The Advertising Effect on Adolescents in Saudi Arabia and United Essay

The Advertising Effect on Adolescents in Saudi Arabia and United States - Essay Example This essay looks at historical and contemporary examples to research the gap in generational identity patterns and the conflict between traditional and modern values in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, widely considered to be one of the most conservative governments and political societies in the world. The availability and effect of modern media, particularly from Western sources of production, such as television, movies, and music in Saudi Arabia will be reviewed from contemporary reports and placed in the context of wider social change movements such as the â€Å"Arab Spring†, democratization, and reform that seemingly threaten traditional values and identities in the Kingdom. The introduction of Western and modern values or identity constructs through commercial advertizing will also be analyzed with reference to youth movements and new developments in the Saudi economy resulting from lifestyle pattern changes. The economic and social results of this process will be further re lated in context to the issues of globalization, democratization, and modernization as they portend a change in values in Saudi Arabian culture. The emphasis of this study will be in analyzing the effect of advertising on Saudi adolescents particularly, as this is psychologically when the most important aspects of personal character definition are formed, and socially this represents the time period when human individuals are most open to experimentation with patterns of identity, character, and personality formation. The research methodology of this essay will include a comparison of research into adolescent identity structures and behavior in the U.S. and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in order to determine the similarities and differences between the two experiences both subjectively and objectively. Rather than assuming that Saudi and American youth culture will develop on the same patterns of expression, the essay will instead look to build an understanding of the similarities and differences between the two adolescent experiences referencing the mainstream national culture and its values as the main social variable to which individual experience reacts, conforms, or rebels personally. The essay concludes with a review of the ways that both local and global mass-media values influence adolescent identity patterns in Saudi Arabia, and the way that these expressions differ fundamentally from adolescent experience in the USA due to the different constitutional historical and religious beliefs of both cultures. Modernity and Saudi Arabia The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is one of the most traditional countries on earth currently due to the combined effects of the political monarchy and royal system which rules as a protector of the religious and cultural values of Islam, represented in the most sacred holy places of the religion. The yearly travel of millions of Muslims to Saudi Arabia annually for the Hajj pilgrimage and to visit the holy places of Islam has made th e country the traditional center for international Arabic learning. The protection of the holy places and Islam is arguably the highest duty that the Saudi