Meida in India

International Student Interview

Have you ever realized that here in the United States, we rarely see any kind of advertisements or entertainment from other countries? If you think about it, how often do we see commercials with famous foreign people, or hear new song from hit artists in places like India. We may have a channel here or there that is relevant towards Latin people who only speak Spanish, but other than that we hardly see any kind of commercials or ads from other countries. Because of this I would have never guessed that in some countries, United States media had such an impact on them. In some countries, they may see more U.S. media than media from their own country.
The other day I was able to interview an international student who was from New Delhi, India. Her name was Sakshi and she is 20 years old and she came to the United States in February 2007. While interviewing her, my main goal was to find out how much media her country was getting from the United States, how it was impacting the younger people and what the older generation thought about all of the messages it was sending.

While interviewing Sakshi, I have learned that the people in the part of her country where she is from, they are very accustomed to the media we send over there. Media sources ranging from our television shows, top artists and their new hit songs, radio, commercials and their advertisements, to the biggest sources of media, such as, ipods, phones and the internet. To her and the other people in her country the media we have here in the United States is pretty normal to them. Since U.S media was so common there, I wanted to know what did they think about it and how was it impacting their lives and beliefs. I wanted to know, was the media affecting them the same way it was affecting us here in the United States? Surprisingly her response wasn’t a surprise.

Basically, people in her country thought it was both good and bad. Of course, the older generations, who are more old fashion and are very conservative, look down on all the media that the U.S. is sending over there. They think that it has a negative impact on the younger generations, making them greedy and spoiled. Not only is it the materialistic things that are an issue, but also all the violence and nudity that the younger generations are being exposed to. The older generations think that everything is so open now and that there isn’t anything that is private. The younger generation, on the other hand, love the media they are getting from us. They have grown so accustom to it that they don’t even realize the impact that it’s having on them. Just like for the people here in the United States, it’s hard for them to distinguish from their needs and their wants. Not every part of India has the luxury of living like Sakshi did when she lived there. In my opinion the people who didn’t live in New Delhi, know the difference between the things they want and need. They haven’t been influenced yet by what the U.S. has to offer them.

Since doing this interview, I have been able to get a general idea of how much of our media is being shown and advertised in other countries, such as India. I have also, realized that the United States media doesn’t only affect us here in the states, but also those in other countries.