Culture and communication

The essentials

Culture is the shared way of life of a group: its language, beliefs, values, customs, food, dress, art and rituals. Culture is learnt and passed on mainly through communication. Mass media are therefore powerful carriers of culture: they preserve traditions, spread them to new audiences and also introduce new ideas and lifestyles.

Key points

• Media transmit culture across generations, for example through folk music on radio or mythological serials on television.
• Media help cultural exchange: films, music and food shows spread one region's culture to others.
• Representation is the way media show people, groups, places and events. It is always a selection, never the complete reality.
• A stereotype is a fixed, oversimplified image of a group, such as showing women only as homemakers or a community only as comic characters.
• Repeated stereotypes can shape how audiences think about real people and can lead to prejudice.
• Media can also challenge stereotypes by showing diverse and realistic characters.
• Cultural imperialism refers to the concern that media from powerful countries can dominate and weaken local cultures.
• Folk and traditional media (puppetry, street theatre, folk songs) are culture-rich channels often used for development messages.

Exam tips

Be ready to identify a stereotype in an example advertisement or film scene, and to explain why it is a problem. Remember that representation is about choices made by media producers.

Common mistakes

A stereotype is not always openly negative; even a "positive" fixed image (for example, that all members of a group are good at one thing) is still a stereotype because it ignores individual differences.