PRESERVING OUR TRADITIONS
Martín Sánchez Sierra
Twentieth century was called the century of the image by the invention of the television. The television came to reinvent the world in which we lived. It gives us new realities and the information flowed from everywhere in instantaneous and simultaneous way. It occupied a preponderant place in the homes and its power of influence came growing until became the most popular mass media in the last decade. Television has become an instrument of alienation, which means, that television is causing the nation's identity loss in Mexico.
Due to the high costs of production of recorded or live programs for the television, the Mexican industrialists turned around their eyes to the United States of America to acquire productions at very low cost, but the risk was very big. They not only bought recorded tapes, but very clear messages on the "kindness" of North America culture. When these programs started to be transmitted in Mexico, these messages were perceived by the viewers, including young people, who consumed them until they thought that this culture belonged to them and they started to reject their own.
If we consider that the nation's identity is everything about who we are, how we see ourselves, and how the others see us including race, ethnicity, culture, rites, ceremonies, traditions and sharing between people who belong to a social group called the nation, we must ask ourselves if we still conserve these characteristics or we had changed them by the Americans. Television, throughout the years, has shown the stereotype of which must be the Mexican woman; a stereotype that even not corresponds, in essence, to our reality. The Latin woman is brown skin, short, dark eyes and hair and television shows only blond girls.
The tradition to celebrate the Death People Day's on November 2nd has been in serious risk of being forgotten by the constant messages on television about the celebration of Halloween. The way to dress, clothes, accessories, the perfumes, shown on the television by the protagonists of the North American series, are absorbed by our young people and they want to imitate them. Inclusively, recent surveys in Mexico reveal that Mexican young people know more of the television characters and the world of Walt Disney than their own national heroes.
Margaret Mead, writes in her book " Childhood in Contemporary Cultures": "to build a culture in which the past be useful but not coercive, we must put the future between us, like something that is ready to be helped and to be protected before it is born, otherwise, it will be too late." We must be conscious on our roots, our traditions, and our culture and be open to kindness of the other cultures, but not assume them when they really do not correspond to us.
Notes: Barbero, Jesús Martín. JÓVENES: COMUNICACIÓN E IDENTIDAD. http://www.campus-oei.org/pensariberoamerica/ric00a03.htm
Martín Sánchez Sierra
Twentieth century was called the century of the image by the invention of the television. The television came to reinvent the world in which we lived. It gives us new realities and the information flowed from everywhere in instantaneous and simultaneous way. It occupied a preponderant place in the homes and its power of influence came growing until became the most popular mass media in the last decade. Television has become an instrument of alienation, which means, that television is causing the nation's identity loss in Mexico.
Due to the high costs of production of recorded or live programs for the television, the Mexican industrialists turned around their eyes to the United States of America to acquire productions at very low cost, but the risk was very big. They not only bought recorded tapes, but very clear messages on the "kindness" of North America culture. When these programs started to be transmitted in Mexico, these messages were perceived by the viewers, including young people, who consumed them until they thought that this culture belonged to them and they started to reject their own.
If we consider that the nation's identity is everything about who we are, how we see ourselves, and how the others see us including race, ethnicity, culture, rites, ceremonies, traditions and sharing between people who belong to a social group called the nation, we must ask ourselves if we still conserve these characteristics or we had changed them by the Americans. Television, throughout the years, has shown the stereotype of which must be the Mexican woman; a stereotype that even not corresponds, in essence, to our reality. The Latin woman is brown skin, short, dark eyes and hair and television shows only blond girls.
The tradition to celebrate the Death People Day's on November 2nd has been in serious risk of being forgotten by the constant messages on television about the celebration of Halloween. The way to dress, clothes, accessories, the perfumes, shown on the television by the protagonists of the North American series, are absorbed by our young people and they want to imitate them. Inclusively, recent surveys in Mexico reveal that Mexican young people know more of the television characters and the world of Walt Disney than their own national heroes.
Margaret Mead, writes in her book " Childhood in Contemporary Cultures": "to build a culture in which the past be useful but not coercive, we must put the future between us, like something that is ready to be helped and to be protected before it is born, otherwise, it will be too late." We must be conscious on our roots, our traditions, and our culture and be open to kindness of the other cultures, but not assume them when they really do not correspond to us.
Notes: Barbero, Jesús Martín. JÓVENES: COMUNICACIÓN E IDENTIDAD. http://www.campus-oei.org/pensariberoamerica/ric00a03.htm
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