International Student Interview

September 29, 2009 at 3:19 am (Uncategorized)

Getting a closer look on media in other countries can only be done by getting to know what the media is like from firsthand experience. What better way to find this information out than to sit an international student down and list off questions about their homeland. The student I interviewed name was Raphael Mattos. He is attending Lindenwood University, his home away from home, but he and his family live in Recife, Brazil. I first started off by asking if the media is different than that of his home in Brazil. He responded by saying “the media is so different”, it seemed like it was hard for him to explain himself. Later in the interview he slowly explained that the US has many more channels than Brazil. He says that there are about three stations that people actually listen too as opposed to the US when there is a huge selection of local channels.
When asking Raphael about censorship in Brazil, he found it hard to understand. I explained to him that it’s the bad stuff on local television, such as nudity and curse words. He says that the local television is more lenient on curse words but they are basically looked down upon. Nudity on the other hand is almost a zero tolerant policy. A perfect example was the Girls Gone Wild ads on late at night. Raphael said that people wouldn’t even dream of stuff like that being on local television, if something like that were to be aired, people would be in shock.
A main point that Raphael was trying to get across is that there is one main station that is basically a monopoly. This station is called Globo. This station airs a wide range of entertainment, from news, to TV shows, to movies. Raphael says that this station has a major effect on Brazilian culture and persuades people politically and socially. It develops the new “trends” and “fads”. Looking at this station in relation to those in the US, I believe it resembles our local news channels, such as ABC and NBC. When I asked about movies and movie stars he says it’s about the same in Brazil as it is in the US. He says the movie stars get the same amount of popularity and the whole advertising and presentations of feature films is the same.
When I asked about how the media treats the sports in Brazil as opposed to the US his response was that the main sports in the US are different than in Brazil. In the United States, the National Football League is the most popular. When I asked Raphael how Football is treated in his country, he said that they don’t play Football and their countries main sport is Soccer and after that is Volleyball. Our sport popularity on the media is completely different than in Brazil. I think the way we rank our sports in the US; from most popular to least, are Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, Tennis, Golf, and then Volleyball. Talk about a culture shock!
The last question I asked Raphael was what he liked the best about Brazil that he doesn’t get in the US. He replied by saying that no other country has women as beautiful as those in Brazil.