It is important for audiences to consider the whole story of a place and not just understand a situation from one perspective. If a situation comes from one perspective, there will be dangers of only reading and learning about one concept/aspect of a situation.

This could result in misinformation and an repeat of an event. In addition, by only reading and learning about one concept/aspect of a situation, it could lead to assumptions, and conclusions that may be incomplete. If we only learn about a single aspect of a situation it can prevent us from having a more complex perspective of a situation. Furthermore, not understanding the bigger picture can result in great harm to the reputation of the people involved. It can result in people losing their dignity and emphasizes the negatives rather than the positives. By being open-minded, it allows us to empower and humanize even the most inhumane events.

However, it is unlikely to know the full story of every event. As a result we base our views and perceptions of events from influences in our lives (family, friends, social media, news, etc.). Because it is in our human nature to find patterns to events that happen in our lives, after being exposed to one perspective of an event, our perception of the event’s setting and the people who were involved are skewed to the conclusion of that event. This could lead to dangerous misconceptions of a place and creating stereotypes in our minds that automatically fill in information. The only way to combat the dangers of misconceptions & stereotypes is to learn more about the events through different perspectives and shape our knowledge of event to gain a more well-informed opinion.

In our english class, because the only thing I know about Gwangju is the Gwangju Uprising from the book Human Acts, the perception I had of Gwangju was a underdeveloped and gloomy city. However, after learning more about Gwangju, I learnt that Gwangju is more than just the setting of the Uprising. Instead, it is a sixth largest metropolis in South Korea and even hosted the 2002 FIFA World Cup (Source: https://www.stadiumguide.com/tournaments/fifa-world-cup-2002/)