Media influence from the States to London

Time flies when you’re having fun!

Hello from London! They say time flies when you’re having fun but this week has actually gone by pretty slowly.  That isn’t to say that I haven’t had any fun in my first week here—that is far from the truth.  We are within walking distance of practically anywhere in the city, and if I don’t feel like walking, the Tube gives us easy access to anywhere that I want to go to.  The first couple of days were mostly touch-and-go: orientation, walking and bus tour of the area and, overall, getting us accustomed to navigating the city. We’re studying at the University of London which is located not too far from the British Museum (a must-see, they have the Rosetta Stone there.

Wednesday, we went to the BBC Broadcasting House, but not before our guest lecture with Moe Dodson and Justin Lorentzen, who both talked to us about different cultural aspects of the United Kingdom.  Something I didn’t count on was the fact that even though BBC is a hugely regarded media output here in London, a lot of their media intake comes from America.  Whenever we turn on the “telly” it’s not too hard to find “The Big Bang Theory” on or, surprisingly, “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” which I can never find on the TV back at home.

Lorentzen had us list out as many famous people from Britain as we could and most of our answers were celebrities who were so successful that they had made a name for themselves in America.  Hollywood has the monopoly on the film industry and even music sometimes. So if they decide to make a British film and wanted it to be successful they usually try to pull in an American actor or someone who has made it internationally because they went through Hollywood.

Hollywood’s influence on British media culture aside, BBC was great! We were only at the Broadcasting House so it was primarily radio journalism that we saw. We saw a few journalists recording for a live show and got to see how they do radio theatre—which they rarely do here in the states. A few of the girls on my trip are also in PR and they said being at BBC made them want to drop PR and start journalism.  The Beeb is nice, but not enough to make me think about changing my field!

Tomorrow we visit Bath and Stonehenge, and Monday we go to Bacchus PR!