Make Media History Personal

Many students here in the United States don’t have any interest in history. Average American people’s knowledge of history is shockingly limited. The whole world knows it.

A simple Google search gave me the following headlines:

The Washington Post: Why so many students hate history — and what to do about it

The Atlantic:The Problem With History Classes

The New York Times: U.S. Students Remain Poor at History, Tests Show

Many media history professors here may accordingly wonder: How to make a media history class engaging, fun and thought-provoking to those young kids who hate history even before stepping into the classroom?

My approach is to make media history personal.

In BC&J354 (History of Mass Communications) class I taught this past spring semester at Western Illinois University, I asked students to

A high school student in China reflects on journalism, media, art and philosophy

After reading some parts of my four-volume journalistic book America in the Eyes of Yong Tang, a high school student in Chengdu, China wrote a letter to me. She wrote in English. The young student reflects on journalism, media, art and philosophy in her short book review. From the article, you can see how the younger generations in China think about journalism and communication.

Below is the full text of the article:

Dear Mr. Tang,

Before reading, although I’ve always considered the term media as a neutral vessel, which pours out objective information over the public, I never imagined the function of media could be so powerful that it’s regarded as the “fourth force” of western societies, as you mentioned in Chapter two. From the events you illustrated as a reporter, sadly, I found an astounding truth that