CURRENTLY IN CULTURE: Global Communications

Burton Buller

I looked around. Whom was the voice addressing?

"What kind of gun do you use?"

Nigeria, 1971. I had just arrived for my first visit to Africa.

A pre-teen fellow emerged from the crowd. He was looking at my lace boots and blue jeans. "Where's your horse?" he asked, addressing me directly. He seemed to want to approach me. Yet, he hesitated, seeming to distrust my quizzical smile.

I was mystified. Whatever was this kid talking about?

After a few more sentences, I discovered something I would encounter again and again in many parts of the world. This young man had been to the American movies. Here he had learned what Americans do--make love, ride horses and shoot their enemies. I was expected to conform to the image. After all, since I wore boots and blue jeans, I was half way there. It came as a shock to me that this was how North Americans were perceived by young Africans.

In 1971, Ted Turner had likely not yet even conceived of CNN as a global communications network. Foreign access to North American culture was more limited then than it is now. I often wonder if the increase in media messages that CNN and other networks have unleashed has been accompanied by an increase in cultural understanding? Or has the opposite been true? Has the flood of images of Madonna, Michael Jordan and O.J. Simpson given an even more distorted view of North Americans to those peering in through the blinking windows of television and movie screens?

What about the messages that reach us from other lands? Do they fairly and accurately represent the people who live there?

When you hear the word "Africa", what comes to mind? Bustling, car-choked cities and well-groomed yards? Or do you think of refugee camps and emaciated children? I've seen both--but the latter is rare, the former common.

Some observers express deep concern that today's means of delivering information have fallen into the hands of a few giant enterprises. All are Western conglomerates who see information primarily as a commodity to be packaged and sold. Their primary audience is those of us who live in North America and western Europe, because we have the money to pay for this information. We, as a market, determine what stories get told.

The end result is that the majority of the people in this world, even though we live in an age of unlimited communication possibilities, never get to tell their story. We seldom hear their point of view. As the ability to communicate increases, the diversity of information seems to decrease.

Newly emerging television networks and video outlets outside North America often buy this Western-produced information for sale in their own markets, because they can buy it for less money than it costs to produce their own. Theirs is a secondary market, highly lucrative for Western television, film and news producers. The production cost has already been paid by you and me, and any sale to foreign distributors is gravy.

In Moscow, one can watch the American television show "Dallas" with all speaking parts read by the same brusque male reader. Baywatch

is reported to be the most widely distributed television show in the world. Do these programs present the values and information others need to come to a fuller understanding of us? What do we receive in return that will help us gather a more rounded understanding of them?

The church can play a role in making sure that a diversity of viewpoints is heard in communications systems they influence. With more Mennonite Brethren in India and Zaire than in North America, one hopes we will eventually begin to see and hear their stories. Who knows?

Maybe future young Africans will encounter a Western television program where North Americans are not characterized as Ewings or Dirty Harrys or John Waynes. And maybe we will discover stories told by them that represent their people in honest, well-rounded ways.

I hope the church gets behind telling these stories. Because the way it looks from here, the church may be the last best hope of pressing communications to promote understanding rather than misunderstanding.

Burton Buller is executive director of MB Communications, a Manitoba MB Conference radio and television ministry.