The Noam Chomsky video started with a quote from John Milton that I thought was extremely relevant to media and globalization today: "They who have put out the peoples' eyes reproach them for their blindness." How can we expect third world countries to hop on the globalization bandwagon when they don't have the same access to media that we do? And what is the quality of the "world news" that is reported in America?
Third world countries are operating at a disadvantage because they do not have the same quality of access to global communication as other developed countries do. Thussu's article "Approaches Theorizing International Communication" cites a study done by Daniel Lerner, a professor at MIT, in the 1950s. He studied how media affected the citizens of Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iran, which were "traditional" states. He came to the conclusion that exposure to mass media helped to modernize these countries and allowed "....individuals to experience events in far-off places, forcing them to reassess their traditional way of life. Exposure to media, Lerner, argued, made traditional societies less bound by traditions and made them aspire to a new a modern way of life" (Thussu 56). Media literary is essential to survive globalizaiton. How can we expect third world countries to cotend on a global level if they lack media literacy? How do we go about increasing media literacy worldwide?
Something that deeply troubles me is the lack of awareness Americans have about global events. I know that not every American is ignorant, but with our resources and access to media, I feel that people should know more about what is happening in the world than they do. Ask the typical American college student what they know about current world events. I guarantee you that the majority of them are fairly ignorant. A greater stress has to be placed on world events in American culture. If you watch the "world news" on an American news program, it really is "American news" or how some event out there is affecting America. Many people have told me if you want "world news" watch it on BBC because it more balanced than American world news. It is sad when some people only know about AIDS in Africa because of the Gap. We cannot expect these developing countries to make a global presence when our media is not connected to them. In order for globalization to be a more peaceful process, we need to increase awareness and media literacy in developed and developing countries.
Here's an interesting article: "A Reflection on Media in the Third World" by John Mitchell. American media is extremely powerful and influential, but there needs to be more of a cultural stress placed on world news. I feel that American suffer a deficit in media literacy along withe developing countries.
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Brian,
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you describe the information from both Thussu and Chomsky. What really hit me was when you were discussing the effects of media on more traditional countries, and Iran stuck out like a sore thumb. In the news lately with all the protests and questioning of the government in Iran, we have a perfect example of this happening right now! And guess who is at the front of these protests? Students and lots of them. Why? Because as you have mentioned from citing Thussu's article, those able to understand the literature and information pouring out from the media around the globe will modernize, and in a traditional society, this will defintely grind a whole lot of gears. Especially in those types of nations, change (even moreso when it comes from the West) ranges from heavily resisted, to completely untolerated.
I'm thinking back now to when I took a course on Chinese history and learned about the extremes of the Chinese government to provide censorship on many aspects of media (especially the internet). Here's an article on the subject for further reading. news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2238236.stm. Believe it or not, many young Chinese have no idea of what happenned at Tiananmen Square and of course have never seen any video recordings of it. Once again almost like a mathematical formula, control of media=control of the people. Chomsky's video on Manufacturing Consent presents this in an all too sobering light, and almost makes you sort of nervous and more careful about what you're reading in the newspapers or what you're hearing from the White House. I'm not going to lie, the gravity of some of this literature is quite scary when it's relevance is taken into account. Nice post!
-Ian
Brian:
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that a good majority of Americans today are unaware of current global issues and events that have a great deal of significance on our lives. We can partly attribute this to the effect that media, mainly the television and the Internet, has on society and how we go about our lives. Even Noam Chomsky in the video "Manufacturing Consent" discussed how media influences the type of information that comes through and controls the opinions held by the people of the society. It's surprising to know that the average American watches 8 hours of TV on a daily basis. But how much, out of those 8 hours, is focused on informative news?
In my Law and Justice class that I took in the fall semester, we discussed how media influences our beliefs, morals and attitudes. It reinforces certain stereotypes and the more it gets played out on TV, the more socially acceptable/believed it becomes. For example, we often see celebrities and models being portrayed as thin and beautiful, indulging themselves in high-priced luxuries. Thus, we tend to believe that being skinny means you're beautiful, but we must learn that beauty comes in all sizes and is in the eye of the beholder.
Here is an interesting article about the effects that television can have on people today: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/14528/the_effects_of_television_on_american.html?cat=9