2000 word summary-analysis paper devoted to thearticles you sele.docx

2000 word summary-analysis paper devoted to the
articles you selected for this project. You will also need to
include a “works cited” or bibliography page along with hard
copies of each of your news articles
The goal of this paper is to allow you to analyze how
“historiography” is an ongoing process largely influenced by
the news media. History is a subjectively generated product.
History incorporates the biases and viewpoints of those who
produce it. The news media today is a key source in providing
us with “meaning” connected to newsworthy “historical” events.
In fact, the news media is in fact a major part of the process
that generates "history.” Although news media reporters and
editors frequently claim that they are presenting “just the facts,"
the way in which these “facts” are presented often carry a
number of biases that strongly influence public perception and
interpretations of current events. For this assignment, you are
going to pick a specific, single international event and examine
how this event is presented by different news media sources
from around the globe. You are being asked to compare the
articles you have selected for this assignment and discuss how
the differing ways in which the event you have chosen actually
reflects more than the "plain" facts, but rather reveals complex
layers of social values, assumptions, biases, beliefs and
meanings by each of your articles' authors.
Purpose of the Paper (Examining the Production of
Contemporary Historiography) - The goal of this paper is to
allow you to analyze how “historiography” is an ongoing
process largely influenced by the news media. History is a
subjectively generated product. History incorporates the biases
and viewpoints of those who produce it. The news media today
is a key source in providing us with “meaning” connected to
newsworthy “historical” events. In fact, the news media is in

fact a major part of the process that generates "history.”
Although news media reporters and editors frequently claim that
they are presenting “just the facts," the way in which these
“facts” are presented often carry a number of biases that
strongly influence public perception and interpretations of
current events. For this assignment, you are going to pick a
specific, single international event and examine how this event
is presented by different news media sources from around the
globe. You are being asked to compare the articles you have
selected for this assignment and discuss how the differing ways
in which the event you have chosen actually reflects more than
the "plain" facts, but rather reveals complex layers of social
values, assumptions, biases, beliefs and meanings by each of
your articles' authors. Selecting a Topic 1) First, select a single
international news event that has occurred in the past 60 days.
Since the purpose of the paper is to address international issues,
the event you select for this assignment must have occurred
OUTSIDE of the United States (although the issue may
INCLUDE the US as one of the agents involved). There are
numerous current news issues to choose from, but for this
project I strongly suggest that you choose an event of a political
or social nature. If you are struggling to find a topic for this
paper, you may want to check out respected news sources online
such a CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera, etc. to get a sense of current
news events that are relevant to this assignment. 2) Your topic
should be a single, recent event, not an ongoing issue. For
example, you might choose to discuss a recent, single action
that took place in Egypt or Afghanistan or Syria or the Ukraine
or the Central African Republic, but you may NOT choose the
overall, ongoing violence in Afghanistan or Syria or the
Ukraine or The Central African Republic, etc., as your topic.
For example, you could choose a single recent protest, or
meeting or act of violence that has recently occurred in Syria as
your event for this paper, but you may not choose the ongoing
civil war in Syria as your topic. A recent election (outside of
the US), a newly approved law or act of legislation (outside of

the US) an international meeting, the signing of a treaty or
international agreement, a single act of violence, a recent
missile test, a recent day of protest or a recent military action
that took place on a single day. However, any paper that tries to
address the entirety of the Syrian civil war, war refugees, peace
in the Middle East, Aids in Africa, poverty in India,
International gay rights, international human rights, human
trafficking in Southeast Asia or drug trafficking in Mexico, etc.
are all too broad for this assignment and are not appropriate
topics. You need to choose something much smaller - a single
action or event - as a topic for this assignment. For example,
you could pick some relatively small, particular portion of an
issue to focus on, such as a reaction to a controversial law that
has just been passed, or a particular act of violence that recently
occurred, or a recent meeting between heads of state or a recent
foreign election, or a recent military intervention, etc. Also,
please do not choose a sporting event, a natural disaster, health
crisis or outbreak of disease for this assignment. You may NOT
write your paper about the US presidential election since this is
a domestic issue.
3) You will need to have collected at least four newspaper
articles on the SAME EVENT from DIFFERENT nations. You
are only permitted to use one article from a US newspaper
source and your other three article choices should be on the
same event but each one must be selected from a DIFFERENT
newspaper and from a DIFFERENT nation. In other words, each
article you choose will come from a different nation’s
newspaper, but all four articles must still be focused on the
same event and should have been published within 48 hours of
each other.. This will enable you to distinguish how a particular
event is presented differently in various newspapers from
around the world. You may use online versions of newspaper
articles. The articles may not be more than 60 days old when
you submit your final paper. Please do not use op-ed pieces
(articles from the opinion or editorial section of a newspaper or

other form of media) for this assignment. You will need to
submit hard copies of each of your newspaper articles when you
submit your completed assignment.
Write a 2000 word Project Summary-Critique
4) WRITE a 2000 minimum word in which you provide a
summary and comparison of the different articles you have
selected for
this assignment. You will search for differing emphases and
patterns between your articles, and
you will consider the differing impact each individual article
might make on its reader depending
on how the issue is presented and handled by each author. You
are to examine and critique the differing ways in which the
issue is being presented in your articles. Also, for this paper,
you need to consider how the news reports of today become
the“historiography” of tomorrow. This is an opportunity for you
to think critically about how the news is presented to the reader
in each newspaper. Do you have a sense that certain “facts” are
being emphasized in one article while those same facts are
dismissed or ignored or presented somewhat differently by the
authors in some of your other selected articles? Do you have a
sense that only one particular side of the issue is being
presented in a particular article? If so, why do you think this is
happening? In what ways has the event you have selected for
this assignment been reported differently in each of your
articles? (Keep in mind that these differences may be
subtle). In what way might these differences influence the
reader to draw a different conclusion
about the event? A particular new article will often (though not
always) tend to focus on only
side of an issue. Which sides of the issue do you see being
presented in your different articles? Why do you think this
might this be happening? In what way might ethnocentric
perspectives or national interests be influencing how the issue

is being presented differently in each of your articles? Do you
see any biases built into the way that the issue is being
presented or reported by the authors of your articles?
Finally, what have you learned through this process? What have
you come to understand about the production of "news" and the
power of the news media over the reader by comparing these
different articles?
Ou 1
Student: Joe E. Anteater – student id# 01234678
Professor Thomas Douglas, T.A. Georgia Hartman
Anthropology 41A/IS 11
20 July 2015
Word Count: 2443; Word Count (essay only): 2267
Influencing History: The Deceptions behind News Reporting
Sir Winston Churchill once stated that, “History is written by
the victors.” After being
introduced to the definition “Historiography” for the first time a
few weeks ago, I immediately
associated it with Churchill’s profound quote that I reminisced
from my high school history

class. Historiography without a doubt, incorporates a number of
biases from the author(s) that
write it, whether the events happen to be reported accurately or
not. For example, a physical
newspaper is a form of communication that links the past,
present, and future through text that is
written by an author that may incorporate his/her biases. As a
result, the general public is rarely
given the pure truth about events occurring in the past as well
as the future. The idea of
recognizing that most of our news reports may not be
historically accurate can be shocking
because most of the population tends to generally believe that
everything in the news is usually
factual without any degree of bias. In writing this paper, I will
demonstrate that bias in
historiography occurs more often than intended, whether it may
be intentional or not.
In order to support my thesis, the international event reported
on by different countries
that I will be analyzing is the Formosa Fun Coast explosion that
occurred in New Taipei,
Taiwan. During the evening of June 27th 2015, the New Taipei
district of Taiwan that surrounds

the city Taipei (the capital of Taiwan) was hosting a “Color
Play Asia” event that included
partying and dancing to live music at an open air venue. Over
1,000 partygoers (including many
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from different countries) attended the event in order to take part
in the various festivities being
hosted. To support the “Color Play Asia” theme of the event,
large air cannons and leaf blowers
helped spread large amounts of colored powder that was spread
within the attendees throughout
the day. Made from finely ground corn starch and different hues
of food coloring, the colored
powder was assumed to be harmless and safe to use, but also
loosely labeled as flammable under
certain conditions by the manufacturer. Reportedly around 8:30
P.M. (BBC Asia, June 28, 2015),
the huge clouds of colored powder lingering in the air had
ignited unexpectedly due to an
uncertain source. Following the ignition of the powder were
large explosions that scorched the

dance floor while setting anything that the powder came in
contact to on fire. Due to the
humidity and sweat, partygoers were completely covered with
the colored powder when it
ignited and as a result, nearly 500 individuals suffered severe
burns to large portions of their
bodies. The even more unfortunate attendees that inhaled large
amounts of the colored powder
also suffered respiratory issues due to lung and throat damage.
In the end, over half of the injured
were taken into intensive care units located in the northern
Taiwan region instead of regular
hospital wards due to the severity of the burns. Shortly after the
inferno, the news quickly spread
amongst neighboring countries as “the worst incidence of mass
injury in the history of New
Taipei city.” (China Daily, June 29, 2015). Among the affected
were American, British, and
Asian nationals and as a result, different countries released their
own breaking news reports to
the public in articles where it is clearly evident that there is
bias in order to bend the facts to
favor their own respective audiences.
For my first source, I will be analyzing a news article

originating in Taiwan, which is the
country where the explosion took place. One of the most
important quotes I read in this article
was that, according to the Central News Agency in Taiwan, “Up
to (as many as) 4,000 tickets
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were sold for the event, not including early bird packages”
(Taiwan News Online, June 29,
2015). Surprisingly, Taiwan’s article is the only country out of
the four that even mentions
anything about the total number of attendees at the event. On
the other hand, one detail that
every news report about this event includes is the total number
of injured, an estimation of
around 500 individuals (Taiwan News Online, June 29, 2015).
When I personally read this
article, I ended up thinking to myself that “Oh, 500 out of the
4,000+ attendees suffering injuries
doesn’t seem nearly as bad as I expected when I was reading the
other news articles.” The
inclusion of a rough estimate for the fraction of number of
injured attendees to the total number

of attendees does, in my opinion, downsize the severity of the
event after reading the other
articles. Neither the BBC/Reuters, CNN, nor the China Daily
News include any information
about the total number of attendees at the Color Play Asia
event. Appropriately, the overall
shock value of the event is more intense in the articles that
don’t mention the total number of
participants. The second big factor that I noticed about the
Taiwanese article is that it doesn’t
include any information about Li Pei-yun (CNN, June 29,2015),
a 20-year-old female that
unfortunately suffered third-degree burns to over 90% of her
body who also died on the same
day but before this article was published. Li Pei-yun was the
first death reported from the
explosions at the water park, and there is no doubt that the
article would have had a much more
negative tone to it with the inclusion of the death. I’ll admit
that the author Jay Chen of Taiwan
News does a really good job at establishing an accurate
representation of the damage that was
dealt overall. Looking at the bigger picture, there really
shouldn’t be any surprise as to why

Taiwan’s version of the event establishes a much less severe
than the news reports from other
countries. The Taiwanese media is (understandably) trying to
soften the gravity of the Color Play
Asia disaster in order to make it seem like the number of
injuries weren’t as bad to the future
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generations that decide to research the details of such a
catastrophe. Overall, the article
originating in Taiwan is obviously biased towards helping the
country preserve as much as its
own respectability as possible by projecting the “best” possible
situation to the reader.
For my second example, I am considering an U.S. article
straight from CNN that reports
on the crisis overseas from where it actually occurred. What I
first noticed from CNN’s article
that differed from the rest was that it included a lot of quoted
dialogue (CNN, June 29, 2015),
from either event officials, relatives of the injured participants,
or witnesses. One of the quotes

that impacted me the most was, “‘All of her skin was gone. Her
hands were shaking… and she
kept calling for me,’ her mother said.” It surprised me how the
addition of dialogue throughout
the news report helped me achieve a much more personal
relationship with the burn victims.
Unlike Taiwan News, China Daily News, and the BBC/Reuters,
CNN does a great job of playing
with human emotions. The bias with CNN’s report is more
toward a negative perspective of the
situation, since most of the dialogue provided supports the
gruesomeness of the crisis. Another
difference I noticed with CNN’s report was that the other half
of their content (other than the
dialogue) were details and background on what actions the
government and event officials were
taking. Unlike the news articles from other countries, CNN
reveals that the manufacturer of the
colored powder distributed throughout Color Play Asia events is
clearly labeled as “flammable
and shouldn’t be used in closed spaces or under high
temperatures.” (CNN, June 29, 2015).
These details are important because it shows that the event
coordinators should have known that

the powder was a fire hazard especially in the conditions that
the event took place. The everyday
reader of this article would most likely be biased towards the
idea that the event staff was to
blame for the explosions, because no warning was publicly
announced that the colored powder
was highly flammable.
Ou 5
The third source that I will be analyzing originates from a
country that historically is not
on the best of terms with Taiwan, which leads to myself already
expecting some form of bias that
will try to create the worst possible scenario of the disaster.
Long story short, Taiwan fled China
in order to establish a democratic government in 1949, and over
half a century later, China still
does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country and
government. As a result, the Chinese
news article is reasonably written to bring out details that affect
the Chinese population. For
example, China Daily is the only one of the four countries that
mentions, “Among the injured are

two students from the Chinese mainland (Chen Lingdan and
Zhuang Chujun), five from Hong
Kong,” (China Daily, June 29, 2015). Although there were
multiple participants from other
different countries including Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, the
United States, the United Kingdom,
and South Africa, China Daily is the only news source that
mentions the countries affected by
the disaster. Not to mention in their case, the author specifically
focuses on the interviews from
Chinese students that were injured for the majority of the news
article. It is evident that the
author is biased towards favoring the Chinese audience in
telescoping the number of countries
influenced to mainly China. The author also notes that both
students from the Chinese mainland
were studying in Taiwan’s Chia Tung University (China Daily,
June 29, 2015), when both
students decided to party and relax after finishing the term’s
courses. The previous articles focus
on the bigger picture of the tragedy, while China Daily
successfully breaches into the emotions
of China by emphasizing the background and aftermath of Chen
Lingdan and Zhuang Chujin, the

two Chinese students severely injured in the crisis.
Lastly, I will evaluate the British point of view on the
catastrophe by examining articles
from two of the most reputable news agencies in the United
Kingdom, Reuters and the BBC. The
first major difference I noticed with both U.K. news reports was
the ratio of written content to
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pictures. In all of the previous articles, they had on average one
or two pictures or a video that
highlights the major facts and injuries from the explosions. On
the other hand, BBC News and
Reuters both have their respective video and many photos to
complement the articles. Pictures of
burn victims covered with wet towels, people evacuated to
hospitals on stretchers, and video of
screaming while the explosions started (BBC and Reuters, June
28, 2015) all paint vivid scenes
of what exactly took place. Appropriately, I consider the British
news agencies as particularly
biased towards capturing the reader into primarily focusing on

the provided images rather than
reading the general information in the blocks of text. That way,
instead of informing the readers
about the behaviors and actions taken to aid the injured like
CNN, Taiwan News, and China
Daily do, Reuters and the BBC primarily spotlight the images
that bring out the worst possible
rundown of the incident. The British articles also include
dialogue, “ ‘Her whole life is ruined,’
sobbed the father of Chu Li, an 18-year-old girl with burns on
80 percent of her body” (Reuters,
June 28, 2015), that intensifies the awfulness of the disaster.
Unlike the other countries that shed
light on the ban of colored powder in Taiwan and closure of the
Formosa water park, news
agencies from the United Kingdom are similar to China Daily
News in successfully highlighting
the worst case scenarios of the Formosa Fun Coast explosion.
To conclude, what I have experienced through the procedure of
breaking down articles
while comparing and contrasting them is that news is more often
than not, biased, whether it may
be positively or negatively supporting the situation at hand.
Each author has his or her process of

publishing a news article, and it’s up to them in deciding what
information to include (or not
include) in order to create a bias that may or may not be
intentional. In each of the news articles
analyzed in my essay, it was noticeable that the authors
included their own biases to either
alleviate or aggravate the position that the reader considers
about the event. Personally, I have
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progressed to understand the reason why some news agencies
emphasize key points of an event
while other agencies barely touch on the specifics of the
circumstances. In the case of the
Formosa Fun Coast explosion, the news agencies that I analyzed
were similar in one of two
ways. China’s news agency China Daily News and the United
Kingdom’s BBC/Reuters were
similar in emphasizing specific cases of injured attendees while
providing photos for visual aid.
China’s China Daily News goes one step further by dedicating
the article to the two Chinese

students that were unfortunately suffered burn injuries in order
to support the Chinese audience.
On the other hand, Taiwan’s Taiwan News Online and CNN
from the United States both are
similar in the fact that both agencies’ authors are primarily
focused on providing information that
attempts to relieve the situation as much as possible. As far as
history goes, this also may not be
much of a surprise, since the U.S. and Taiwan have enjoyed a
close relationship for as long as I
can remember. As much as these four newspapers differ in
terms of taking separate opinions, I
am able to safely conclude that all the reported articles I
analyzed contain some type of bias that
will definitely distort the history recorded for the Formosa Fun
Coast explosion.

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Works Cited
BBC, Asia. “Taiwan Formosa Water Park explosion injures
hundreds.” BBC. British
Broadcasting Corporation, 28 June 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.
Chao-Yu, Wang, and Bear Lee. “Water Park Fire Injuries
Revised Down to 494.”
Taiwan News Online. Taiwan News Central News Agency, 29
June 2015. Web. 15 July
2015.
Chen, Jay. “Heavy Dust, Heat Source May Have Caused
Explosion: Official.” Taiwan News
Online. Taiwan News Central News Agency, 29 June 2015. 15
July 2015.
Mullen, Jethro, Kathy Novak, and K.J. Kwon. “Horrific
Aftermath of Fiery Blast at Taiwan
Water Park.” CNN. Cable News Network, 29 June 2015. Web.
15 July 2015.
Staff, Xinhua News Agency (China). “Taiwan Investigates
Blaze; Injuries Revised Down to
498.” China Daily. China Daily Group, 29 June 2015. Web. 15
July 2015.

Wu, J.R., and Pichi Chuang. “Taiwan Probes Water Park Fire as
Tally of Injured put at 498.”
Reuters. Reuters, 28 June 2015. Web. 15 July 2015.

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