While scholars once thought media messages would give producers the power to educate people, or even brainwash them with government propaganda, shifting technologies, production centers and different social practices for viewing media have made it clear that the truth is more complex, according to Mark Allen Peterson. The routes media travel and the ways content is transformed are continuously surprising and frequently alarming, he said.

Peterson drew on his fieldwork in Egypt and India to describe some of the complex ways media is produced, circulated and consumed around the globe. He gave examples from Pokemon to Thai versions of The Terminator. He also showed a brief film describing how media industries can appropriate cultural concepts from local communities, transform them, and circulate them in a variety of media productions.

The talk, entitled “Globalization and the Media” was the second in a series of Friday noontime talks on global-local relations being held this semester in downtown Hamilton. The series, organized by Miami Hamilton anthropology professor John Cinnamon with support from Miami Hamilton Dean Daniel E. Hall, is designed to “begin a conversation with community members about current dimensions of globalization,” Cinnamon said. The series also serves as a contribution to Miami’s bicentennial series of events.

Hamilton Downtown is a storefront space at 221 High Street designed to increase Miami’s civic engagement with the wider community. The space hosts more than 100 events a year, from poetry readings to film showings to its “Egghead Café”, in which Miami professors offer thought-provoking informal discussions with Hamilton residents.