Global Media and Culture: An example of violence?

             Robert McChesney in the article The Media System Goes Global, writes about the growing effect the global media system has on cultures. McChesney goes on to write about how a global marketing can sometimes have benefits—such as minimization of stereotypes in order to not alienate global populations, an example being portraying Arabs as evil or the antagonists. Although this maybe be a positive effect, the downside of the global media system are much more severe.

         
            McChesney writes how action films garner a lot of popularity in foreign markets. From personal experience I notice films with a lot of dialogue do not always translate well, humor has wide variety of interpretation according to languages or cultures, but action does not take a lot of explanation. Major film studios produce these films and because their wide distribution, they have a global reach. Many of these films have gratuitous amounts of violence, with little to no consequence.

               McChesney  writes that “Violent fare also has a certain de-evolutionary logic to it. Over time, films and TV programs need to become ever more grisly to attract attention.”  Film studios claim to be catering to an the audiences demands but at times there are real world consequences to these images. The book A Long Way Gone author Ismael Beah, describes his life in Sierra Leone as a child solider.  He explains how he was given drugs and was shown images of violent movies, most notably Rambo, he is told to behave like Rambo and kill others. He describes how his fellow child soldiers would compete to see who could complete Rambo moves better than the other; the consequences—hundreds maybe thousands dead. This statement was echoed in Liberia. In the film The Redemption of General Butt Naked, former warlord, General Butt Naked, (now known as Joshua Milton Blahyi) shows Jean Claude Van Dam movies to the child soldiers he recruits as an instructional video on war-fare. He also tells them their life is like a movie, and they will come back to life in another movie, in order for them to fight more fiercely.  These are the unintended consequences of a global media system’s wide distribution.

               I don’t want demonize action movies for their influence of war-fare globally—of coarse they are not solely responsible for these horrid events. To blame them alone would be over simplifying the all the issues in the respective countries, and world wide, but this is a chilling example of how global media can influence culture in a very disturbing way.