Global Media Flows

When the influential King of the Zulus, Goodwill Zwelithini, was quoted as saying that foreigners "should pack their bags and go" many saw it as a precursor to the attacks which have mainly been targeted at immigrants from other African states.

...Yet these newspapers are only read by 5% of the population. The majority of the South African nation gets their news from monitored and regulated networks such as SABC (Al Jazeera: South Africa, xenophobia and the media). The voice of the newspapers is more truthful, accurate, and honest, and their content needs to reach a much larger audience.

This video makes it very obvious that xenophobia is a problem that portions the US population has struggled with in the past and still struggles with today.

The dominance of Western media and culture has become so prominent that Western culture is impacting almost every country around the world in one way or another. This is problematic for these countries and the Western world as well, because the West is not being exposed to the various global cultures and practices, some of which would improve our own society and enrich each individual exposed to it.

The Bollywood in Indian and American Perceptions

By Jonathan Matusitz and Pam Payano

Abstract

"This analysis compares Indian and US perceptions of Bollywood. It is the first to provide such a comparison. Overall, the authors found that both Indian and US perceptions of Bollywood are positive and negative. On some dimensions, Indian and US perceptions differ sharply from each other; on other dimensions, a few similarities become apparent. Overall, Indian perceptions of Bollywood are both negative and positive. While their concept of Bollywood is perceived as demeaning, stereotyping of the Muslim culture, and alienating economically and culturally marginalised audiences, it is also recognised as treasuring India’s national identity, portrayal of women in some circles (e.g., alcoholics attempting to become accepted into the chic and alluring society), Hindi traditional lifestyles, and lighthearted humor. While the Bollywood phenomenon has permeated many cultures worldwide, these cultures still differ in the way they perceive this rising Indian movie industry. Not only does this analysis serve to demonstrate many lessons in cross-cultural understanding; it also corroborates the fact that Bollywood embodies an emerging socio-economic current of globalisation. It is one of the largest movie industries in the world, producing about 1,000 movies a year, and it has heavily influenced Hollywood and other Western movie markets."