Have you ever thought about how much influence we in the western world have on the non-western cultures?  It’s rather amazing how deep our messages go.  Sure, we’ve all seen and heard about the thousands of McDonald’s scattered around the globe and how Coca-Cola seems to be a universal language.  But, while I was checking out one of the new databases the libraries have signed up for, I ran across an interesting article about a study that was done on Korean newspaper audiences and their perceptions of Turkey (umm…the country).  Turns out that quite a bit of what the western media has to say about Turkey ends up being what the Koreans think of Turkey and what makes it into their newspapers.  Here’s a quote from the article: “This research clearly indicates that non-Western (Korean) people learn and inquire about another non-Western nation (Turkey) and its identity via Western cultural representation.” From Turan, Ayku et al. “Perceptional Differences of International News: Western Media Influence on Non-Western Media”  China Media Research 5:2, 2009.

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