Mahmoud Galander

Global Television and Cultural Desensitization: Re-packaging Western Values for Non-western Markets Mahmoud Galander

This work discusses global television and its role in the process of cultural desensitizatiom. It investigates two famous western TV game shows, "Wheel of fortune" and "who wants to be a millionaire", in spreading western values in non-western cultures, namely in a chosen Muslim community. The work discusses the issue from the perspective of the psychological process of desensitization which posits that continued exposure to a negative stimulus tends to reduce the psychological tensions caused by the contradictions of such stimulus, and results in a gradual process of acceptance of the stimulus. The work is part of a series of research tracing the impact of the new communication technologies in redefining such major communication constructs like audience and mass media and media effects.