World History: The West and the World Research Essay – Introduction

World History: The West and the World Research Essay
Introduction

In the late twentieth Century, what are the main vehicles for the spread of Western ideas, and what resistance are these vehicles encountering in the non-western world? What’s the most popular past-time in today’s world? What else but television. The media that we choose to watch can have a great effect on us as a society, and we are beginning to see the benefits and consequences of media very well. Media greatly changed following World War 2. Some say it was for the better while the more skeptical individuals say that it is beginning to ruin us.

So what did happen in terms of the way media was being spread from the western world following World War 2 and how where these changes being looked at by non-western civilizations?

During the last half of the 20th century the way media was being sent around the world changed dramatically. Radio, television, cassette tapes, compact discs, the World Wide Web, satellites; all these and many more technological advances greatly changed the way people started to communicate, and what took days to send to one part of the world before-hand, quickly became almost instantaneous. Of course these advances are great for those that are always thinking positively about their future in the western world. But what about the less fortunate people in the non-western world? How are they benefiting from these advances? Or are they against them? Well, the citizens themselves of these countries may not mind the fact that everything that happens to them is being shown to the rest of the world in a matter of minutes, but some of the governments of these countries are really being put to work in trying to keep the truth about many of their lies from reaching their citizens. This freedom of information has caused many different protests such as riots by the citizens from these countries towards their governments and the western world.