Sound Byte Culture Analysis

Critical Reflection Paper
Q. What does Mullen mean by the “sound byte culture in which we live”? How does this affect our perception of the world around us? What are some examples of this from Little Buddha? If she is correct, why do we seem so accepting of these fictions?
Critical reflection:
Mullen’s article “Orientalist commercializations: Tibetan Buddhism in American Popular Film” reflects upon how Tibetan Buddhism has remained under the limelight of American media and film industry for some time. Tibetan history, culture and religion have gained huge popularity all over the world in a very short span of time through the American films. oHowever, Mullen argues that the views presented in these Hollywood films regarding the Tibetan
According to Mullen, the basic reason for presentation such misleading views and ideas regarding the Tibetan culture and religion is the s prevailing sound byte culture in America. The term sound byte generally refers to the little pieces of information or messages extracted from a long piece of document simplifying the whole document. It also refers to the short clips of speeches or images extracted out of long speeches providing a gist of what the speaker was trying to say. Sound bytes are phrases and sentences which summarize the whole information contained in the lengthy documents, thus, saving a lot of time of the readers. In this regard, Mullen argues that the modern day and age is the age of sound byte culture where people share small and simplified pieces of
This is because by looking only to the small pieces of information, simplified phrases, stories, short clips or images, one may not completely understand the message which the writer, speaker, or movie-maker is trying to convey. By focusing only to such short pieces of information or sound bytes, there is likelihood that the receiver may skip some important piece of information and misunderstand the whole information. There is a chance that through these sound bytes, the receiver may never grasp the true picture or the context of the message which a complete document would have provided. Similarly, in many cases the real message of information could easily be distorted by showing only short sentences and quotes from information to achieve some personal benefits. Thus, such incomplete or short pieces of information accordingly affect our perceptions and understanding of the world around us. Relying on such simplified stories and information, one may never get to see the true picture of the world around him and may always remain in a misleading world. Thus, Mullen argues that it is due to this sound byte culture in America, that the Americans have a very limited understanding of the Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan history and culture which is reflected from the Hollywood movies on such subjects. It is due to this culture that American movies