Why do you think the world looks to television to get there knowledge on other races ?

Question

you cant learn about the mexican culture by watching george lopez you cant learn about the black culture by listening to rap

and you cant learn about the white culture by watching them dance off beat

do you think things like this are a sign of americas ignorance

Answer 1

I honestly don't think the majority of the world attempts to get their knowledge about culture from TV.......  that is rather shallow.

edit: maybe your world is, mine is not.  And if you are watching and believing everything you see on TV, that's sad.

go out there and live it, man.

Answer 2

People say they don't, but I constantly hear, about the media making women dress like whores, or kids kill people, so how do they explain that

Answer 3

As an American, I can honestly state that I believe most Americans ARE ignorant about other cultures.  That said, you _can_ learn about other cultures on television.  You just have to pick your channels and shows carefully.  We have quite a few educational channels that run good stuff about other cultures.  While you won't learn everything, you will learn at least some things.

For example, I suspect a lot of people would think that most ancient Polynesian cultures were ignorant savages.  They'd be quite wrong.  Polynesian cultures were engaging in open ocean travel in canoes without compasses.  They achieved this by observing the world around them, and realizing that you can tell where you are in relationship to an island you can't see by the way the waves are acting.  They even had a mnemonic device to help them remember what various wave patterns meant, made from flexible sticks lashed together in a particular way.

Answer 4

But you can learn an enormous amount about the South African people by watching, "Cry, the Beloved Country" - you learn that they're just like us.

It's the same with any other culture - it's the quality of the production that matters as well as the mind-set of the director.

If he wants to show the other cultures as alien and forbidding, that's what he teaches through his work.

If he wants to show other cultures as PERSONS first, then he shows how similar they are to us.

Quality programming is still the answer.

Answer 5

well considering people tend to stay within their own race, they dont know much about other race except what people tell u or what u see, in this case, the television.what u r saying is very true, and it is sad and unfortunate things are this way. but it will prolly stay this way unless people begin to meet others of different races and abolish their steriotypical ideas of others.

Answer 6

I do not think that most people draw conclusions on other races from what they see on television.  Ergo, I disagree with the premise of your question.

Answer 7

TV Is the only option many have to connect to the word ,it's to bad that the media broadcasts so many incorrect thing and innocent people believe them.,It reminds me of Native culture and the Hollywood indian image.