Introduction
This essay primary discusses the extent in which the global media operates in a global sense with which the contribution of American media has been extensively influential. Many of the current popular reality show and game shows are being operated that in any way that can also cater the different markets around the world. Programs such as Big Brother, Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Jeopardy, Pop Idol, Fear Factor, the Batchelor, Amazing Race, and so on, have been based on formats that are adaptive globally to reach a diverse audience that can be understandable and be incorporated particularly to the mainstream. The incorporation of global media as having a cross-border format that is adaptive had certainly contributed to the continuing success on the process of globalization in television. For illustration purposes, this essay would include discussions as to how Big Brother, a reality show, became a part of the globalization in television.
Main Part
(1977) proclaimed 20 years ago that "the media are American." 18 years after, (1995) did a bit of a backing off from his claim as he sees the possibility for other nations to be successful in the global media marketplace, but if anything, his earlier claim was somewhat timid: It is not that the media are American, but something much broader and more profound. Global media traditional notion takes its course that it has been perceived to be a global American monoculture is said to have stemmed from this notion. Similarly, according to (1988), the international style is now American. . . . America has a sort of mythical power throughout the world, a power based on the advertising image.
The mistaken approach to global media as only being limited to evolve from the American media pinpoints to some of the studies that would account that global media is far more than that only of American media. In a study of (1995) and (1995), results concluded that no changes in attitudes and beliefs can be drawn among young people in India and Taiwan in spite of their recent introduction to extensive American television broadcasting. Furthermore, (1984) from curiosity of the American program “Dallas” aired in CBS TV, as to how the said program was able to penetrate and attracted the people from the developing world to Western media. Shekwo (1984) concluded that although the program shares similarities with that of the United States, the Gbagyi (people from Nigeria) watched Dallas from a different perspective than that of Americans. For Gbagyi, it was more than an American, but something personal, proximate and appears to be something indigenous. Despite of the fact American film and television can be exported almost everywhere (1995), why is it in Japan, where they are voracious consumers of American cultural products, they consume them in a way that is entirely Japanese (1992;1994), and audiences stay Japanese in the process? Indeed, (1995), states that although the attractions of Western media at first seem overwhelming and transforming . . . people easily swim back to the surface of their lives. Moreover, like the movie Titanic that has been perceived differently of the global audience. For example, Japanese audiences reported an attraction to the cultural virtue of gamen -- the ability to remain stoic in the face of adversity ( 1998) -- that they saw in the film. The film prompted such grief in Russian audiences that a national contest was devised for audience members to write a new, happy ending (1998). The Chinese used the film as a challenge to develop the indigenous film industry (1998). French cultural elites saw their own political consciousness reflected in the film (1998). Simply stated, the film Titanic is not a mere one film but it is dependent on the interpretation of the community. In fact, (1998) states, different countries have viewed the phenomenon of Titanic in their own ways.
The best factor that have accounted this phenomenon global media brings is said to be because of transparency. By transparency, it refers to any textual apparatus that makes audiences be able to project indigenous values, beliefs, rites, and rituals into imported media and the use of its devices. This effect of transparency makes the blending of one culture to the other culture possible as those pertaining to the diverse cultures able to express their own narratives, values, myths, and meanings into the American iconic media. Therefore, the transparency is what seems to be the cultivating factor that makes the global audience gets hook up with the programs that have the incorporation of a cross-border format such as the Big Brother, wherein in fact, the lack of transparency would denote a limit to the commercial possibilities undermining the coverage of the global media. Not only American media can produce transparent text, other culture factories tend to be dominant as well. For example, in Britain they are known to be exporting pop music; India and Hong Kong are exceptional exporters of feature films; Brazil excels in the production and distribution of soap operas and Japan shows prowess in the computer game market. To some extent, every text has some measure of transparency because external social determinants are necessarily refracted in any process of reading or viewing (1993). Cross-cultural transparency enables meaningful audience members who acts in an interpretative communities views the media in a different varying ways according to their own perceptions, cognition, culture and background narratives.
Now let us shift our discussion as to how the Big Brother show became a part in the globalization of television. The Big Brother show was first aired on September of 1999 in the Netherlands with Endemol Entertainment Company as its creators. However, there were some controversial issues with which the Big Brother encountered like the objection of the German government who even disbanded the said show. Even in the Netherlands, the show of Big Brother has been objected by Dutch psychologists saying that there is an adverse effect in the mental state that can possible be experienced upon participation in the Big Brother show. In response to the controversies, according to its creators "the intention is to evoke the spontaneity and center stage naturalism of a home movie; the aura is erotic, the predatory vibe of a Peeping Tom, suggesting you're watching something you shouldn't be" (2000). In spite of the criticisms and objections, the success of Big Brother is evident. Introduced to the United States in July 2000, it has been reported that CBS paid twenty million dollars to the Dutch production company that originated the show, the basic premise of which is to turn people into lab rats by removing every last layer of privacy (2000). Perhaps, Big Brother show became a part of globalization of television in a way that it has infiltrated into the culture that has been subject to the interpretations of the community. Interestingly, according to (1988), the meaning of television programs is constructed within interpretive communities, but all programs seem to permit diverse readings. Contrary to the true transparency theory, where it is said to be argued that it is the culture that infiltrates the television programs. Consequently, although audiences are capable of diverse readings, they rarely assert this capability because their capacities are overwhelmed (1989).
CONCLUSION
Global media has always been said to be influenced by the dominance of American media. True as it may seem, American may have proved its dominance in the media but would not be appropriately right to consider the domain of American media alone as capable of catering to the global market arena. The advent of some reality shows such as the Big Brother that is of European origin goes to show that other countries all over the world are very much capable of contributing to the globalization of television.
Basically, it is not of what country can better explain the expansion of global media but more of as to how and what factors lead to its evolution such as transparency. Categorized into two theoretical camps, the occurrence of transparency is said to have occurred from the theory of (1980) negotiation theory which is dialectically inherent that is presuming of two or three meanings with the synthesis of a production of meaning and the polysemy as being advocated by (1984) and (1987, 1996) that presumes that the text has capabilities of implying and that the reader has the capabilities of inferring.
Just like the evolution of human resources and the soaring heights that new technology brings globally, global media’s evolution is also pervasive and needless to say, that its market is also growing. Therefore, the global media hype will continue to amass a diverse audience in lieu to the changing trends in the entertainment business.
Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com
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