Comparative media studies

I can honestly say that my friends and I made the absolute most of our two week trip to England and Spain this month. We experienced rural, suburban and city life; we spoke and thought in multiple languages/dialects; we walked extensively (22,000+ steps some days!), hopped on public transpo and drove for hours (well, they did--I was just there for the ride along). Everywhere we went, there was more to learn about and stare at, and I couldn't get enough. The faux cultural anthropologist in me was on cloud nine.

Video Supercut of our Trip

One of my favorite things was listening to the radio when we were on the road (which was a fair amount of the time). BBC Radio London and BBC Radio Cambridgeshire offer a fun variety of music, news, political talk radio and "travel" (traffic) updates. They played a lot of classic Motown and in the midnight hours, big band. I found it strange they they didn't play Adele, Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran or Coldplay once. (Ironically enough, I heard more Coldplay on the radio in Spain.)

I was especially interested to get the British perspective on President Trump. Photos and cartoons of him dominated every newsstand I passed, and much of the airwaves as well. We were in England when news broke about Charlottesville and the death of Heather Heyer. The BBC interviewed a British expat living in Virginia and his general response was one of astonishment and shock. I got the impression that in England, most folks consider England to be much less overtly racist than the United States (or so argued the host of the B&B I stayed at in East London). As I listened to the BBC cover Charlottesville, I was impressed with the their nuanced understanding of the history of U.S. race relations, our demography and politics when it came to Charlottesville. I can't say that in America we have the same level of knowledge of the U.K. and its intra-group dynamics.

The other two main topics heavily debated on BBC radio were Brexit and ISIL radicalisation (as they spell it :-P). Since we were in London mostly, we were in a bit of a political bubble. The folks I spoke with readily shared that they voted to remain in the European Union, and they had some strongly negative opinions of Theresa May. However, on the radio, a man had called in that seemed to be more closely aligned with the Tories, so my ears perked up to hear from him. He reiterated multiple times that the recent calls for another election re: Brexit were "undemocratic," much to the bafflement of the BBC host. The debate over Brexit and the manner in which GB would leave the EU, is highly charged and a source of anxiety for many. They talked about it a lot in Spain, too. Since we live in a highly interdependent global economy, it makes sense.

There's also, understandably, a preoccupation with ISIL radicalisation in both countries as well. Driving home one night, a mother spoke about her son's decision to go to Syria and join ISIL. It was absolutely heartbreaking. We didn't listen to the entire programme but it seemed that he did eventually get out of that situation and return home. This mom had gone onto the program to try and help other parents who were losing their children to ISIL as well, which I thought was quite brave of her, since when her son was initially being heavily recruited she was too ashamed to share what was going on.

Obviously, the topic of radicalization came into sharp focus while we were in Spain. We were waiting in line to ascend the Torre de Hércules in A Coruña when I heard the couple next to us watching a video on their phone. It didn't sound good. I checked Twitter and CNN already had footage of the breaking news out of Barcelona. It was awful. That evening my roommates and I prayed together. The next morning I purchased a copy of El Mundo and read a detailed, in-depth investigation into how the young men who planned and carried out the terrorist attack had most likely been radicalized by a local imam. I looked at a year-over-year graph of the rate of terrorist-related arrests and attacks/attempts, and the total for 2017 to-date had almost surpassed the total for all of 2016.

I would argue that most major news outlets in the U.S. tend to be focused on domestic issues a majority of the time, and only cover international news if it's a major crisis or if it affects America in some way. Consuming British and Spanish news was pretty refreshing to me and (based on my small sampling of the Telegraph, the Guardian, the BBC and El Mundo) I found their reporting rigorous with thoughtful analysis of good data. It was a great reminder that it's not all about America because, I'll admit it, sometimes we can be a bit of a self-involved nation.

This is one of the many things I loved about travelling in England and Spain. More to come...