‘Using Films to Learn About The Nature of Cross-cultural Stereotypes in Intercultural Business Communication Courses’ written by Peter W. Cardon from the University of South Carolina has helped shed light on ways instructors can educate their students in the classroom by using multimedia to bring awareness to cultural differences, and to help promote students to interact with one another in real-life situations, either on campus or in their careers. The author has chosen the film Slumdog Millionaire as his educational tool as a prime example to introduce Indian culture to Americans.

In a business world full of communication, it is inevitable that a student will be faced to communicate with an individual with a different cultural background at one time or another. Many students sometimes do not realize how similar they really are with those who have been raised in a different culture. Peter W. Cardon feels that for students to grasp these similarities it is important to introduce real-life scenarios to bring awareness to cultural differences through multimedia. Teaching a generation that has been raised by watching TV, movies, and using their computers to become educated in certain areas students may be able understand cultural differences more effectively by displaying emotionally strong images. By doing this, students are able to visually see the communication process, cultural values, and acceptable behavior in a different culture. It is also widely known deep emotion, hearing and sight are most often the way people gain their first impressions of other people and cultures. By using their emotions students are able to stimulate how they would behave in situations when they are first introduced to a new culture and are more likely to remember what they have learned in the classroom during first time encounters.

Slumdog Millionaire, a box office hit and