Media Trends
Depiction of Culture through Advertising in Indian Market: Developing a Model
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Arpan Bumb, Sangeeta Sharma
Advertising is omnipresent and cannot be ignored. The advertisers intertwine the cultural practices prevalent in the country to make a lasting impact on the viewers. The culture of the nation has the deep impact on the psychology of the individuals and therefore can increase the recall value. India is extremely rich in culture and heritage and therefore the advertisers get opportunities to project cultural values in different ways. The use of emotional appeals in the advertisements enables the advertisers to reach the heart of the target audience. There are deluge of advertisements targeting the young consumer which reflect Indian culture. The study attempts to develop a model for depiction of culture in the advertisements taking into account the rituals, clothing, language, jingoism, festivity, religion, etc. The historical perspective will enable to gauge the change that has taken place over the period of time. The analysis of 100 TV commercial during the prime time and 200 print media advertisements will be done to identify significant cultural values being transmitted to consumers and see their impact on the recall value.
Simulating A Ban On Food Advertising
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Matthew Metzgar
Of the thousands of food commercials that children see every year, less than 1% are commercials for fruits and vegetables. This large differential in advertising follows from the different economic structure of the markets. Simple commodity foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are relatively similar and can be modeled as a perfectly competitive market. Processed foods with their many manufacturer variations are modeled as monopolistic competition. Economic theory predicts that little advertising takes place under perfect competition, while heavy advertising takes place under monopolistic competition. Analysis of food commercials shows just this trend. Advertisement of processed foods increased demand and consumption. This consumption has helped contribute to a worldwide expansion in obesity. This paper considers how a complete ban on food advertising would affect social welfare. An advertising ban would reduce producer surplus within the processed food market, but the resulting lowered consumption of processed foods may reduce public health care expenditures. A microeconomic analysis is presented that details the predicted changes in food consumption patterns, obesity, and health care expenses from a ban on food advertising.
Platformization, Convergence, and China’s Global Media Strategy
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shujen Wang
China’s media policy has ventured into a watershed moment. The recent rise of media platforms is in line with the “going out” policy of the past two decades. No longer is China looking only for foreign investments, the state is actively encouraging its media to venture out globally. In the meantime, foreign content providers are trying to distribute contents to the world’s fastest growing film market, facing regulatory and market restriction hurdles. All the while when China moves towards pan-entertainment, converging media production, distribution, exhibition, ticketing and marketing networks.This paper examines the fast-moving media and cultural ecosystem in China in the contexts of the state, globalization, technology, and law. More specifically, it will look at platform/distribution in the context of convergence while investigating questions of online copyright enforcements and piracy implications.
Teaching Chinese in Global Context: A Cross-cultural Approach to Foreign Language Instruction
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Weihsun Mao
Foreign language instruction aims not only to foster foreign language proficiency, but also to cultivate learners into “citizens of the world,” according to the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). An important approach towards accomplishing this goal consists of encouraging students to compare practices and products associated with their target language with their background language and culture. How to effectively combine language learning with cultural competence, specifically in a contemporary and globalized classroom, remains a challenge. This study, based on Chinese language courses taught at a community college in California, demonstrates that the approach taken by both traditional and new Chinese textbooks of introducing global elements solely for Chinese vocabulary or emphasizing China’s insularity vis-à-vis other culture is counterproductive. Conversely, establishing a framework that organically anchors Chinese language and culture in a global context provides a means for communicative competence via students’ articulations and explanations of culturally relevant symbols, situations, issues, and phenomena. I cite examples from my implementation of this approach of teaching Chinese within a global context framework. I discuss the pedagogical methods of incorporating international sources, media and languages into the Chinese foreign language education, ultimately demonstrating how effective communication impacts understanding and collaboration in an interdependent world. Overall, this study shows that teaching Chinese against a global backdrop approach substantiates students’ interest, accelerates students’ acquisition of a foreign language, and propels learners to higher levels of both language proficiency and global competency.
