Globalization is a global issue

Much of this semester we have discussed the way globalization has affected numerous areas of the world. For the most part, we have discovered that globalization takes effect, at some level, every where in the world. There are places that globalization has “taken over” and other countries who have fought against it, places such as North Korea.

Globalization has a negative connotation much of the time but through this class I learned that it isn’t always bad. Many countries adapt the customs of the United States but to the surprise of many, we inherit customs from other places as well. The US is a very diverse community of people with different beliefs and customs. I think this provides a wider array of knowledge and helps the global community be better informed about other countries around the world, which is a great thing.

A great example of globalization is Bollywood. My first exposure to an Indian movie was Slumdog Millionaire. This is a great example because although it is a foreign film, it was shot to appeal to large audiences across all cultures, particularly in the US. Bollywood movies are appearing more and more often in American movie theaters and some people don’t even recognize that they are from India.

Bollywood movies are much cheaper than American produced movies, much for the price American film production has to pay to above-the-line workers. Bollywood is picking up speed, rapidly, throughout the globe and gaining a lot of respect for the films. Their style of long, dramatic stories with music and dancing has stayed true and the rest of the world accepts it and spends their money on it. The globalization in this instance is a two-way street. Bollywood movies are being adapted for the rest of the world by dubbing them in numerous languages and changing their style slightly to cater to the expensive American taste. However, Bollywood also has an effect on American culture because their movies are increasingly popular. Slumdog Millionaire won the Academy Award for Best Picture, and that screams acceptance into our culture.

Overall, I have learned that globalization has affects all around the world and most countries contribute to the globalization of the world.

Al Jazeera would be positive for the U.S.

I found out discussion on Al Jazeera during class last week very interesting. We talked about whether or not the United States should provide an Al Jazeera channel to Americans. At the moment, the only people who have access to Al Jazeera, via television, are certain government officials. In my opinion I think an Al Jazeera channel should be created and allowed for a couple different reasons.

The first reason is that they have better access to the most important viewpoints in the world. With 65 bureaus all across the world, Al Jazeera has access to reporters from all parts of the world and who can speak many different languages. When you have a reporter that can blend into a culture and communicate directly with the people in the middle of the conflict or story, they will be able to report a viewpoint from within, instead of a story that has been communicated through numerous sources and translators.

Second of all, since they are based all around the world, I think they are less biased than new sources based in a single country. Although I don’t think that news can be completely unbiased, due to the human involvement, I believe Al Jazeera gets as close to the real story as possible. It also broadcasts 24 hours a day and 7 days a week, so there is always a way to get up-to-date news, happening at all times.

And lastly, 60 percent of the traffic to the Al Jazeera English website originates in the United States. So, although there is no channel allowed to broadcast Al Jazeera on television, Americans are still finding ways to watch it. Also, the government isn’t concerned about Americans watching on the internet, so I think allowing it on the television would allow an older generation to experience Al Jazeera.

Overall, I think it should be a allowed on American television and there should be a channel created. What better news is there than news from inside the conflict?

Cartoons easy way for children to relate

I think there are several reasons that children’s television programming is the third most popular gender in the global market. It is thought of as family friendly, it is cheap for the producer and the consumer, and children’s television is though of as a “universal language.” Children’s TV is a medium that is easy to relate to and people tend to relate moments of their according their favorite shows at that particular time. I think of shows like Doug, Rugrats, and Hey Arnold. Since parents can remember the shows they grew up with, they want their children to have the same experience and push them toward children’s programming. Most children’s shows are thought to be family friendly, something that everyone can watch together. Also, it is cheap to produce and to consume. Most cartoons have the same themes that just get repeated and told in different ways. Some are educational themes and others aren’t, but the themes seem to stay along the same lines. This is true from season to season of a children’s series as well as from show to show. This makes it easy to show reruns as well because children are willing to sit and watch multiple reruns of the same shows and never get bored with them. Therefore the companies producing these shows don’t have to come up with brand new scenarios and can reuse old episodes and still profit from them. Lastly, it is a universal language. Children are children no matter where they are in the world and they all have similar interests, especially in television shows. Nickelodeon broadcasts shows across the world because kids like the same TV shows. If families all across the world can relate through the same children shows, this is probably why children’s TV programming is the third most popular gender in the global market. Children and Television

Journalists face danger to report news

After doing so much research on Russia, it started to feel like I was researching the ways and the reasons journalists were killed. There were also many sources about where journalists are killed the most. This got me thinking about students just like us. We take for granted in the United States that we are going to be safe reporting whatever we want and saying whatever we want, for the most part anyway. These people are choosing a profession, willingly, that they know is a danger to their life.

Russia is the third dangerous country in the world to be a reporter. The first is Iraq, which is pretty obvious because it is a war zone. But Russia is not, the government has just done a complete job of winning their people over, to the point that a lot of them don’t mind that they don’t get all the news the should get. Instead they receive propaganda the government puts together.

Another country in turmoil right now is Libya. The Committee to Protect Journalists has reports that there has been more than 50 attacks on journalists since the political unrest began in Libya last month. There is also a reported 10 journalists that are missing and one has died. A lot of media outlets have been blocked in Libya, including Al-Jazeera’s Twitter, Facebook and website. Journalists houses have been broken into by federal officials and their computers and phones have been confiscated. As a result, many of these journalists have been detained. Libyan officials have found numerous ways for these journalists to stop their reporting, or at least to try and make them stop.

I have so much respect for the journalists who put their lives on the line just so people like us can get the real news. The link below show the timeline of what has been reported to happen to reporters to Libya in just a months time.


Journalists under attack in Libya

Telenovelas push social issues

During our class discussion and the reading about telenovelas in Latin America, I was interested in the concept of “social merchandising.” The reading discussed that in these telenovelas, many of the plots were based on real social problems that these countries were facing. The idea was, and still is, that telenovelas are so popular that people take the messages, that are being related through the characters and the plot, to heart. In an article that I found on the internet (see link below) it mentions that everyone in these countries watches telenovelas.

“Residents of shacks in frontier towns in Amazonia and high-rise apartments in São Paulo, wealthy matrons and humble maids, children and their grandparents, attorneys and janitors (and even many intellectuals who insist that they despise television) all share a common fascination with the characters and the plot convolutions of hit novellas.”

The creators of these telenovelas strongly believe that this a great way to reach audiences about incredibly important subjects. In the reading, it mentions that in Brazil specifically, many telenovelas’ messages go toward reducing the infant mortality rate. The article I posted below is specifically about the telenovelas in Brazil. It also mention that sometimes they use “social merchandising” even when it isn’t worked into the plot. The example that it gave includes a character seeing a poster on the wall about a particular issue or campaign and stopping in the middle of the telenovela to promote the campaign.

Also, in class, it was mentioned that “social merchandising” may also exist in the United States through an accepted body image. I believe that it shouldn’t be called “social merchandising” because I don’t think that pushing this image on people, both men and women, is intentional necessarily. I think the American society has come to except these images and it isn’t intentionally putting them on display on television. However, I do think that “social merchandising” exists in shows like “Secret Life of an American Teenager” where the message of preventing teenage pregnancy is so obviously being shoved in the viewers’ faces.

In closing, I think American people are so overexposed to media that “social merchandising” isn’t as effective and shows in America don’t have as much power of voice because there are so many that are popular.


The Brazilian Telenovelas Social Merchandising

Hollywood's multiple levels of dominance

When considering the reasons for Hollywood’s dominance of the film industry I think of multiple reasons and in reality there are probably hundreds of reasons that people could think of. Hollywood has always been a dominating force in the film industry and most countries around the world consume form of media from our country as well as many other forms of media in the United States.

One main reason I can think of as a reason for this dominance is Hollywood produces the best films. This may seem like such a simple reason, but it is logical. If the films that were being produced in Hollywood weren’t the highest quality, than other countries would be less likely to consume these productions the quantities that they do.

Another reasons for Hollywood dominance, I believe, is it has grown so dominant that there is very little chance that anyone will be able to take over that dominance. Essentially, Hollywood is an oligopoly, because there are few dominant companies and they can control the condition of the market because of this. And with the oligopoly creating top quality products, it makes it even harder to compete with it.

Third, the Hollywood film industry is much more technologically advance than a lot of other places around the world. By the use of this prolific technology other film producing countries cannot keep up with Hollywood. Although there are many other countries that produce films, Hollywood produces so many high quality films because of the advanced technology.

And lastly, I believe the whole “ambience” of Hollywood plays a huge role in their dominance. Hollywood is the place to be for people who want to make it big and become famous, particularly in the film industry. This attracts all of the best talent, in every aspect of the production, from around the world and therefore making the talent pool in Hollywood the greatest.

China's resistance to media giants

Media giants or conglomerates have been dwindling. There are now only seven major media giants: The Walt Disney Company, Viacom, New Corporation, Bertelsmann, Vivendi Universal, Sony, and AOL Time Warner. These companies own the vast majority of the media around the world. With so few media outlets competing, there is less pressure to provide the public with all of the information.

These companies are able to continuously provide only the information that they want to provide because there is no threat of them being passed up by another media source. These seven companies are what local media are constantly competing with. The local news is an important source of many communities around the world but with media giants airing national news at the same times as local news, there is a fear that local news will be faded out.

However, there is one part of the world that has fought back against these media giants: China. China has slowly let these media giants into their country through certain mediums and airwaves. However, the difference between China and many other countries is that they make sure to maintain control of their airwaves. In some form or another, China is a media giant in itself because of the information flow it controls.

In the article posted below they mention “the major theme is, the government is focused on promoting its local media to a scale and profitability that it can withstand competition.” Although, some of these media giants appear in the China media circuit, they aren’t the big names in town. The article specifically mentions News Corp, who is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and the fact that out of the $30 billion in company revenues in 2009, China made up for less than 1% of that total. One of the television channels they own, Xing Kong, is a top ten channel but still only has a 3-4% share of viewership.

China has made sure that media giants haven’t come to own their airwaves and done an excellent job at that. They do control what their citizens can look at in all forms of media, but they recognize the importance of local news and make sure these outlets have enough power.

Many media giants and other large companies, such as Google and eBay, have failed to gain any power or revenue in China due to the Chinese-based companies that sell the same thing. Some corporations have found success by selling programs to China’s top broadcasting companies. Disney has had success in China as well in the merchandising and theme park industry, building Disneyland in Hong Kong, with plans to build one in Shanghai.

Do you think other countries should take a lesson from China and start putting more regulations on the media giants and pushing toward more local media?

Link: Global media titans hit China wall, take local route