International Mass Communication

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culture to apply to their press and broadcasting. I would like to take my home country, Vietnam, for example. Vietnam is absolutely an Eastern nation, which means we normally do not have holidays like Thanks giving or Christmas. However, after internationalization and globalization, some parts of Vietnamese people celebrate them and news on them are updated on social media as fantastically as in Western countries. One more example is that Vietnam once had conservative holdings in press and broadcasting; the status of freedom was rather low. Nevertheless, in the flow of Westernization, human rights and the freedom of speech in journalism in my country has been raised considerably.

The globalization of media is happening all over the world. If press and broadcasting in each country before only reported news and information on its own events, now we can observe the diversity in coverage of media outlets. For instance, dantri.com is the main economic and political online newspaper in Vietnam. It not only reports on national events but also on international latest news, especially on the U.S. 2016 election and the density of those international articles is about 50 percent.

The internationalization of mass communication also brings benefits to the growth of world economy. As we all know, commercial advertising and public relations is increasing dramatically recent years, showing that we can make a huge amount of money through modern communication.

Another interesting thing to note down is that international mass communication is changing diplomacy in the world, with the help of social media. A picture of a child bursting into tear after war happing in Syria, a picture of starving children in Somalia can appeal to pathos, thus exerting “pressure on their government to intervene with millitary force” (Hachten and Scotton).

Despite all of the above benefits brought by modern international mass communication, especially social media, I think there still are some downsides of this ongoing process. For example, recently there have been some reports on the fact that parents check in on Facebook with their children at certain places and they do not know someone is preparing for a kidnapping. Besides, when it comes to international journalism, where there is not much freedom of press and the censorship of online content is controlled strictly, journalists might have to face dangerous situations when mentioning sensitive political issues.

In the “Indications of Improvement” part, the authors state that: “To the Western journalist, the press must be independent of authority, not an instrument of government, so that it can report the news and expose the abuses of governments at home and abroad.” (Hachten and Scotton). I think this assumption will influence how the U.S. reports on other countries, based on whether journalism in U.S. stays independent from the government or not.

4.

Here is my example of of an editorial cartoon: the 2016 U.S. presidential election. It uses a strong stereotype that Donald Trump is not a good candidate to state the point of view that voters are not wise when voting for Donald Trump. As you can see in the cartoon, from the result of the 2016 election, it predicts that the future pollsters are people who have low level of knowledge; that is why they vote for a Republican candidate like Trump. It is controversial because there are not only Trump’s haters; there are also his advocates out there so maybe they will not like this cartoon.

*Note: Since I cannot include the picture here (it disappear when I upload on Canvas), I attached a link to this picture. It is the 6th picture of 596 pictures in this link, with the title “Future Election Pollsters…”.

5.

Over the last ten years, the technological advance I think has made the most difference in terms of International Mass Communication is the break out of smart phones, which was marked by the launch of iPhone in January 2007 (The Guardian). In my opinion, it had created a revolution in social media, in the way people get access to both national and international news and information. With smart phones, people find it much easier to approach the most updated news, media outlets and conglomerates also find it much easier to reach their potential readers, thus opening a new era for International Mass Communication.

6.

Talking about lack of diversity in international mass media, I would like to take an example of gender stereotypes happening in U.S. Greta Van Susteren is “a respected legal analyst who moved from CNN to Fox in 2002. At the debut of her show, On the Record, Van Susteren, sitting behind a table that allowed viewers to see her short skirt, had undergone not only a hair and wardrobe makeover, but also surgical enhancement to make her appear younger and more attractive” (“Understanding”). That is, female roles in the media are usually valued for their appearance and attractiveness, not for their knowledge or intelligence, which is opposite to male roles.

Works Cited

Authur, Charles. “The History of Smartphones: Timeline”. The Guardian. 10 Dec. 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/24/smartphones-timeline.

Hachten, William A. and Scotton, James F., “The World News Prism”. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Print (p).

Handelsman, Walt. “Future Election Pollsters…”. U.S. News. Dec 10. 2016, http://www.usnews.com/opinion/cartoons/2015/01/30/editorial-cartoons-on-the-2016-presidential-elections.

“Undestanding Media and Culture: An Introduction to Mass Communication”. Libraries. 10 Dec. 2016, http://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/14-2-ethical-issues-in-mass-media/.

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/cartoons/2015/01/30/editorial-cartoons-on-the-2016-presidential-elections

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/jan/24/smartphones-timeline

http://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/14-2-ethical-issues-in-mass-media/