4 ms·
Why not "Ivory Coast Bus Routes Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data" ? As someone living in an African country I find this headline beyond ridiculous. If this was in
by trailfox 13y ago
Why not "Ivory Coast Bus Routes Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data" ?
As someone living in an African country I find this headline beyond ridiculous. If this was in Lebanon would we be reading "Asian Bus Routes Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data"?
- TheAnimus 13y agoSame way with many news sources America is the USA. Or Vilnius is Europe, yet St. Petersburg isn't.
- eru 13y agoWhy? You mean St. Petersburg, Florida, or you mean that the Russian St. Petersburg is not part of Europe in the common American conception of it?
- criley 13y agoBecause the headline is written according to the expected understanding of the American reader. "Ivory Coast" is about as descriptive to an American audience as "Africa". I would be shocked if more than a tiny minority of Americans could tell you where the Ivory Coast was outside of "Africa", and I bet many wouldn't even know to place it in Africa, thinking maybe it's in India or SE Asia or something. It's written like that because Americans don't know and don't really care about African geography. >If this was in Lebanon would we be reading "Asian Bus Routes Redrawn using Cell-Phone Data"? We'd probably see "Middle-East", the understood name for that region. We might even see "Lebanon" since its close to Israel and Americans like to feel involved in that scene.
- trailfox 13y ago>Because the headline is written according to the expected understanding of the American reader. Not exactly a high bar it seems...
- freehunter 13y agoCan you tell me where every country in the world is?
- stephenhuey 13y agoCan you use Google? :) Not meaning to offend! As someone who grew up in an African nation, I will easily concede to some of the parents in this thread that it's often just easier to get people's attention if you use something recognizable in a news headline. That being said, it is odd to me that it's the MIT Technology Review doing it in an age when anyone can double-click a string of text in the browser, e.g. Ivory Coast, and use the right-click menu to search with Google. Or copy and paste into their favorite search engine and instantly find out where the place is located with a string of search results and a map embedded into the page...
- freehunter 13y agoHere's the real kicker: if I don't know where the country is, why would I care enough to google it? "Africa" in this situation gives me more info than the name of the country would.
- stephenhuey 13y agoYou never look up things you don't recognize? I care to look things up every day, and before the web I used physical dictionaries and encyclopedias on a frequent basis. Some people may never feel that inquisitive, but quite a lot of us are, and I'd imagine most people on HN are like that.
- freehunter 13y agoThere's a lot of articles posted to HN every day that I don't understand. If I researched them all, I'd have no time to actually do something productive. I skip them and move on unless something else about it catches my eye.
- 13y ago
- kbenson 13y agoIt depends on the cultural consciousness, and whether that region has been subject to major news for recent generations. The Middle East and much of North-east Africa has has had the (mis)fortune of being in the US media for some time. For example, most US residents will know at least generally where Afghanistan is (some will know REALLY well), while I expect most don't really know where Luxembourg or Belarus are.
- geetee 13y agoPlease, tell us more about how article headlines ruin your day.