Global media consumption does not produce convergence in attitudes and beliefs

Evidence

Little or no evidence exists, however, to support the assumption that the emergence of pervasive global communications is producing significant convergence in attitudes and beliefs. “Entertainment,” as Michael Vlahos has said, “does not equate to cultural conversion.” Second, people interpret communications in terms of their own preexisting values and perspectives. “The same visual images transmitted simultaneously into living rooms across the globe,” Kishore Mahbubani observes, “trigger opposing perceptions. Western living rooms applaud when cruise missiles strike Baghdad. Most living outside see that the West will deliver swift retribution to non-white Iraqis or Somalis but not to white Serbians, a dangerous signal by any standard.” — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 159

Categorization

• XREF: Directly connects to the information-overload communication-theory material in the reader’s soundscape/media library; also the inattentional framing of media reception versus transmission. — connects to: Media simultaneity alone is insufficient to create a global social form — Karin Knorr Cetina & Urs Bruegger, Global Microstructures: The Virtual…, 93
• SHARE: Send to anyone who thinks streaming services are spreading Western values.