And the Strongest Ally Award Goes to...

[Fisherking]

A lot of the problem can be attributed to the news media.

Americans get little substantive news from Europe and European news coverage of America usually leads to bigger misunderstandings.

The result:
Americans now little about Europe beyond a few facts and Europeans think they know America but only have a slanted view.

Canada has a clearer picture of both because for the most part both places ignore them.

[HoreTore]

European news coverage of America usually leads to bigger misunderstandings.

How?

[Fisherking]

That can’t be summed up quite so easy.

Lemur and Rabbit are both Americans, and they may actually agree on more points than they disagree on. Sometimes their differences point up the similarities.

Most Europeans find it hard to understand why there are Republican when they must be clearly evil, but it is not that simple. Most likely they vote that way because they think it is the lesser of two evils.

When in actual fact they are both pretty much a wash.

How would you sum up the worlds misconceptions about Norway?

[HoreTore]

Misconceptions? i wuld be more surprised if anyone has actually heard about us....

Anyway, it was a genuine question, not a sarcastic remark or anything like that. It would be interesting to hear an americans view of how he believes european media coverage of america is... Of course, I have no personal knowledge of the coverage outside Norway, I have no idea what the media further down the continent says.

[Fisherking]

Misconceptions? i wuld be more surprised if anyone has actually heard about us....

Anyway, it was a genuine question, not a sarcastic remark or anything like that. It would be interesting to hear an americans view of how he believes european media coverage of america is... Of course, I have no personal knowledge of the coverage outside Norway, I have no idea what the media further down the continent says.

I wasn’t trying to treat it flippantly but it is seriously complex. Events are covered from different points of view. You seldom see both sides of an issue. Same old thing you hear about American media only covering from a left stand point except it is more complex than that.

Here in Germany at times you get a more conservative view but the other side is still lacking.

You could also draw the conclusion that conservative whacked out churches are all you find and that is not so either. They just make a great deal of noise at times.

People there are often concerned about issues we generally don’t hear about, except maybe here in the back room.

And as you can see Americans tend to have a limited view of the world. That is not necessarily their fault directly but more a product of the insulation of their media.

[HoreTore]

But is this particular to America?

Or is it how foreign nations are usually covered? Examples:

Does our media coverage reflect the massive support in Chna for the communist party? Or the overwhelming Russian support for Putin? Have we seen many stories about the positive sides of those two regimes? There is a reason for their massive support, and it aint all fear...

What about the Balkans? The main western covage of the conflict is that the Russian-backed Serbs are Satans little helpers, and that they are the eternal evil while everyone else is a victim. How accurate is that view?

What about the European extreme right? Seen any other viewpoints than the usual negative one?

What about all the postives in Africa? 90% of the news from Africa are about negative subjects like wars, starvation, aids and poverty. Yet most of the continent is moving in the right direction, why isn't this reflected in the media coverage?

Etc, etc

[Fisherking]

Still it has wider coverage in Europe than in America. I doubt if many of them hear anything on African immigration or anything but Mexican immigrants for that matter.

However I do have to agree with some of your points. Just because some of us are aware of the issues it doesn’t go for most of the population.