New Media: A Culture of its Own

I’ve never study abroad in college, but I did spend a month in Cuernavaca, Mexico my senior year of high school. I went with friends from school and did all the things you would do as a study abroad student. I lived with a host family (who I adored), I took Spanish classes at an international bilingual school, and I volunteered at a local orphanage once a week. We also took trips to other cities, visited the Mayan ruins, museums, ballet, and all sorts of things. Because of my experience abroad Professor Stoner’s lecture interested me. Although I didn’t use my cell phone out there because of international charges there was an internet café nearby and I also used calling cards to call back home every so often. Also because I am Mexican and have been to Mexico several times before this trip it is hard to say whether I felt the “culture shock” experience. I agreed with Professor Stoner’s hypothesis, that new media can lessen the intensity of culture shock but I also wonder to what degree other factors can lessen the shock as well. I think there are a lot of different factors to consider when trying to measure the degree of culture shock. I also think that although not all countries are as up to date as the U.S. in new media, media has certainly become a part of a lot of cultures as well. To say that new media can lessen your experience in a foreign country can only hold true up to a certain extent. For example, students who study abroad in China must adapt to a completely different culture than their own, but that doesn’t exclude technology or new media. China is at the frontier of new media, just like the U.S. so using new media there would be part of their culture. One difference to note is how much freedom or what kind of access students would have using the internet in China. In Professor Yuan’s lecture she talked about how China has tight regulations on the media and selects what their citizens watch on TV. or what kind of information they have access to on the internet. Maybe that would be a culture shock to some in itself. I liked the idea of Professor Stoner’s research, but I think it would be really difficult to measure someone’s experience with culture shock when studying abroad because there are too many different factors to take into account and everyone factors in, in different ways.