ACTIVITY #4: ANALYZING & COMPARING WORLD REGIONS (10 points)

Think back to the beginning of the semester. The margin notes identified two ways to study human geography – by theme or by region. Until this point in the semester, we've studied those five themes – physical geography, culture, demographics (or population), politics and economics. Now we're going to look at the world's geographic regions using some of those themes.

Of the 12 regions you are studying, I'd like you to concentrate on 3 for this activity – Southeast Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America – and I encourage you to review your margin notes and power point presentations on those three regions. You'll find it easier to complete your activity if you are familiar with the areas you'll be analyzing.

For Activity #4, I'd like you to look at three online newspapers from three different countries. You can find the newspapers you need on two sites that offer comparative international news. I'd like to quickly walk you through both sites.

Start with WORLD PRESS ONLINE. On the main page, scroll down to get a sense of the range of current news stories from newspapers and magazines around the world. Find the FEATURES heading in the menu items in the far left column. Under the FEATURES heading, click on COUNTRY MAPS & PROFILES. In the center column on that page you will see country links in alphabetic order. Scroll almost to the bottom of the column and click on the link for the UNITED KINGDOM. As you scroll down the UK page, you will see the country's map and profile. Take a moment to skim through the rather detailed profile. Next you will see the PRESS heading, under which is a list of 98 media outlets in the UK. Some of the titles are links to online editions (and are underlined) while some of the titles do not have electronic editions. Click through the UK press list and try a few of the links.

Next go to NEWSLINK and click on the NEWSPAPERS tab at the top of the page. Look for two headings – THE AMERICAS and OTHER COUNTRIES. Using the links under those two headings will take you to the country lists. Click on the EUROPE link. Scroll to the bottom and click on the UNITED KINGDOM link. You'll see a list of about two dozen newspapers and are welcome to try out a couple of the links. I don't find NewsLink anywhere near as useful as World Press Online. I think WPO's country profiles are very helpful and the number of press links are normally greater. Too, NewsLink's site has a distracting level of advertising, loads slower and has more broken links. However, I wanted you to have the option of using more than one source and NewsLink often has links to foreign media outlets that are difficult to find elsewhere.

One word of caution: Any newspaper link you use from either of the above sites will take you to that paper's site. Neither of the sites we visited is affiliated with any off-site links and there's no way I can monitor all of those links, all of the time. You will be visiting any number of papers from around the world and it's possible you will land on a site with content you consider offensive. If so, shut it down and try another one.

PROCESS

1. Choose one country from Southeast Asia, one country from Sub-Saharan Africa and one country from South America. (You can always choose a different country from a region if you aren't happy with the newspaper choices.)

2. Starting on WPO's COUNTRY MAPS & PROFILES page or NewsLink's NEWSPAPERS page, find your first country and its list of newspaper links. Most countries have at least one English-language newspaper and many of them are online. Just look for links that have English titles or that are identified as English-language. I urge you to try out several links until you find a paper that looks interesting to you.

3. While analyzing your paper's content, concentrate on three themes – culture, politics and economics.

a. Culture – Look specifically for examples of cultural traits and what they indicate about the culture as a whole. For example, I skimmed an article in a Pakistani paper about lady healthcare workers and it was an interesting look at that culture's view of gender roles. BUT if that statement is all I wrote it would not be enough. Given the article, what are Pakistani views on gender roles? Don't just compile a list of cultural traits. Develop a general view of the country's culture based on the cultural traits you can indentify.

b. Politics – Look specifically for examples of political conflict or cooperation – centripetal forces, centrifugal forces and etc. Again, don't write only that the paper talked about politics. Instead, what can you infer about that country's political landscape from what you read?

c. Economics – Look for examples of several things – views on global trade, level of governmental involvement in the economy (and even the public's view of that), economic activities and indicators of economic development. For example, if you saw absolutely nothing about automobiles, no ads or articles at all, could you infer that the country is engage in mainly primary economic activities?

4. Spend a minimum of thirty minutes looking at as many features, stories and advertisements as you can. When you finish, you should be able to say a number of things about the country's cultural, political and economic geographic characteristics based on the newspaper's content. (If the newspaper had nothing about one or all of your themes, choose another newspaper.)

5. Starting on WPO's COUNTRY MAPS & PROFILES page or NewsLink's NEWSPAPERS page, find your second country & its list of newspaper links, and repeat the process above. Do the same for your third country.

Summarize your activity and findings in a brief analysis that includes the following.

1. For each country, what cultural traits were you able to identify and what general impression do you have of that country's culture? (One newspaper will not allow you to create a long list but you should be able to identify some.) From your limited perspective how do those countries’ cultures differ from ours?

2. For each country, what examples of political conflict or cooperation did you find? Go beyond the available, limited facts and relate those examples to the concepts political geography uses in attempting to interpret them. For example, violence in a recent election may have made up a very large portion of a paper's content, but why? Was that content positive in tone? Negative in tone? Reflecting a current patriotic celebration without any bias? How politically involved do the country's population seem to be?

3. For each country, offer a conclusion regarding that country's level of development. What did you read (or not read) that led you to that conclusion? What impression did your analysis of the newspapers' contents give you of how well or poorly individuals are fairing in that country's economy?

4. To what extent did you find newspapers – as examples of material culture – indicative of their producing societies’ cultures?

5. Make specific and detailed connections to relevant course content.

Please be careful to use correct spelling and grammar.

By the deadline shown in the Course Schedule on the main page of the syllabus:

• Send your analysis containing the five items requested in the body of a new email to dramyglenn@earthlink.net.

• Put only your name and Activity #4 at the beginning of your email.

• Be careful to use the correct subject line.

• Late analyses will loose one point per day late, including weekends and holidays.