Active Audience
In the article The Global, the Local and the Hybrid Marwan Kraidy discusses the impact of the global media on the cultural complexity of the Maronites, the Christian community in the Middle East. As the author notices, Lebanon has access to various channels that demonstrate dramas, TV series, movies, cartoons in Arabic, French, English, etc. (Kraidy 458). The author provides various examples of the Maronites being an active audience. The theory of the active audience implies that the audience does not stay passive, but engages in the information media transmits and compares or reflects on this information regarding its own socio-cultural background, personal views, etc. (Nightingale 220). In this paper, a prominent example of an active audience is the Maronites’ attitude towards Egyptian movies. As one of the Maronites states, some of the Egyptian movies address such relevant problems as corruption or inefficiency. Thus, this opinion is a reflection of his own “exclusionary, even neocolonial” understanding of the content (Kraidy 465). This interlocutor compares the ‘traditional’ Arab world to the ‘technological’ Western world through the Egyptian media.
Another good example is the Maronites’ connection to the American shows, e.g. The Cosby Show or Beverly Hills 90210. The author notices that while some of the Maronites used The Cosby Show to influence parental restrictions and gain some freedom, discussing the actions of the characters, the others strongly related to the Beverly Hills 90210, or even used the scenes from the show to improve their social life (Kraidy 466). This example proves that active audience can directly engage with the media and exploit it in real life for a particular reason.
Power of the Media
Meenakshi Durham approaches the impact of the media on the adolescent South Asian immigrant girls in the article Constructing the “New Ethnicities”: Media, Sexuality, and Diaspora Identity in the Lives of South Asian Immigrant Girls. The author’s aim is to prove that the media is able to influence the perception of the girls’ self-image or the culture (American) they are engaged in. Among other examples, two were especially interesting. The interviewed teenagers noticed that they were not allowed to visit parties where their peers might have been because their parents’ perception of an American high school was influenced by the media: “They ask me stuff like, was anybody smoking? Was anybody doing drugs? Was anybody in the bathroom most of the time?” (qtd. in Durham 150). The parents’ picture of an American school was close to that one sees in the Hollywood movies, but as the teenagers stated, it had nothing to do with the real life: “They don’t know about things here, and they believe what’s in the movies…” (qtd. in Durham 150). Although the girls tried to present themselves as critical viewers, they exploited a tactic similar to what their parents used. As one of the girls stated, you could “always talk about the TV show Friends” if you were not sure what to discuss next (qtd. in Durham 150). The teenagers labeled the show as “unrealistic”, “stereotypical”, and “stupid”, but admitted they watched it also to communicate successfully with the non-Indian peers (Durham 152). However, they rejected the idea that the show influenced them in the same way the Hollywood movies influenced their parents (Durham 152). As these two examples show, even if the members of an audience understand the impact the media on the others, they might not admit that they are too exposed to this impact.
Works Cited
Durham, Meenakshi. “Constructing the “New Ethnicities”: Media, Sexuality, and Diaspora Identity in the Lives of South Asian Immigrant Girls.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 21.2 (2004): 140-161. Print.
Kraidy, Marwan M. “The Global, the Local, and the Hybrid: A Native Ethnography of Globalization.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication 16.4 (1999): 456-476. Print.
Nightingale, Virginia. The Handbook of Media Audiences, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print.