Introduction

In August, I will begin the second year of my PhD program, and I am in the process of discovering my areas of interest. As I have begun to unpack what I have read over the past two semesters - a task that I think is more arduous than actually reading the literature - I realize I have many interests, including how news organizations and their audiences exchange, use, and interpret information. I am also interested in how each of these groups interact and make meaning; finally, I am interested in globalization.

I began as a professional journalist in 1996, working in smaller markets in the midwest. I knew the estimated readership of each of the papers, but I always wondered who was reading and how they used the information. I found out through the course of reporting who read the local paper as well as what they liked or disliked about the stories, the paper, or just people around town. I eventually left newspapers and returned to school. I have been in higher education now for five years, and my growing awareness of globalization reminds me of these questions, though on a much wider scale.

The purpose of this blog, at least initially, is to write about my academic journey, to gain feedback about my research ideas, and share my struggle of being an American learning of new ideas, cultures and people - all of which involve my attempt to understand the complex process of globalization. How does information flow into the United States? What do Americans - average Americans - know about the rest of the world, or at least what do they learn from the news media? What is the cultural logic that colors their perspective of world events? Conversely, how do average people outside of the United States know about us? Is it through lived or mediated experience? Is it that our views, our perspectives are mediated by others? If mediation is key to our knowledge and understanding of one another, who is mediating?

On a personal level, what do I know, and how do I know it? Hence, the title of the blog, stupid American. Learning more and more about the world is sometimes a difficult feat, especially when I might be confused with those clumsy, clueless creatures traveling carelessly through the world, disregarding local culture and upsetting the sensibilities of many. Unfortunately the precedent has been set. The United States government, my government, has enforced its might on both willing and unwilling participants in a U.S.-dominated global environment. And my fellow Americans sometimes serve to reinforce widely held negative perceptions.

Buying into what we see on the surface neglects the complexity of our world and the process of globalization. I want to push through the surface to penetrate this complexity, to shed light on how communication, specifically news media, serves to hinder, inhibit, oppress, elucidate, liberate, or engage. I do not propose to have the answers now, but I invite you to follow me in my path of discovery.