Post on 06-Apr-2016
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IS YOUR LOCAL GLOBAL?
Globalisation as cultural hegemony
Today
An introduction to cultural imperialism
Mediating the imagined community
Critiquing cultural imperialism
Social media and local audiences
Our Progress
We introduced the development of globalisation and the competing conceptions of these processes
We considered the impact of transnational media conglomerates in developing a global communications system
We will now examine how this system impacts upon cultures and people around the world
The Situation
The processes of globalisation mean that the majority of cultures are now heavily exposed to ‘foreign’ cultural influences
These influences are primarily American and are dominated by transnational media conglomerates
But does exposure to foreign cultures result in cultural changes?
Cultural Imperialism
This predominance of Western media has led many to suggest that these forms of media, along with the spread of ‘Western values’, are the latest form of ‘cultural imperialism’
Schiller (1976, p.9, cited in Rantanen, 2005, p.76) defined cultural imperialism as “the sum of processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system”
The Soft Empire
Imperialism is the development and reproduction of an unequal relationship between civilisations
Cultural imperialism involves the shaping of local institutions and social practices by an outside power
This once involved the active takeover of one civilisation for another; now it can often be a voluntary process
Understandings of global cultural homogeneity have struggled to overcome these original conceptions of the active domination of a nation-state over another
Media and imperialism
Concerns over the impact of global communications on developing countries emerged in the 1960s as these nations began to enter global society
As many nations were establishing their independence, global media influences were seen to be stifling this growing cultural expression
Yet Hollywood, and other forms of Western media, found an enthusiastic audience in post-colonial cultures
This process is not the old colonialism of forced cultural assimilation, but occurs through a desire for the media content and an increased homogeneity of its form
Do you consume British
entertainment media?
Does it change your ideas about British people?
Chinese mimicry
This trend of ‘architectural mimicry’ or duplictecture in China (Bosker, 2013), is consider ‘self-colonisation’
These towns are entirely ‘themed’ around Western icons, but are Chinese interpretations or ‘re-mixes’
This pattern of replication is repeated in other industries with China and South-East Asia
Why?
An imagined community
When defining the nation, Benedict Anderson (1983/91) argued that because large communities cannot be cohered through face-to-face interaction, cohesion must occur through an imaginary identification with others
Our communities are ‘imagined’ on the basis of identification with cultural symbols
Media, broadly imagined, provide these points of identification
We can identify with certain shared cultural ideas, practices, images and ‘sayings’ on a global scale
Name these celebrities
What is their cultural status?
Name these movies
What is their cultural status?
Imagine No (local) Communities
If communities are imagined on the basis of shared resources, globalisation provides a much wider range of symbolic points of identification
Culture is no longer ‘naturally’ attached to certain locations, instead global brands and media allow connections beyond the local
Moreover, national boundaries are have little influence on social media, even if local identities remain
This use of media allows for the development of local/plural globalisations outside of the dominant channels
Are we becoming more similar through these shared cultural
understandings?
Well, is this a problem?
Cultural change always involves power relationships as one culture becomes more like another
Who benefits from this similarity?
Does this lead to a more global
consciousness and the spread of morally universal values?
Or does it work in the favour of an
economic and political elite?
Spread of western values
The spread of entertainment and news media has occurred within a wider acculturation by Western civilisations
Not (only) the control of power or land, but of minds, values and cultural practices
English has become the dominant global language and primary means of global communication Whilst English is regarded as the 3rd most common native
language, it is ‘spoken’ by an estimated 1 billion people
American brands are globally ever-present, although their message is not entirely dominant
McDonaldization
Cultural imperialism and the ‘End of History’ are captured by George Ritzer’s (1993) concept of McDonaldization
Comparing global cultural process to those of McDonald’s restaurants, Ritzer argued that global cultures are becoming increasingly standardised and calculable
Similar concepts of ‘Disneyification’ and ‘McWorlds’ portray the homogenisation of culture through commercialisation, mass reproduction and inauthenticity
Spreading Rationality
Perhaps the strongest example of cultural homogenisation has been the spread of Western corporate values of rationality and profit-orientation
Acting rationally and logically is seen as universally correct and supersedes any local cultural traditions
This leads to a standardisation of cultural practices, often in the name of the profit motive
Have you found that customer
services processes very
different in Britain?
Rationally reproducing culture
Privately owned media focus on what is profitable, not what is culturally valuable
Re-makes, cross-overs and re-runs are becoming increasingly common to avoid the risks of originality
The 24-hr news cycle also represents this trend - we don’t get more content, just more of the same
The drive for profitability has led to the reproduction of similar forms of entertainment, even if the content is different
National homogeneity
This commodification of culture and ideas through media is not necessarily global
Local (or national) media take on the same form as global media
It is not so much that global media impose content on local populations, but that local populations begin to reproduce it themselves
What reality shows are
popular in your home locality?
But…
Cultural and media imperialism is based on a mass media model in which media have a direct and unmediated impact upon audiences
There are a number of challenges to this understanding of the effect of media on culture
The plurality of social media
The internet promotes cultural pluralism because it allows for collective audience participation and interpretation, as opposed to ‘top down’ ideologies and journalism
This participation can be facilitated through forums and chat rooms
The primary mechanism, however, has been the development of social media
Establishing connections
Facebook and other social media appear to embody the potential of McLuhan’s ‘Global Village’
Social media allow for the conglomeration of user interests through user participation
Despite being corporately owned, social media rely encourage the inclusion of marginalised voices into the public sphere
Here the strongest threat to cultural pluralism is state control, rather than the profit motive
The local on a global scale
The rise of the internet and social media is certainly a global phenomena
Nonetheless, it is how local users engage with the technology that matters
Social media networks are often local and diverse voices may not necessarily connect with each other
What proportion of your social media connections are from your local
culture?
Does your social media use expose
you to other cultures?
The stubbornness of the local
Despite the availability of global cultural influences, for many people the most meaningful cultural interactions are locally orientated
Cultural identities and practices and not just constructions but are emotional attachments
As a consequence, local culture is not only resistant to change, but is the primary mechanism through which we see the world
Making the global local
Local media quotas position local culture as homogenous
It assumes that there is a local culture that can be presented through media
Instead, through interactions with global influences, local cultures are constantly renegotiated
A large part of this process is the reappropriation of the global in terms of the local through audience appropriations
Local audiences
Whilst the global communications system produces structural tendencies, it does not directly control audiences
These audiences are inherently local and remain embedded within cultural traditions
Audiences may view the same media content but interpret and appropriate it in different ways
We are concerned with how people ‘use’ media and what they do with it at a cultural and an individual level
Interpretative audiences
Audience reception theory suggests that the meaning of a text is not inherent to that text
Instead it is produced through audience interpretations, which can be dominant, negotiated or oppositional
Audiences thus have some control over the influence of global media, but this control occurs within a framework that limits these options
Local cultural interpretations construct different varieties of ‘local globalism’
Hybridisation
Hybridisation is, according to Rowe and Schelling (1991, p.231, cited in Rantanen, p.93) ‘the way in which forms become separated from existing practices and recombine with new forms in new practice’
As noted in the previous seminar, globalisation is not so much a cultural imposition, but provokes cultural reinvention
Consequently, we see ‘hybrid’ cultures that are expressed in the media, such as in reality TV where a global concept is reinvented in local terms
Do you participate in any cultural practices
that originated elsewhere?
Indigenization
Arjun Appadurai (1998) defines indigenization as the local appropriation of global forces
Global media may appeal to local consumers, but they bring cultural traditions or ‘memories’
These ‘resources’ create differing interpretations and reproductions of culture, either through existing channels or by creating new ones
Conversely, corporate global media also appropriate this process
How has indigenization occurred through media
in your area?
Glocalisation
Glocalisation describes the process of adapting products for local markets
Glocalisation occurred as capitalism sought to be more flexible in its approach to global consumers
This allows for the reproduction of the commodity form through the appropriation of local content
Is this local or global?
Self-Summary
Is global media creating an increasing homogeneous global culture?
Next Week
GLOBAL CRASHES, LOCAL LAUGHS: THE GLOBALISATION OF ENTERTAINMENT
CORE READING
Globalisation Of Popular Culture: From Hollywood To Bollywood. Jonathan Matusitz, Pam Payano. South Asia Research, July 2012
GROUP READING
Luckett, Moya (2003) ‘Postnational Television? Goodness Gracious Me and the Britasian Diaspora’ in Parks, Lisa and Kumar, Shanti (2003)
Planet TV. NYU press, Chapter 22.