9.8

• Cultural imperialism


  Theory that audiences across the globe are heavily affected by media messages from Western industrialized countries
• There are minor differences between "media imperialism" and "cultural imperialism", but most of the literature in international communication treats the former as a category of the latter
• Characteristics of cultural imperialism

  • Spread of American media and popular culture globally
  • American styles and products dominating the global market
  • American cultural values shape cultures and identities in other nations
• Monopoly


  When a single firm dominates production and distribution in a particular industry, either locally or nationally
• Oligopoly


  When a handful of companies dominate an industry, either locally or nationally
• Limited competition


  A media market with many producers and sellers but only a few differentiable products, effectively limiting the diversity of choices available to consumers
• Cultural imperialism is grounded in an understanding of media as cultural industries, and is firmly rooted in a political-economy perspective on international communication
• Early stage of cultural imperialism research focused on nation-states as primary actors in international relations, with rich, industrialized, and Western nation-states exporting their cultural products and imposing socio-cultural values on poorer and weaker nations in the developing world
• The debate on the New World Information Order (NWIO) was initially concerned with news flows between the North and the South, but soon evolved to include all international media flows due to inequality in news and entertainment programs and the advent of new media technologies
• The global media debate was launched during the 1973 General Conference of UNESCO, with one group advocating for the "free flow of information" doctrine and the other group arguing for a "free and balanced flow" of information
• The second stage of cultural imperialism research has been associated with calls to revive the NWIO debate, with a focus on the commercialization of the sphere of culture, transnational corporations as actors, and transnational capital flows
• The most important contribution of cultural imperialism is the argument that international communication flows, processes, and effects are permeated by power
• The concept of globalization has in some ways replaced cultural imperialism as the main conceptual umbrella under which much research and theorizing in international communication have been conducted
• Several reasons explain the analytical shift from cultural imperialism to globalization, including the end of the Cold War, the view that globalization conveys a process with less coherence and direction, and the emergence of globalization as a key perspective across the humanities and social sciences
• The globalization of culture has become a conceptual magnet attracting research and theorizing efforts from a variety of disciplines and interdisciplinary formations
• Perspectives on the globalization of culture

  • Homogenization of cultural differences
  • Cultural hybridity or hybridization
• The concept of cultural hybridity or hybridization privileges an understanding of the interface of globalization and localization as a dynamic process and hybrid product of mixed traditions and cultural forms
• Nestor Garcia-Candini is one of the most influential voices in the debate about cultural hybridity, advocating a theoretical understanding of Latin American nations as hybrid cultures
• Main features of cultural hybridity

  • Mixing of previously separate cultural systems
  • Deterritorialization of cultural processes from their original physical environment to new and foreign contexts
  • Formation of impure cultural genres out of the mixture of several cultural domains
• The main question in media and communication research is whether transnational media have made cultures across the globe hybrid by bringing foreign cultural elements into their midst, or if cultures have always been to some extent hybrid
• The middle ground position acknowledges that cultures have been in contact for a long time, and that global media and information technologies have substantially increased contacts between cultures, intensifying the hybridity that is already in existence in cultures across the globe
• The globalization of culture through the media is not a process of complete homogenization, but rather one where cohesion and fragmentation coexist
• Global media debate Launched during the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Nairobi, Kenya


  1973
• Free flow of information doctrine

  Advocating "free trade" in information and media programs without any restrictions
• First group, led by the United States, insisted on the "free flow of information" doctrine


  Accused Western countries of invoking the free flow of information ideology to justify their economic and cultural domination
• Second group, concerned by the lack of balance in international media flows


  Accused Western countries of invoking the free flow of information ideology to justify their economic and cultural domination
• Oral Communication


  • Language allowed human to cooperate
  • It allowed sharing of information
  • Language became the most important tool as human being explored the world and experience different cultures
  • It helped them move and settle down
  • It led to markets, trade and cross-continental trade
• Script


  • Allowed human to communicate over a larger space and much longer times
  • Allowed for the written and permanent codification of economic, cultural, religious, and political practice
• Language was important but imperfect

  Distance became a strain for oral communication
• Printing Press


  It started the "information revolution"
• Printing Press


  • It transformed social institutions such as schools, churches, governments and more
• Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979): 'Surveyed the influences of the printing press'
• Influences of the printing press

  1. Changed the nature of knowledge

  2. Preserved and standardized knowledge

  3. Encouraged the challenge of political and religious authority because of its ability to circulate competing views
• Electronic Media


  Media that uses electronic technologies to reach audiences
• The vast reach of these media continues to open up new vistas in the economic, political, and cultural processes of globalization
• Radio


  • Quickly became a global medium, reaching distant regions
• Television


  • Considered as the most powerful and pervasive mass medium
  • It brought together the visual and aural power of the film with the accessibility of radio
• Digital Media


  Electronic media that rely on digital code
• Many of our earlier media such as phones and TVs are now considered digital media
• In the realm of politics, computer allowed citizens to access information from around the world