Single Story

Artifacts:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/sports/olympics/terrorism-and-tension-for-sochi-not-sports-and-joy.html?_r=0
http://www.buzzfeed.com/azazello/16-things-russians-do-that-americans-would-find-we-cqjf
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/09/18/223833619/poll-half-of-americans-see-russia-as-unfriendly-or-worse
http://youtu.be/EUOVDazvcM8 - Russian Accents
http://youtu.be/YcCfcJlrxs8 - Dash Cam
http://youtu.be/ncgjW1i8ZrM- The Avenger's

Russians tend to have a strong single story from the media. A lot of Americans only know Russians as people that drink and are generally evil and bad. I feel that this is mainly because of the media that we view of Russian people. We often will see a movie where the Russians are the "bad guys" or that they are not responsible. For example, one of the videos from YouTube is from the movie, "The Avengers" where there are Russians trying to torture a spy and it shows her completely dominating all of them by the end of the scene. This makes Russian's look both bad and unable to control the situation.

Because of this single story, it makes us think that Russians are not good people. I remember going to serve a Russian speaking mission and everyone asked me if I was scared to have to teach Russian people. When I met my first Russian people, I noticed that they were some of the nicest people. They were responsible and kind to me. I think it can be dangerous to only think that Russians are evil. I also see this in the MTC where I work. Most missionaries that come in will say things about Russians that they have heard or seen from movies or from the news. They are generally scared of these people before they even know them.

Overall in the artifacts that I found, it tends to show that American's are not so open minded about Russians. The news articles make Russians seem unfriendly and unsafe. There is a buzzfeed that shows general stereotypes about Russians and the YouTube videos show how we are uneducated about Russian people. I feel that it would be better for people to take more time to get to know the Russian people before they make generalizations about the people in general.