To Be Continued...

As the class comes to a close, there have been a lot of interesting terms and ideas learned in the class. Mass media effects more than I thought. As many know, popular shows that are shown in the United States are reproduced to air in other countries. The Simpsons, for instance, can be seen in various places in the Middle East. Even though the Middle East does not allow their television to show alcohol related things on the air, the Simpsons is still able to show. Jake Tapper and Avery Miller of ABC News write "from American Beer to Arab Soda." Hot dogs will become Egyptian beef sausages, and donuts will become popular Arab cookies called "kahk." Moe's Bar has been completely written out of Al Shamshoon, the name for the Simpsons in Arab. Is this surprising? Many of us growing up watch the legendary cartoon series Dragon Ball. It was dubbed from Japanese to English for the our pleasure. Ever notice that a lot of the money movies make are due to international revenue. Almost half the money Transformers made was from foreign money.

The media affects the way society thinks. Children are likely to listen or follow their role models. Partly the reason why I am playing football is because I saw Tim Brown back in 1995 destroy the NFL corners to get to the Pro Bowl. From that moment on I knew I was destined to play football. In a previous post, I said I use to wrestle because it was on cable. I believe that the media has to change in order to stay around. The Social responsibility theory of media says the media should serve the public by setting high standards ad avoid disseminating material that could lead to violence. The public has earned that right since they are paying for it. Ethics are at stake. Someone or something that has so much power should be responsible with it like Spiderman's uncle said, "with great power comes great responsibility," or مع قوة عظمى تأتي المسوءولية كبيرة in Arabic.

I'll leave on this note. Many nations are ahead of the U.S. on media literacy efforts. Society and the media need to change that to guarantee success in the future. Only time will tell.