Who decided that English should become a world language? Who decided that our time and energy was more valuable than our Vietnamese coworkers? Who decided our place in the world order and the advantages that would be bestowed upon us because of our nationality?
The harsh realities presented in the Al Jazeera video, coupled with our experiences in Southeast Asia, bring to light the critical issue of power. Staking its claim as the most powerful economy in the world, the United States has consistently projected its influence on the global stage. In other words, we have allowed ourselves to become and remain a hegemonic power—utilizing our economic prowess to impose our ideals and institutions on the world at large. Our greatest resource for doing so?—the media.
According to the World Economic Forum, “[f]or many years, the United States has been home to the world’s largest media companies and conglomerates, including broadcast and newspaper giants Comcast, Time Warner, the Walt Disney Company and News Corp, as well as digital giants like Google and Facebook.”
These are facts that many Americans—Josh and I included—remain blissfully unaware of. And because the media is so ubiquitous in our culture, rarely, if ever, do we take the time to consider the facts. Rarely, do we stop to think about who controls the media. Rarely do we ask ourselves: who decides what it means to be beautiful, to be successful, to be morally superior, or culturally inferior? Instead, we just accept these things as they are, much like we accept the media, just as it is.