ABSTRACT
The reach and influence of the media in the modern world is so pervasive that it shapes, unconsciously, the way we think about foreign cultures with which we have little other contact. The media exerts an enormous power also on these cultures, in its effects on areas as diverse as foreign policy formulation, demand for exports or tourism revenues, or even visa applications to the West. In times of war and disaster in other countries, the media in some sense 'plays God' in terms of its influence on the extent and nature of Western responses. This was demonstrated during the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, when the broadcasting of particularly emotive television images of starving children prompted a massive humanitarian response, leading to the setting up of Band Aid and Comic Relief (Benthall1993: 84-7).
