely used in the US, is said to cause cancer. However, the US FDA doesn't restrict its usage at all despite other major countries banning the use of rBGH. Also, the Bhopal disaster by Union Carbide killed more than 20000 people but the victims didn't get compensated at all. These atrocious incidents caused by giant corporations are usually not mentioned in the media because the media itself is a corporation too, and its interest is in making money, not reporting the truth. Planned obsolescence was an interesting topic to learn because that relates to familiar products such as smartphones. Planned obsolescence means that corporations deliberately shortening the lifespan of a product to make people endlessly buy their products, and this is especially seen in the electronic devices market. Nowadays, we can't live without smartphones or computers, but since our supplies are dependent on corporations, there is no choice but to buy new products every few years, and that really frustrates me. They are like nondetachable leeches sucking out our blood. The fact that these corporations prioritise money over people's lives or health is disgusting, and it also threatens our rights to live a healthy life. This documentary made me feel that our lives are deeply interfered with by these giant corporations. Our lives are mostly controlled by many corporations, but we don't realize that because the media doesn't report it. 

    Thirdly, I was shocked by the horrible history of American hegemony. Before the lessons, my impression of the US was positive because as a person living in a first world country, America is friendly with Japan. However, after watching War on Democracy and Iraq's missing billions, my impression turned negative. I felt sympathy for the Iraqi children who died due to an inadequate supply of medical kits. I was surprised with the US and IMF's clever, but unethical structure of investment for developing countries. Two giant organizations in the world use their absolute power to exploit the weak developing countries, and I think that's very sickening. This topic is very important because many major conflicts in the world are usually involved in the US. Now I understand why some countries hate the US that much. This is a very political topic, so it's dangerous to judge things based on only a fraction of knowledge, so I would like to learn more about the history of the US and its influence on international society.