Scenario

You work for a streaming video service company, Showcase Flix. Your company’s mission is to cater streaming video services to global audiences. A recent report shows that your audience consists of a wide range of ages, genders, and ethnicities. The media products that Showcase Flix shares should reflect how various cultures communicate and also aim to promote positive views of global cultures.

Your company’s main source of revenue is from advertisements and content produced by various external media sources. As a content analyst, you have been assigned a portfolio of media products to evaluate to ensure that it reflects the company’s values. Specifically, the senior content analyst has asked you to focus your evaluation on cultural representation in each product, as promoting positive images of global cultures is a core value of your company. Your evaluation will be used to guide decisions on whether to publish each product on your streaming service.

For your evaluation, the senior content analyst has asked you to select three media products from the media product directory.

Directions

Evaluation: In your evaluation, it is recommended that you review each media product several times to analyze how culture influences and is influenced by each media product. Use the standard evaluation form that your company has provided to you to evaluate cultural representations in various messages. In the evaluation form, you must include specific details that describe the elements you refer to in each media product, such as describing a person by what they are wearing, or including a timestamp from a video advertisement. Specifically, the senior content analyst has asked you to assess the following for each media product:

• Analyze explicit and implicit messaging in the media product. Consider whether each message is intended to confront, challenge, or shock the audience or whether there are specific values or ideologies incorporated throughout the messaging.

Each media product should reflect how various cultures communicate and also aim to promote positive views of global cultures. Specifically, the senior content analyst has asked you to evaluate the following in each media product:

• Identify cultural highlights in each media product. For instance, consider the use of titles, verbal tone, language, dress, setting, images, text, body language, signs, distance, eye contact, touch, gestures, facial expressions, and setting. Depending on the type of media product, you may also assess depictions of low- and high-context cultures.
• Identify culturally misrepresentative information or ideas within each media product. Consider generalizations, stereotyping, prejudices, discrimination, or other forms of misrepresentations.

Culture is a set of learned behaviors shared by a group of people through interaction. Communication and consumption of media products are able to propagate values of culture through the repeated interaction. Through the consumption of media messages, people create meaning about themselves in the way they talk, think, and even dress. In your evaluation, analyze the impacts of each media product on various audiences:

• Determine how each product influences your understanding of identities related to age, class, religion, gender, disability, LGBTQ identification, race, and ethnicity. For instance, you may agree with the set of values depicted, or you may challenge dominant beliefs or values that are embedded within messages you receive.
• Assess the potential consequences of sharing messages with various audiences. Consider the purpose of the message and how various audiences may be influenced. For instance, audiences may change their personal views, feel disrespected, question or distrust the media source, become fearful, or develop a generalization or negative perception toward certain groups (such as women, minorities, the elderly, etc.).