Divya McMillin, an academic scholar and professor in Media Studies at the University of Washington in Tacoma, explored the impact of globalization on lifestyle television and how this related to India. Two of the major situations that she discussed included the ideas of consumption and identity. Consumption explores the idea of consuming western influences. This includes business corporations like McDonalds and Pizza Hut, and cultural/media experiences such as the show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire.” Consumption gets it’s impact from the idea of globalization. Indians are becoming consumers of these type of lifestyle factors which has an impact on their society. Identity is what becomes of Indian citizens after they consume these western influences. They need to not only consume the products, but make it their own, create their own influences upon the corporations. This includes Indian’s form of cinema, Bollywood, and Lifestyle Malls, a one-stop shop for Indians.
Christians (2005) discusses how the idea of media ethics needs to explore globalization and self identity. Globalization is increasing everyday, and in order to fully understand it and it’s impact on a societies identity, three areas must be explored more: knowledge, value status, and the idea of the world being one or many. Knowledge explores the idea that people who say that they are knowledgeable tend to use it as a control. In terms of consumption and identity, we need to understand this because westerners believe that they have an upper hand over non-western countries. This impacts the ideas of consumption and creates an identity that is based on western culture. Values are said to be created in order to impress others. This is important to understand in consumption and identity because it goes along with one being better than another. The one who creates the value first is automatically more “developed” than the other country. Whether the world is one or many explains the idea of heterogeneity. Identity is created from consumerism over time, and if the consumerism is all the same, then there is more homogeneous societies.
The major message that is presented in the lecture is the idea that there is still an Indian culture. There is still a specific identity that India holds, despite it’s western influenced consumerism. This was mainly seen through the type of shows that were specific to Indian society. We need to understand that globalization has three major areas: knowledge, value status, and the one of many ideas. By understanding this form of media ethics, we could understand cultures more and realize that there is still a very much heterogeneity world.
Reference:
Christians, C. (2005). Ethical theory in communications research. Journalism Studies, 6(1), 3-14. doi:10.1080/1461670052000328168