Elections 2008

This week I spent some time everyday scrolling online newspapers and looking for information on the Italian and Americas political elections.

First of all, I have to say that I’ve never been so interested in politics all my life. I know it’s not a good thing to say because I’m not a child anymore and I’m aware that politics structures and creates the world I live in. The reason for this attitude is that I’m quite disappointed and disillusioned with Italian politics and politicians in general. I have the feeling I can trust nobody, neither right candidates nor left ones. Obviously, I’ll give my vote to somebody because it is my right as a citizen but my choice will be for the lesser evil, not for someone whom I completely support and rely on. Talking about this feeling of pessimism and disillusionment among Italians, I found out an interesting article Italia vive harta de la (mala) política in El País. In this article, the flaws of a political system which is considered too old and corrupted are pointed out.

It’s curious to notice that in online American sources of information, there is almost no mention of the next Italian political elections and of its candidates. I searched in the archives of The New York Times to find out articles which deal specifically with Italian politics and, with my surprise, I discovered that the most updated ones date back to the end of January or the first week of February, that is the time when Prodi’s government failed and Italy set out to carry on new elections. Nevertheless, in this week’s online newspapers (The New York Times, The Financial Times) there were a couple of articles concerning with Italian affairs, but not with its politics. The articles dealt with mozzarella fear and the reputation of the Italian cheese that risks to be tainted by this scandal or the crisis of Alitalia and Silvio Berlusconi’s attempts to find an alternative solution to the sale of the national airline to France.

As far as American political race is concerned, American online newspapers offer some speeches from both the Democratic candidates and the Republican one while awaiting the next electoral Democratic battleground in Pennsylvania. Just to mention some of them, McCain explained the reasons of his approach towards the war in Iraq, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama presented their platforms concerning with economy and health care. In my opinion, the most interesting video I listened to is the one of Barack Obama dealing with race issue where he talked of the importance of unity, disregarding race or gender issues, in order to face the threats of contemporary America: economic crisis, terrorism, heath care problems and global climate effects. I really appreciate watching this video because Barack Obama told his personal experience of a black man, the son of a white mother and a black father from Kenya. In the last two days, American newspapers changed direction and pointed to the endorsement of Obama’s position at the expense of Hillary Clinton. According to Obama’s supported, the time has come for Hillary Clinton to start considering to withdraw from the Presidential race.

In my opinion, it is highly significant that neither La Repubblica nor Il Corriere della Sera hinted at these issues coming from America. Actually, they prefer to talk about a genealogical research made by the New England Historic Genealogical Society which uncovered the remote ancestral cousins of the three candidates to the Presidential nominee!!!

Easter is coming...

HAVE

A NICE

EASTER!!!

Comparing news...

It was quite hard to accomplish my task this week because I spent a lot of time reading online newspapers and searching for a common piece of news each newspaper dealt with. Finally, I chose to analyse the articles concerning with Barack Obama’s victory in the primaries in Mississippi. All the articles are dated March, the12th, the day after the Primary Tuesday in Mississippi.

The online newspapers are written in three different languages:

• English news coming from The New York Times;
• Spanish news coming form El País;
• Italian news coming from La Repubblica.

In my opinion, it is important to focus, first of all, on the titles of the three articles. While the title of the article in The New York Times “Obama wins in Mississippi” is a mere evidence of the facts of the previous day, the title of the Spanish article “Obama vence en Misisipi y aumenta su ventaja sobre Clinton” gives evidence to the fact but it also points to Obama’s regaining his footing over Sen. Hillary Clinton. The Italian article is characterized by a title “Obama vince anche in Mississippi” and a subtitle “La sfida si sposta in Pennsylvania” which points directly to the next battleground for the two candidates, the primaries in Pennsylvania on April, 22^nd.

All the three articles begin with the results of the election giving the exact data and the percentage of the voters and delegates gained by the two candidates. The articles in The New York Times and in El País point out the fact that Obama’s victory was quite expected in a state where the 36% of the population is black and where the largest proportion of the population is made of Afro-Americans. As a matter of fact, Obama’s victory was built on a wave of support among blacks and pools said that the 90% of black voters supported Barack Obama. Nevertheless, beyond giving these kinds of information, the two online newspapers don’t go deeply into the race issue underlying the Primaries election in Mississipi. The race issue is dealt with in detail in the article from La Repubblica where a more thorough view on the composition of Mississippi's population and its problems is given. In addition, only the article from La Repubblica dedicates a paragraph to the comment made by Geraldine Ferraro, one of Clinton supporters and organizer of her electoral campaign, in which she implies that Mr Obama has only been successful because of its ethnicity. In the paragraph, there is the quotation of her words and also Clinton’s reaction defining Ms Ferraro’s comment as “regretful”. Neither The New York Times nor El País mention Geraldine Ferraro’s comment on Barack Obama’s victory in their articles. On the other hand, this issue is mentioned by March, the 12^th article concerning Barack Obama’s victory in BBC News where the exact words of Ms Ferraro are quoted.

At a certain point, all the three articles start talking about the final stage of the Democratic nomination fight: the Pennsylvania primary on April the 22^nd where Hillary Clinton seems to be the favourite. While The New York Times and La Repubblica emphasize the importance of this next step because there are 158 delegates at stake, the Spanish newspaper devotes a whole paragraph introduced by a subtitle to the next primary day in Pennsylvania. Looking for other Italian newspapers dated March, the 12th, I found out that Il Corriere della Sera offers three articles concerning with the primaries in America and an entire paragraph is devoted to the primaries in Pennsylvania as well. However, all the newspapers agree that what is important now is to look ahead to the next battleground because there is still a great number of delegates to gain and because the victory in the next states is essential to secure the democratic nomination.

In conclusion, the message and the amount of information given by the three articles are more or less the same and all give a detailed description of the events. Obviously, there are also some differences but I don’t think they refer mainly to the kind of information that is given but to the order and way in which information is conveyed. The way in which information is conveyed is highly indicative of the aim of the author who is the only entitled with the selection of information deciding which information is relevant and which one can be forgotten.

The need for changing

Last weekend I spent some time reflecting on the next political elections in Italy and in the USA. To do it, I searched the Web and I listened to the speeches of the left candidates for the two countries during their political campaign. I mainly focused respectively on Barack Obama for the US and Walter Veltroni for Italy.

In my opinion, even though Italy and American are quite different countries with different problems and concerns nowadays, the political speeches of these two candidates have many points in common and the thread of their discourse is quite the same. The key words for both of them are: CHANGE, NEW, DIFFERENT… Here are some sentences taken from Barack Obama political campaign' speeches in the numerous states of America:

• - "It is necessary to change the politics";
• - "Change: we can believe in";
• - "We're turning the page, we're ready to write a new chapter of American history";
• - "You spoke out for change with your votes and your voices";
• - "This time must be different;"
• - "We need a new direction: change is what is happening in America;"
• - "It is also about you, the citizens of Usa who can do the change;"
• - "Nothing can be an obstacle for voices calling for change;"
• - "We're one people, we're one nation, we're ready to write a new chapter in American history;"
• - "Let's go change the world"

Now, let's compare these sentences with some taken from Walter Veltroni's speech in Spello, the starting point of his tour and political campaign covering all the regions of Italy.

• - "Cambiamo l'Italia, non il governo."
• - "Guardiamo negli occhi l'Italia e le diciamo: Comincia un tempo nuovo, il tempo del cambiamento."
• - "Mi candido per cambiare il paese."
• - "Non cambiate un governo, cambiate l'Italia. Cominciamo a farlo insieme. Trasformiamo questo nostro paese"

As you can see, the two candidates point to the need for changing the current situation of the countries and, especially, of their politics. There's an idea of transformation, of a new course or a new direction that has to be taken in order to improve the situation and, as Barack Obama said in one of his speeches, "heal this nation and restore our moral standing in the world". Obviously, going deeply into the two candidates political programmes, the main concerns are quite different because it depends on the crucial problems affecting the two countries nowadays. As far as America is concerned, the main problems now is the war in Iraq (linked with the issues of safety and security), the need for universal health care and the opportunity for any family to afford sending their children to college and provide them a higher education. Listening to some speeches, I'm quite confident to say that Obama's ace in the hole is his opposition to the war in Iraq: he promised that if he becomes President... “I'll bring this war to an end in 2009 and I'll bring our troops home”. In my opinion, Italy main concerns are quite different because there are a number of things that have high priority over other things, for example the issue of taxes and tax evasion, the necessity to pay less if everybody pays its part, the need to reduce costs in the public field. However, even though the points of the two political programmes are different, the need for changing and starting something new is the element that associates the two political campaigns. In addition, in both countries the two leaders talk of change that it is not only up to the government and its leader but that it is has to be shared with the citizens -it is a shared and common willingness- in order to achieve together the goals that are necessary to restore the countries. This idea is asserted vigorously in Barack Obama's motto: "YES, WE CAN" where “we” implies the President himself and all the citizens as one people and one nation.

Intercultural media competence

Here is an interesting video on intercultural media competence. I came across it in Youtube and I thought it was worthwhile to upload it in my blog.

It is an interview with Prof. Dr. Oliver Hahn from the BiTS University in Iserlohn. His main concern is the importance of developing intercultural competences in the world of media. Even though media aim at international world coverage communication, they operate within their cultural and linguistic system. In some way, the cultural system in which they operate affects the information they are transmitting. As a consequence, we have to take into account the context from which the piece of news comes from and we have to think about the context in the process of conveying information as well because media operate within their specific cultural systems. What is fundamental is to analyse, interpret and understand a piece of news within the context in which it was produced. The interviewee offers a couple of examples about this topic. Both journalists and watchers/listeners of media have to be aware of the relevance of intercultural media competence nowadays because, as Prof. Dr. Oliver Hahn said, “as a media consumer you have to learn intercultural context in order to understand better and in order to reach a kind of intercultural dialogue.”

If you’re interested in this issue, have a look at the video!

What do you think about it?

Culture & cultures

Talking about culture is not an easy thing. I think that culture is the heritage of every single person being a combination of a lot of different elements: learned, achieved, constructed, inherited, internalized and shared. The concept of culture is a complex one because it is like a case where a lot of different things mix up together. Moreover, the concept of culture is not a monolithic one: culture is quite dynamic because anybody’s culture is constantly reshaped and enriched.

Our current society is characterized by the coexistence of different cultures and often the encounter between different cultures is the starting point for the creation of misunderstandings, prejudices and cultural clashes. Nowadays, we, as individuals, have to come to terms with the issue of multiculturalism versus monoculturalism and the problems concerning with integration and assimilation of foreigners in their host countries and societies is one of the fundamental points in any governmental policy’ s agenda. This phenomenon is no longer far away from us… We can just take the bus every day to go to work… We can just have a walk near the station of our city… We can just enter in a bar… We can just open the door of our house… to realize that the coexistence of different culture is one of the most relevant features of our society and that anybody, willy-nilly, is supposed to cope with it in his daily routine. The problem is how to cope with it.

Talking about this, the so-called “intercultural competence” is the ability to communicate successfully and interact effectively with people coming from other cultures. Giving that the concept of culture is quite complex, the one of inter-culture is still more difficult because it implies the acknowledgment of your own culture, on the one hand, and of another culture, on the other. However, the encounter between these two cultures doesn’t lead to the acknowledgment of the superiority of a culture on the other, but is a fruitful experience in order to enrich your knowledge of other cultures and share your culture with others. The achievement of intercultural competence is a never-ending process characterized by a non-ethnocentric point of view, communication, respect, understanding and, above all, flexibility. In the process of intercultural competence, judgement and criticism is avoided and the other is seen as a enrichment, an opportunity, a fruitful experience, a gateway, not a limit.

Tomorrow in class we’ll discuss more in detail about these topics. I wonder what my classmates will say about multiculturalism because, up to now, my word is that nowadays, unfortulately, multiculturalism and the peaceful coexistence between different cultures are just a wonderful utopia. But, as we know, some dreams can turn into reality in the future…