In this rapidly changing world, the world has been dramatically close because of the advent of revolutionary technologies. As such, it is required people to understand other countries well today. This calls into question whether or not the best way to learn foreign countries is to read newspapers and magazines. While some people agree with the idea, I strongly believe that it is not good way since knowledge is actually different from experience and those matters have their own stakes.
First of all, knowledge from newspapers and magazines does not exactly correspond to reality. This is mainly because reality consists of a lot of actual variable and books are not able to explain everything about other countries.
This is evidence when we ponder a lot of differences we meet in other countries. we could sometimes see the big differences that the books do not explain and be in trouble. For my experience, when I was a freshman in college, I planned to take a trip to Europe. However, even though I had prepared for my trip through magazines, I faced a lot of difficulties and realized that there are a number of differences between reality and knowledge. As I spend time in Europe and experience their culture first hand, I could escape those problems and know countries in Europe well.
Secondly, the newspapers and magazines are untrustworthy. This is due to the fact that they are related to their own stakeholders. That is, they mainly advertise and tell certain countries or places that invest in them. Even though, the reality is considerably different, they are interested in explaining related countries and places in a way favorable. To illustrate this point, according to recently released study, the number of people who believe newspapers and magazines are greatly decreasing when compared to last five years. Moreover, it reported that they experienced the distortion of media at once.
Likewise, these media provide people with unreliable information.
In conclusion, because big difference exists between knowledge and reality and the media is concerned with its own stakeholders, I firmly believe that it is not good way for people to learn other countries. Nothing compares to the result of experiencing other countries directly when it comes to learning them.
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