Have you ever felt angry because you missed the
latest episode of your favorite MTV show, or suffered a headache because you
missed your daily dose of Starbucks coffee? If the answer is yes, then you
must have a great American taste in your lifestyle, which can be satisfied
almost anywhere in the world. As a byproduct of globalization, American
attitudes and values are spreading across the world and influencing the
lifestyle of many individuals. This process is often referred to as Cultural
Imperialism, and widely relates to the proliferation of Western moral concepts,
products, and political beliefs.
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| American Cultural Imperialism |
Cultural Imperialism is one of the most
controversial topics of today's world. Some people believe that the spread of
some American ideas and concepts such as freedom, democracy, equality, and
human rights are beneficial to most nations. Others, on the other hand,
consider American cultural dominance a threat. According to this group,
"Americanization" of foreign cultures results in poor local markets
and fading local cultures. Some critics even argue that the world is undergoing
a process of cultural homogenization in which a common global culture, based on
imperialist societies, is forming. This cultural uniformity potentially leads
to the extinction of cultures and make the world less culturally rich and
diverse (Galeota, 2004).
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| American Cultural Dominance |
The concept of Cultural
Proximity has grown in response to Cultural Imperialism and has been widely
studied in the research community. Straubhaar explained cultural proximity as
“… the tendency to prefer media products from one’s own culture or the most
similar possible culture” (Straubhaar, 2003, p. 85). The emergence of regional media production
proves that language is the most important determinant of cultural proximity.
For instance, various “geolinguistic” regions that have their own media
production include: Spanish (Latin America), Chinese (East and Southeast Asia),
Arabic (Middle East), Hindi and Tamil (South Asia), and Malay (Southeast Asia).
Although cultural
proximity promotes domestic media production and eliminates the one-way flow of
media content, it might lead into cultural polarization, which deserve more
attention (Ksiazek & Webster, 2008). In countries with culturally diverse
population, polarization will cause different audience groups to develop. Each
group relies on entirely different media package for their news and
entertainment. This might create a gap between the people of a country and
reduce the interaction among each group. In extreme cases, it might even lead
into cultural racism, which is a serious issue for any country (Gitlin, 1998;
Katz, 1996; Sunstein, 2001).
From the prospect of cultural imperialism, establishing a global society with minimal cultural barriers is beneficial for all. But the question is: Does it really worth sacrificing countless unique cultures to achieve the unlikely promise of a world without conflicts? My personal answer is “No”. Cultural diversity around the world is too complex to be changed easily. Some cultures might have roots to thousands of years in history, which means millions of people have died to preserve a native culture throughout these years. Thus, I believe a single “global culture” is impossible to create, and nor should we want to.
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| Cultural Proximity |
Gitlin, T. (1998).
Public sphere or public sphericules? In T. Leibes & J. Curran (Eds.),
Media, ritual and identity.
Galeota, J. (2004), Cultural Imperialism: An
American Tradition
Katz, E. (1996). And
deliver us from segmentation. Annals of the American Academy of Political and
Social Science, 546, 22–33.
Ksiazek, T. B., Webster,
J. G. (2008), Cultural Proximity and Audience Behavior: The Role of Language in
Patterns of Polarization and Multicultural Fluency
Straubhaar, J. D.
(2003). Choosing national TV: Cultural capital, language, and cultural
proximity in Brazil.
Sunstein, C. (2001).
Republic.com. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
I would like to say that this is a fair analysis on Cultural imperialism. I concur too on your points offered here. However, I would like to add that I personally think Cultural imperialism is an unstoppable force, showing it's true colours nearly everywhere we go. And on top of that, influencing us on daily basis and on every aspect of life.
ReplyDeleteThough it is a fair point to say that a "single culture" is impossible to achieve at this moment, i do think it will dominate us sooner than later if we are not careful. When that time comes, i think it will be too late to do anything about it.
Cultural imperialism is more than just making us prefer the same things and develop the same tastes. Economic and political considerations are central to transnational communication efforts in many cases. The American film producer probably does not care if his/her film portrays "American culture" as long as it sells, while the spread of American media texts (especially news reports from ideologically-inclined news organisations)is done with an added objective of promoting the political positions of their proprietors.
ReplyDeleteI would argue that cultural imperialism extends beyond achieving cultural homogeneity, in fact, cultural homogeneity may not be the objective. The "imperialist" producer would be happy if he controls the production and distribution of many "local" goods and services. We may be eating local food, but the restaurant may be owned by a foreigner. We may be watching a Japanese television show, but the television channel and studio may not be owned by a Japanese or not even an Asian. Therefore, in a sense, "imperialism" is colour blind. We cannot just look at "imperialism" and transational dominance as an act of one country dominating another, or one cultural group dominating another, or one ethnic group dominating another. There is still merit in looking at cultural imperialism from a materialist, class-based perspective.
The idea behind the "cultural proximity" theory - that individuals would prefer media products from one's own "culture", is certainly valid, as one would relate better to representations of situations that are similar to his/her own experiences. Shared language is clearly a key factor in the successful distribution of Spanish language programmes in South America or Chinese language programmes in the Southeast Asian Chinese diaspora. However, it is important not to generalise and group people together simply based on language, geography, ethnicity or religion. We can't simply say that Korean or Japanese shows are popular in Asia due to proximity, shared culture, or the sense of an Asian identity. Marketing power is still very instrumental behind the success and failure of media products. Although Malaysia and Singapore have a shared history, Korean television shows may be much more popular in Malaysia as compared to Singaporean television shows. It seems that it is not much about "proximity", but the ability/inability to reach the audience (which inevitably involves money and capital).
Starubhaar's study in Sao Paolo clearly demonstrates that people in the same city do not relate to American, Brazilian, and International television programmes the same way, as American programmes are more popular among the more educated/elite respondents. The class dimension is again evident here. The more educated people have better access or more exposure to other sources of information and different accounts of daily life than the less educated. In some "Non-Western" societies, the more educated and wealthier citizens may also be much more exposed to the English language, making them feel more comfortable with English language media texts than local language ones.
In short, both cultural imperialism and cultural proximity approaches are relevant in the study of media audiences, though we should remind ourselves that "culture" is extremely fluid and barely authentic and that economic and class dimensions cannot be ignored when looking at issues on transnational information flows.
-Zhen Hui