There is no straight answer to this question, but what can be argued is that the media more often than not gives and portrays a distorted view on many issues around the world. Whenever you turn on to watch the news or pick up a newspaper, you’re bombarded with stories of crime, conflict and war. Why is this? Surely the world we live in can’t be all this bad.

Media, whether it may be newspapers or television usually describe themselves as impartial and unbiased, however we are not in control of what is reported and sometimes neither is the journalist as the orders come right from the top.

From this view it can be said that the media only broadcast and print a percentage of world news and majority of it is what they want us to see, e.g. terror, destruction and fear.  At the end of the day, it’s a business and they have to report on news that will effectively ‘sell’.

However, the afternoon we spent at the National College of Arts in Rawalpindi changed all of that. The opportunity to be able to meet, chat and interact with young Pakistani arts students really opened my eyes as they were just like us, and no different!

They were into music, sports and entertainment like us, with the only difference being our accents. Although saying this, we had a Mancunian (Kyle) and Brummie (Imran) in our group so we knew how they felt...haha.

We exchanged ideas about life, society, what it was like to live in Pakistan and vice-versa in Britain, but more importantly how the media portrayed both our countries. From our group work, we came to an interesting conclusion.

We were able to pick up typical stereotypes associated with both countries and were able to learn about unique perceptions that we held as well. It was a pleasure to be in a company of like-minded students and to iron out any misconceptions we had about each other. Upon departing it was sad, but we were all grateful to have the opportunity to meet each other and learn a great deal about ourselves and how we viewed the media.