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Media is a bridge that connects us with the outside world. Moreover, media plays a great role in exposing different cultures to us and it also allows us to communicate with them. Nevertheless, this process of cross-cultural communication contains both opportunities and risks.
By allowing cross cultural communication, media has broadened our world-view. Now we see the world as one global village where no geographic, ethnic, or language boundaries restrict us from connecting with each others. A perfect example that illustrates that is Facebook. Moreover, chatting rooms play great role in destroying stereotypes,
Improving communicating skills, providing access to diverse ideas, and promoting, critical thinking and participation in social and political life. It is worth mentioning that some good movies promote cross-cultural understanding by reducing the cultural and religious gap globally. An example is the Bollywood movie “My Name is Khan”, it aimed to correct some wrong views that people had about Islam and Muslims after 9/11 event. Furthermore, media also raises awareness about critical social issues such as poverty, health and education. For instance Cross Culture Media is a non for profit organizations and its objective is to collect donation to help people who are need all over the world (1). By doing that, media promotes the statement “sharing is caring” globally and makes us realize that humanity is the bond that connects us no matter which country, culture or race we belong to. Despite these advantages, global media has some disadvantages as well.
There are risks associated with the global media. If we look into the Arab media, several years ago, the Qatar based channel al-Jazeera was only broadcasted in Arabic, and Westerners followed the news broadcasted in Al-Jazeera through Western news outlets. However, what was presented in these outlets was often domesticated to fit a news agenda that is characteristically Western, so it viewed the Arabs as “terrorists” for the Western viewers. Consequently, Stereotyping and Xenophobia are developed among the viewers due to this irresponsibility of the global media in reporting the accurate news. In addition, the imported TV programs and films affect the viewers’ identities and local culture, especially teenagers, because they are in an age phase, where they try to discover their own identity, and if they are highly exposed to the global media without parents’ guidance, they might consider this imported culture as a part of their identity. For example they will try to imitate their favorite celebrity’s style without thinking whether it’s appropriate for their local culture. Moreover, media always portrays life in a glamorous and flowery image, where there is always a happy ending, and the viewer might try to compare this media portrayed picture of top-notch life, with his normal everyday life, which may lead to dissatisfaction and even frustration. So what should be done to limit global media’s risk?
Several steps need to be taken prevent the negative outcomes of global media. First of all, a global consciousness among media professionals need to be developed to reduce the cross cultural isolation and ignorance and to develop shared values. Additionally, serious actions should be taken against any media channels that promote Stereotyping or racism, because media is supposed to connect people not separate them. Moreover, parents’ guidance is required to assure that their children are not misusing media’s tools. . Furthermore, viewers should distinguish between media’s fantasy and their lives reality.
To sum up, global media has opportunities and risk, and its risk can be reduced by taking the mentioned step. We have to realize that the world is not limited to our local region; we should go global and reduce intercultural ignorance. However, while going global, we have to assure that we are not affecting our local culture and identification negatively.
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Areej
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