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Learning to Hate Americans in Singapore:
A Test of the DeFleur & DeFleur's Master Theory
of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment
Jami A. Fullerton, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Advertising
School of Journalism and Broadcasting
Oklahoma State University
700 N. Greenwood Ave.
Tulsa, Oklahoma USA 74106
ph. 918/594-8579
fax: 918/594-8281
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Matthew Hamilton
Assistant Professor
Oklahoma City University
2501 N. Blackwelder
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma USA 73106
ph. 405/521-5326
fax 405/521-5928
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
Learning to Hate Americans in Singapore:
A Test of DeFleur & DeFleur's Master Theory
of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment
Abstract
This study investigates the relationship between attitudes toward
Americans and exposure to U.S.-produced entertainment media among a
sample of 328 Singaporean college students. While overall attitudes
toward Americans are negative, findings reveal a significant positive
relationship between attitude toward Americans and using
U.S.-produced media. This finding contradicts DeFleur and DeFleur's
Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment and
suggests that American popular culture may be a positive factor in
views toward Americans worldwide.
Learning to Hate Americans in Singapore:
A Test of DeFleur & DeFleur's Master Theory
of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment
Since the 9/11 attacks, Americans, led by President George W. Bush,
have been appropriately asking themselves, "Why do they hate us?"
(Bush, 2001). In answering this question, Americans are not only
attempting to understand the motives behind the bombing of the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon, but more broadly, the fundamental
causes of negative attitudes toward America and Americans found
around the world. The question remains unanswered in 2005, as attacks
against American interests overseas continue and large-scale
international polls reveal rising levels of anti-Americanism among
citizens of other countries (Pew, 2004, Pew, 2002; Stokes,
2004). Many have suggested reasons for the hatred. Most often cited
is U.S. domination of world affairs, (Grimm, 2003) lack of cultural
sensitivity, (Reinhard, 2003; Love 2003) and U.S. foreign policy in
the Middle East (Telhami, 2003, Rubin, 2002).
Mass communication scholars Melvin and Margaret DeFleur have offered
an answer to the "Why do they hate us?" question in Learning to Hate
Americans: How U.S. Media Shape Negative Attitudes Among Teenagers in
Twelve Countries (2003). According to DeFleur and DeFleur, the hatred
is a result of little if any contact with Americans combined with an
abundant consumption of U.S. films, music and television programming
around the world (Pop Anti-Americanism, 2003).
DeFleur and DeFleur report the findings of a survey that they
conducted among teenagers in twelve countries, which revealed overall
negative views of Americans. According to the authors, the negative
views are driven by beliefs that Americans are criminal, violent and
sexually immoral. DeFleur and DeFleur note that these same qualities
are often the subject of Hollywood produced films and television
consumed in abundance by young people around the world. Through an
analysis of the survey data, the authors suggest a link between
negative attitudes toward Americans and exposure to U.S.-produced
entertainment media. Melvin DeFleur called this finding
"disturbing," and surmised that "pop-culture rather than foreign
policy is the true culprit of anti-Americanism" (Pop Anti-Americanism, 2003).
Theoretical Framework
At the end of their book, DeFleur and DeFleur offer a Master Theory
of Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment based on findings from
their survey, and conclude that young people learn to hate Americans
by watching American movies and television programs. The notion that
the media create "pictures in our heads" about "the world outside"
with which we have little or no experience is one of the early
phenomena discussed in mass communication research, dating back to
Walter Lippman's Public Opinion in 1922. Several theories address
this concept, which recognizes that in the absence of other
experiences, people rely on images and stories from the mass media to
form their concepts of reality. For example, The Social Construction
of Reality theory generally explains how people construct ideas about
their world from whatever process of communication is available to
them (Lowery & DeFleur, 1995). And the Meaning Theory of Media
Portrayals shows how mass media can become a source of meaning for
aspects of reality with which people have little experience (Lowery &
DeFleur, 1995). Gerbner's (1998) Cultivation Analysis suggests that
people, who over time are exposed to a particular view of the world
on television, begin to accept that world as reality. In today's
global society, for those who have never seen America or known an
American personally, their beliefs about America and Americans may
come from depictions that they see in US-produced movies and
television, which are consumed in abundance throughout the world.
This study attempts to test media effects theories, specifically
DeFleur and DeFleur's Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated
Entertainment, by investigating the relationship between attitudes
toward America and exposure to U.S.-produced media among a sample of
college students in Singapore.
Background
Singapore
Singapore is a tiny, island nation located in Southeast Asia between
Malaysia and Indonesia – two of the world's largest Muslim
countries. Singapore is about three times the size of Washington DC
with a population of 4.4 million people. The multi-racial society is
divided into three main segments: Chinese (76.7%), Malay (14%),
Indian (7.9%) and other (1.4%). English is recognized at the common
language for all Singaporeans. Several religions are practiced in
Singapore. These include Buddhism (43%), Islam (15%), Christianity
(15%), Taoism (9%), Hinduism (4%), Sikhism (2%), and Confucianism
(2%). Because Singapore is located in the diverse region of
Southeast Asia, the government encourages social harmony and racial cohesion.
Singapore is a thriving economic success story in a volatile part of
the world. However, it is also seen as an authoritarian state that
limits free speech and political choice. As it has worked to shape
its nation's collective mind, the Singapore government has
traditionally rejected Western ideals of individualism and liberty,
while promoting, via government-sponsored propaganda campaigns, Asian
values such as studiousness, achievement through hard work and
respect for authority (Yuen, 1999).
Though the Singaporean government discourages Western values, the
nation of Singapore has enjoyed good relations with the United States
over the years and has been a strategic military ally (Cohn,
2002). Furthermore, Singaporeans are heavily influenced by American
popular culture, especially Hollywood movies, music and
television. According to Kluver and Fu's (2004) Cultural
Globalization Index, Singapore is the most globalized country in the
world, based on its consumption of mass communication products from overseas.
Despite their affinity for American entertainment, many younger
Singaporeans' attitudes toward Americans are worsening. Some
Singaporean college students say that they are irritated with
American students' ignorance about their country, its location,
language, racial composition and history. They are tired of the fact
that many Americans link Singapore primarily with the Michael Fay
vandalism incident and subsequent caning (Hodson, 2003). Others
complain that Americans often confuse their country with the Chinese
city of Shanghai, and they are offended that Americans don't realize
that Singaporeans speak English fluently (R. Gonawala & M.Y. Leong,
personal communication, March 25, 2002).
Attitude Toward America
There is no doubt that anti-Americanism is a serious problem in the
post 9/11 era. Several international public opinion polls have been
conducted since 9/11, most notably the Pew Center for the People and
the Press's Global Attitudes Project. The Global Attitudes Project is
a series of public opinion surveys that measures the values and
attitudes of people in countries worldwide (Pew, 2004, Pew,
2002). The first project was released in December 2002, with updates
in March 2003 (before the Iraq war), May 2003 (after the Iraq war)
and March 2004. The results of the Pew poll show a decline in
favorable feelings towards the United States. For example,
favorability ratings of the United States in Great Britain have gone
from 83% before 9/11, to as low as 48% before the Iraq war, to 58%
one year later. Most other European countries follow a similar trend,
but at more negative levels. According to a recent Pew study, one
year after the war in Iraq, attitudes toward America are more
negative and hatred toward the United States, especially in Muslim
countries, is more intense (Pew, 2004). The Pew Global Attitude
Project does not include Singapore in its worldwide survey.
Other global surveys have produced similar findings. A recent BBC
poll indicated that public support for the United States in the
Islamic world is now in single digits ("Dream On, America", 2005). A
2002 Gallup poll of nine predominantly Muslim countries showed that a
majority had unfavorable views of the United States and President
Bush (Schmemann, 2002). Zogby International released similar data
from eight Arab countries. The Zogby poll showed attitude toward the
United States was "wretched" with only one in six Arabs holding
favorable views of the United States. (Kristof, 2002; Telhami, 2003).
A closer examination of the polls reveals that the negative feelings
toward America among people in other countries are largely tied to
U.S. policy, not the U.S. people or American values (Telhami,
2003). The Zogby poll, for example, revealed that when asked about
"American freedom and democracy," "American education," "American
products," the "American people," for example, Arabs were
overwhelmingly positive. However, when asked about American policy
toward Palestinians, Iraq or the Arab world in general, they were
harshly negative (Zogby, 2003). Polls in Europe show that people
dislike American foreign policy, particularly with regard to the war
in Iraq, but that they separate those feelings from American
products, people and business, which they do like (Guyon,
2003). Other polls in Islamic countries show that while publics
there embrace American-style democracy and freedom, they reject
American cultural values (Stokes, 2004).
U.S.-Produced Entertainment Media
U.S.-produced entertainment media is available in abundance
throughout the world. The U.S. export of motion pictures, television
and radio programs, music and music videos in 2002 totaled
approximately $9.8 billion. This figure does not include the sale of
entertainment media by U.S. affiliates of foreign-owned companies
(such as Universal Studios that was owned in 2002 by Vivendi of
France), which is projected to be an additional $5 to $6 billion
(U.S. International Trade Commission, 2004). Nor does the amount
adequately reflect total consumption, as it does not include the
illegal viewing of pirated copies of movies and TV programs, a common
practice in countries where many U.S. movies are banned by the government.
The depiction of sex and violence in movie content has been well
documented. According to the National Television Violence Study
(1997), 91% of movies and 75% of TV dramas contain violence. Over
half of music videos and 38% of "reality" TV shows, two categories
of programming popular with young people, depict violent acts. In
terms of sexual content, a study of the 25 top-grossing video rentals
of 1998 revealed a total of 105 sexual acts. Implicit or explicit
intercourse accounted for 38% of the sexual depictions in movies, the
vast majority of which involved unmarried partners (Dempsey &
Reichert, 2001). Farrar et. al. (2003) found that almost three out
of four prime time television programs contained some type of sexual
content – an average of about six sex scenes per hour.
Given these statistics, there is little doubt that U.S. movies and
television programs are replete with sexuality and violence and that
they are consumed by millions of people throughout the world. Many
have criticized the movie industry for exporting such tantalizing and
grotesque images of American life to people of other countries and
cultures (Melloan, 2000). In a recent New York Times editorial Todd
G. Buchholz (2004), author and advisor to President George H. Bush,
tried to appeal to Hollywood's business sense by suggesting that
toning down the "vulgarity meter" would result in movies having a
better chance of success in developing countries whose cultural mores
are more traditional than ours.
Anti-Americanism and Media Exposure
DeFleur and DeFleur were not the first to cite U.S. entertainment
media as the cause of anti-Americanism. Mass media and popular
culture often are accused of creating a distorted image of
America. Middle East scholars have noted that in Islamic countries
U.S. culture is represented by American music, videos and television
programs, which by their secular nature stand in sharp contrast to
Islamic teachings (Stokes, 2004). And at a recent university
symposium on America's image abroad, a director of the U.S.
Department of State's Foreign Press Center was quoted as saying that
most images of America are formed through popular culture, books,
music and movies rather than coverage of U.S. policy in the foreign
press (Parrott, 2005).
In an effort to assess the effects of mass media on shaping
international attitudes toward America and Americans numerous
researchers have conducted studies similar to the DeFleurs' but on a
smaller scale. A survey of Japanese middle school students revealed
no correlation between exposure to Japanese media, which contained
excessive images of a violent America, and negative attitudes toward
the American people, though media exposure was related to negative
attitudes toward the U.S. government. Further, the study found a
positive correlation between exposure to American movies and
television programs and Japanese students' attitudes toward America
and Americans (Inoue, 1999).
Harvard researchers also examined the relationship between exposure
to U.S. media and anti-Americanism by analyzing 2002 Gallup data from
nine predominantly Muslim countries (Gentzkow & Sharpiro, 2003). The
study found that exposure to U.S. newspapers, television and radio
was not correlated to pro-U.S. attitudes; however, particular sources
of information about America did make a difference - exposure to CNN
was associated with pro-American attitudes while exposure to
Al-Jazeera correlated strongly with anti-American views. The study
also reported that those who studied in English tended to be more
pro-American, but overall levels of education did not make a difference.
Fullerton (2004), in a study of 103 international students studying
in London, found that while students reported that they did not like
America, they liked American television, movies and music. Having
visited the United States did not make a difference in attitudes
toward America. The study did find a significant positive
relationship between attitude toward Americansand attitude toward
advertising, which the author said was "an international symbol of
America and an icon of American culture."
DeFleur & DeFleur Study
This study extends the work of Melvin and Margaret DeFleur as
reported in their 2003 book, Learning to Hate Americans: How U.S.
Media Shape Negative Attitudes Among Teenagers in Twelve Countries,
by applying their instrument and methodology to a sample of college
students in Singapore, a country that was not among 12 surveyed by
the DeFleurs.
DeFleur and DeFleur report a direct link between exposure to negative
depictions of Americans in U.S.-produced entertainment media and
negative attitudes toward Americans in general among international
young people. With the help of friends and colleagues around the
world, the DeFleurs collected survey data from 1,313 high school
students in 12 countries -- Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, South Korea,
Mexico, China, Spain, Taiwan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Nigeria, Italy and
Argentina. The students were asked to respond to a 12-item scale
that measured their attitudes toward Americans, defined as "the daily
behavior, standards of conduct, and moral codes of ordinary Americans
and their families" (pg. 41)--not "America, the country." The
12-item scale (See Table 1) contained three subscales: 1) Media
Depictions of Americans 2) Americans as cultural imperialists, and 3)
Americans have humanitarian values. The survey also gathered data on
TV and VCR ownership, movie attendance and other media use, travel to
the United States and personal characteristics, though analysis of
these data was not reported in the book.
According to the DeFleurs, the sample was not randomly selected, but
rather 12 separate convenience samples that were, in their opinion,
fairly representative of the larger population of teenagers from
their respective countries in terms of age (median age 17 years),
gender ratio (51% male, 49% female) and socioeconomic status (middle
to lower class).
The overall findings of the survey revealed that teens in nearly all
of the countries responded very negatively toward Americans. Saudi
teens topped the list of those with the most negative perceptions of
Americans, followed by Bahrain, South Korea and Mexico, and slightly
positive attitude scores were found only in Italy and Argentina.
Negative characteristics that respondents associated most with
Americans were that they are dominating, sexually immoral,
materialistic and violent.
The analysis of Media Depictions of Americans subscale was, according
to the authors, the "most important in the entire project" (pg. 68)
as its goal was "to understand the sources of flawed and negative
images of ordinary Americans." According to the authors, the
subscale was designed to show the influence of depictions of
Americans in media entertainment products and popular culture, such
as movies and television programming, on beliefs about Americans. It
included the following items: Item 1, "Americans are generally quite
violent," item 3, "American women are sexually immoral," and item 9
"Many Americans engage in criminal activities." An internal
correlation of mean scores from the Media Depictions of Americans
subscale with the mean scores from the remaining nine questions on
the questionnaire was positive (+.527) and significant (p<.0001),
which, according to the authors, "means that the young people studied
have been significantly influenced by depictions of Americans as
violent, as criminally inclined and women in the United States as
sexually immoral" (pg. 72).
In terms of the problems of determining causation from the
correlations, the authors acknowledge that other influences such as
domestic and international news, parents, schools and religion may
also be sources from which young people learn negative
characteristics about Americans. However, the authors dismiss these
other possible influences and go on to write:
It is difficult to imagine that such sources would deliberately teach
young people that American women are sexually immoral, that as human
beings, Americans are violent and are criminally inclined. A more
likely source for such beliefs is what young audiences acquire
(through incidental learning) from media entertainment products that
depict ordinary Americans in these ways (pg. 73).
In the final analysis of the book, the DeFleurs posit a Master
Theory of the Effects of Mass Communicated Entertainment based on the
findings of their survey and by incorporating other established mass
media theories, such as the Social Construction of Reality, to
explain how U.S.-produced entertainment media may teach young people
to learn to hate America. The DeFleurs' master theory suggests that
U.S. movie and television producers, operating under a capitalist
system, are driven to create content that will appeal to large young
audiences, who desire and seek content that "exceeds the boundaries
of conservative tastes and morality." This content contains images
and depictions of American society, lifestyle, families and
relationships that "exceed conservative norms" and are "seriously
flawed and misleading." Through repeated exposure to this content
over time and in the absence of other information, viewers construct
from these flawed and inaccurate depictions a reality of America that
is extremely negative (DeFleur & DeFleur, 2003).
Research Questions
DeFleur and DeFleur's study, as described in their book, did not
report the type or the amount of exposure that international young
people have to U.S. media. These measures could provide additional
information for understanding the effect of U.S.- produced
entertainment media on anti-Americanism. Therefore, to extend the
DeFleurs' study of international students' attitude toward Americans
and to test the theory that U.S. entertainment media are a dominant
source of negative learning about Americans, a new study was
conducted which partially replicates DeFleur and DeFleur's original
design. The new study utilizes DeFleur and DeFleur's 12-item scale
to measure attitude toward Americans, and also collects additional
data related to type and amount of exposure to U.S. media. The
expanded study was conducted among college students in Singapore in
March 2004 and attempts to answer the following research questions:
1. What is the attitude toward Americans among Singaporean college students?
2. Are there significant differences in attitudes according to
demographic variables such as gender, race, and religion?
3. Are students who have visited America more likely to have a
positive attitude toward Americans than those who have not?
4. What is the level and type of exposure to U.S.-produced
entertainment media among Singaporean college students? Does level of
exposure differ according to demographic variables such as gender,
race, and religion?
5. Is there a relationship between exposure to U.S.-produced
entertainment media and attitude toward Americans?
Methodology
Sample
A sample of 328 students at the Management Development Institute of
Singapore (MDIS) who were enrolled in advanced diploma (freshman and
sophomore level) and bachelor's (junior and senior level) degree
programs participated in the study. These students were divided
among 12 different classes visited by the researcher over a period of
3 weeks in March 2004. MDIS provides accredited degree programs to
students in collaboration with universities in the United Kingdom,
United States and Australia. Although most of the students enrolled
at MDIS are from Singapore, many students are from China, India,
Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
Procedure
The students at MDIS completed a pencil and paper questionnaire in
their respective classrooms located in four different MDIS
offices/teaching centers in Singapore. Depending on the local
professors' preference, the researcher visited the classes either at
the beginning, conclusion or mid-break time of the sessions. After
distributing the questionnaires to the students, the researcher
promised confidentiality and explained to the students that their
participation was strictly voluntary. Students were instructed to
complete the questionnaires and to submit them to the researcher when
finished.
Instrument
The 13-page questionnaire first measured attitude toward Americans
(Alpha=.7596) with twelve 5-point Likert scale questions ranging from
strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5) taken from DeFleur and
DeFleur (2003). Statistics for the individual questions are reported
in Table 1.
To measure the respondents' level of U.S. media usage, 10
fill-in-the-blank questions were included using media categories
adapted from Willnat, He and Xiaoming (1997). Students were asked to
indicate the percentage of time they spent with U.S. media in
relation to total use of ten media categories: television, radio,
cinema, video/DVD, music, Internet, newspaper, magazine, books and
comics. These questions formed a U.S. media usage scale
(Alpha=.8105). Mean scores for media usage times were calculated.
Open-ended questions asked the students to name American movies and
television programs that they liked and disliked and words that
described America and Americans. Several demographic questions,
including age, gender, native language, occupation, ethnicity,
religious preference and country of citizenship were included at the
end of the questionnaire. Students were also asked if they knew
anyone in the United States, whether or not they had visited the
United States, and if they would like to visit some day.
Additionally, the questionnaire contained other scales measuring
attitude toward advertising and questions about likes and dislikes of
certain commercial messages and U.S. brands; however, these data were
not analyzed for the purposes of this study.
Data Analysis
To calculate an overall Attitude toward Americans score, negatively
worded questions were recoded so that all responses scored in the
same direction. Media Usage percentages were tabulated and mean
scores were calculated. Written responses to all of the open-ended
questions on the survey were transcribed. Responses were then
qualitatively analyzed, grouped, and reported in frequency tables.
Findings
Respondent Profile
Seventy percent of the students who participated were female (n=227),
and 30% were male (n=95). Six students did not indicate their
gender. Average age of the participants was 23.5 years, with a range
of 16-43. Fifty-five percent (n=179) claimed English was their
native language. The rest indicated several native languages,
including Chinese (25.9%, n=85), Malay (7.9%, n=26) and Tamil (4.6%,
n=15). Ninety-five percent (n=305) said they spoke English fluently.
Most participants were from Singapore (87.0%, n=275), followed by
China (6.0%, n=19) and Malaysia (4.1%, n=13). In terms of ethnicity,
the majority of students were Chinese (70.9%, n=210), followed by
Indian (11.5%, n=34), Malay (10.5%, n=31), Indonesian (2.0%, n=6) and
Eurasian (2.0%, n=6). When compared with Singapore's general
population, Indians are over-represented in this sample of college
students, perhaps because many Singaporean Indian families are
merchants and bankers who value higher education. Conversely, Malays
are under-represented in this sample, possibly for the same reason
--- Malays comprise the working class in Singapore, as well as the
majority of the poor and unemployed (Levinson, 1998).
The largest group of students who expressed a religious preference
was Christian (36.8%, n=119), followed by Buddhist (18.0%, n=58),
Muslim (13.0%, n=42), Hindu (7.4%, n=24), Taoist (3.4%, n=11) and
Sikh (0.9%, n=3). Other responses were "not religious" (14.2%,
n=46), "free thinker" (2.8%, n=9) and 10 students refused to answer.
Though Christians make up a small percentage (15%) of religious
Singaporeans in the general population, Christianity is popular among
young people. Therefore, Christians are over-represented in this
sample of college students. Since MDIS offers degree programs from
several western universities, including one affiliated with the
United Methodist church, the school attracts many young Christian Singaporeans.
Asked if they knew anyone in the United States, 70.6% said yes, and
49.2% said they have regular email contact with friends, co-workers
or relatives in the United States. One-third (35.4%, n=115) had
visited the United States and 95.8% (n=299) said they would like to do so.
1. What is the attitude toward Americans among Singaporean college students?
Overall the students in this study had a slightly negative attitude
toward Americans (Mean=2.84) Table 1 includes descriptive statistics
for the12 statements contained in this attitudinal scale. Students
agreed most strongly with the statement, "American people like to
dominate other people" (Mean=3.71) followed by "American people are
very materialistic" (Mean=3.27). They disagreed most strongly with
the statement, "Americans respect people who are not like themselves"
(Mean=2.76), followed by "American people are very concerned about
their poor" (Mean=2.78).
When responding to the question, "What three words would you use to
describe the United States government?" the top three terms students
used were "powerful" (42), "arrogant" (33), and "dominating"
(27). When responding to the question, "What three words would you
use to describe the American people?" the top three terms students
used were "friendly" (112), "open-minded" (50) and "arrogant" (29).
2. Are there significant differences in attitudes according to
demographic variables such as gender, race, and religion?
T-tests revealed no significant differences in overall attitude
toward Americans scores among groups based on gender. ANOVAs
revealed no significant differences in overall attitude toward
Americans scores among groups based on demographic variables such as
age, ethnicity and religion.
3. Are students who have visited America more likely to have a
positive attitude toward Americans than those who have not?
No differences were found between students who had visited the United
States and those who had not in terms of their attitude toward
Americans. A significant difference was found between students who
had or had not visited the United States for the statement, "American
women are sexually immoral" (t=2.514, p=.012). Students who had
visited the United States slightly disagreed with the statement
(Mean=2.96), while those who had not visited the United States agreed
with the statement (Mean=3.22).
4. What is the level and type of exposure to U.S.-produced
entertainment media among Singaporean college students? Does level
of exposure differ according to demographic variables such as gender,
race, and religion?
Students were asked to estimate the amount of U.S. media they consume
out of their total media consumption in a typical week. On average,
about 40 percent (39.44%) of the students' time spent with the media
was devoted to U.S.-produced content. Findings showed heavy usage of
U.S. media in some categories, particularly movies, Internet and
television. Average amounts were: cinema (71.7%), music (61.8%),
video/DVD (59.7%), Internet (50.5%), books (46.3%), television
(40.0%), comics (26.0%), magazine (25.63%), newspaper (8.66%) and radio (7.1%).
Male students (43.92%) consumed significantly more U.S. media than
did their female counterparts (37.64%) (f=8.35, p=.004). In terms of
ethnicity and religion, Malay and Eurasian students (46%
respectively) spent significantly more time with media than their
Chinese or Indian peers (f=2.173; p=.020). Muslim students (48%)
spent significantly more time with U.S. media than did Christian
(41.6%), Buddhist (34.5%) Hindu (36.95%) and those who said that they
were not religious (40%) (f=3.576, p=.0001).
Almost all (90%) of the students said they watch U.S. television
programs, and about half (56.5%) said they believe these programs
show characters that are similar to most American people. However,
an independent samples t-test found no significant difference between
students who watched U.S. television programs and those who said they
did not in terms of their attitudes toward Americans.
The students named dozens of U.S. shows they had seen. Those most
often mentioned were American Idol (83), Friends (66) and Survivor
(32). Seventy-five percent said that there were television programs
and movies from the United States that they particularly liked. The
top three shows students liked were American Idol (29), Friends (17)
and CSI (13). Forty-three percent said that there were television
programs and movies from the United States that they particularly
disliked. The top three shows students disliked were The Bachelor
(31), Fear Factor (14) and Survivor (13).
5. Is there a relationship between exposures to U.S.-produced
entertainment media and attitude towards Americans?
A significant, positive correlation was found between attitude toward
Americans and overall U.S. media use (r=.111, p=.048). As time spent
with U.S. media increases, attitude toward Americans increases as well.
Discussion
This study, which replicates DeFleur and DeFleur's work described in
their book Learning to Hate Americans: How U.S. Media Shape Negative
Attitudes Among Teenagers in Twelve Countries (2003), examines the
impact of exposure to U.S.-produced entertainment media on attitude
toward Americans held by college students in Singapore. Findings
indicate that overall attitudes toward Americans are slightly
negative. These negative feelings are driven by beliefs that
Americans are domineering and materialistic.
In comparing the findings of this study to DeFleur and DeFleur's
study, overall attitude toward Americans in Singapore is somewhat
consistent with attitudes in the twelve countries surveyed by the
DeFleurs. When the Singapore Attitude Toward Americans score is
converted to the DeFleurs' scale it becomes a -.41 and fits between
Pakistan and Nigeria becoming the 10th most negative country, in the
DeFleurs' ranking (pg. 52). The strongest negative statement for
Singaporean students was also the strongest negative statement in the
DeFleurs' study – "Americans like to dominate other people". It
should be noted that the Iraqi war, which began in March 2003, was
ongoing during the collection of data in Singapore, but had not begun
when the DeFleur study was conducted in 2002.
According to the students' self-reported information on media
consumption, Singaporean students spend about 40% of their total time
with the media watching or reading U.S.-produced content. Students
reported that three out of four movies watched are produced in
Hollywood and about 40% of the television programs watched originate
in the United States. Students who said that they watched American
movies and television programs were statistically no different in
terms of their attitudes toward Americans than those students who
said that they did not.
Further, a correlation revealed a positive relationship between time
spent with U.S. media and attitude toward Americans. These findings
are contrary to DeFleur and DeFleur's claim that images in Hollywood
movies and television teach international young people to hate
America. They also contradict the position of many U.S. writers,
pundits and politicians who blame the globalization of American
culture via the media for anti-Americanism around the world
(Buchholz, 2004; Melloan, 2000, Parrot, 2005). The findings reported
here instead support the research of Inoue (1999) who found a
positive correlation between attitude toward Americans and U.S. media
exposure among Japanese middle schoolers and Fullerton (2004) who
found no difference in attitude toward America between international
college students who said they watched American television and movies
and those who did not.
While the correlation in this study does not demonstrate a causal
relationship between watching U.S. media and liking Americans, it
does seem to indicate that among the Singaporean sample, watching
more U.S.-produced entertainment is related to positive, not
negative, attitudes toward Americans. This relationship may be
explained in several ways including the possibility that watching
U.S.-produced media content actually produces positive feelings
towards Americans. However other explanations are also possible, and
more likely. For example, selective exposure theory would suggest
that Singaporeans students who are already pre-disposed (have a
favorable attitude) to liking Americans select U.S. entertainment
media more often than students who do not have favorable feelings
toward Americans. Likewise, students who are negative toward
Americans may avoid U.S.-produced media.
DeFleur and DeFleur's Master Theory assumes that international young
people have little contact with Americans and therefore they believe
the images in movies and television are true depictions of American
life. However, the Singaporean study revealed high interaction with
family and friends in America, with one-third having actually visited
the United States. Perhaps this familiarity with American people has
created an appreciation for American culture along with a realization
that what one sees on TV is not completely like the "real world" in
America, anymore than images of their own country on television are a
true depiction of life in Singapore. As the Indirect Effects Theory
of the Media would suggest, media effects are filtered through other
parts of the society such as friends, social groups and personal
experience (Lazarsfeld, Berelson & Gaudet, 1944).
A closer examination of the Media Depictions of Americans subscale
(questions 1,3 and 9) in the two studies also raises some
questions. DeFleur and DeFleur stated that Attitude toward Americans
is driven by feelings about violence, sexually immorality and
criminal activities; however, in the DeFleurs' study and the
Singaporean study, these three statements did not elicit particularly
strong responses when compared with questions about Americans being
materialistic and domineering (questions 5 and 7). It would appear
that negative attitudes toward Americans have more to do with
America's tendency to bully, invade other lands, and consume vast
amounts of the world's resources -- subjects of international news
coverage -- than with sex and violence, which are so commonly
portrayed in American movies and television.
Of course, correlation does not demonstrate causation, particularly
correlation of statements within a single instrument, as was
performed in the DeFleur and DeFleur study. The high correlation
between the Media Depictions of Americans subscale and the rest of
the questionnaire does not indicate that media depictions are the
source of learning attitudes about Americans, as DeFleur and DeFleur
suggest. Rather, internal item correlation simply indicates the
reliability of the instrument.
The statement, "American women are sexually immoral" deserves
special consideration, because it is one statement that produced
contradictory findings among young people in DeFleurs' twelve
countries versus Singapore. In the DeFleurs' study, this statement
scored fairly high overall (-1.18) indicating that the sample
believed American women to be sexually immoral, particularly in
Islamic countries such as Saudi Arabia (-3.23) and Bahrain (-2.83),
but also in Mexico (-2.13). Singaporean students were fairly neutral
about the statement that American women are sexually immoral (-.34),
with Singaporeans who had visited America significantly less likely
to feel this way than were those who had never visited. This finding
seems to suggest that coming into direct contact with American girls
certainly produces a "reality check" for young people who may have
otherwise been taught that American women are loose.
While sexually immorality is a subject in Hollywood films, it is also
a strong theme in highly traditional and religious societies (whether
Islamic or Catholic) where young people are taught the ills of
promiscuity and examples of desperate girls in America and Western
Europe are held up as proof. (It should be noted that in the
DeFleurs' study, Italian and Argentinean students did not find
American women immoral). DeFleur and DeFleurs' statement that young
people learn about sexually immoral American women from watching
American movies rather than from other sources such as religious
teachings or parents seems unlikely, particularly given the findings
of this study.
There are several limitations of the Singaporean study, most
obviously that the sample was a non-random sample of college students
living in one country. However, given that college students are the
future business and political leaders and that Singapore is a
critical economic and political ally of the United States, this study
can contribute to the better understanding of the causes of
anti-Americanism there. Contradictions in the findings between the
DeFleur and DeFleur study and the Singapore study can be explained by
differences in the samples including age (high school versus
college), income levels (public school students versus university
students), and country (Singapore versus the twelve countries sampled
by DeFleur and DeFleur). However, the overall findings of attitude
toward Americans were quite similar in the two studies -- the
differences lay not in the statistics, but in how they were interpreted.
Based on the analysis above, the Singaporean study does not support
the DeFleurs' Master Theory of Effects of Mass Communicated
Entertainment which holds that U.S. media teach teenagers around the
world to hate Americans, but rather suggests just the opposite, that
U.S.-produced entertainment media may actually be a positive source
for engendering pro-American attitudes. Further investigation of the
relationship in other countries through the use of more robust
methodologies is needed to better understand how American popular
culture may be used "to get them not to hate us."
Table 1
Statistics for rankings of agreement with statements
measuring Attitude Toward Americans
Statement (n=328)
Mean
Median
Mode
Standard Deviation
Variance
"American people are generally quite violent."
3.23
3.00
3
.81
.73
"American people are generous"
3.25
3.00
3
.73
.54
"Many American women are sexually immoral."
3.14
3.00
3
.91
.84
"Americans respect people who are not like themselves."
2.76
3.00
3
.83
.68
"American people are very materialistic."
3.27
3.00
3
.82
.66
"American people have strong religious values."
2.89
3.00
3
.90
.82
"American people like to dominate other people."
3.71
4.00
4
.86
.75
"Americans are a peaceful people."
2.81
3.00
3
.76
.58
"Many American people engage in criminal activities."
3.07
3.00
3
.87
.75
"American people are very concerned about their poor."
2.78
3.00
3
.86
.74
"American people have strong family values."
2.89
3.00
3
.97
.94
"There is little for which I admire Americans."
2.90
3.00
3
.91
.83
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