Minority talks, Beavis and Butt-head walks

Beavis and Butt-head, a ground-breaking animated cartoon series on American television that originally aired on MTV is taking a walk, that is, their ideologies are being replaced by minority storytelling. Digital media provides a platform for all kinds of people with all kinds of stories, and these converging stories tend to represent their values and beliefs. Too often, in the past, stories about minorities have been expressed negatively, which leads to the dominant society’s lack of understanding of the minority culture. However, there is a strong possibility that this will change as minority groups migrate online and form communities, and their voices will become more powerful.

 

The television age specialized in a single narrative that was dominated by Western ideologies; the future holds an emergent global narrative, made possible by social media. Social media is an affordable alternative that supports many voices, and therefore, a superb method for delivering a global story. This type of storytelling can move civilization from a globalized monoculture to one of polycultural clusters, where minority groups can eventually be heard. It is very likely that narratives will move societies from the era of Disneyization to differenziation as well as online groupization.

 

In their book, Global Culture Industry, Lash and Lury contend that “in a global culture industry, production and consumption are process of the consumption of difference.” Lash and Lury compare classical culture industry and global culture industry: “Classical culture industry occupied the space of the symbolic: global culture industry the space of the real. Culture industry is Hollywood’s dream-machine, global culture industry brute reality.” Hence, the global culture industry is likely to provide authentic stories through diverse voices. The good news is every dog will have its day!

 

With lovingkindness,