Globalization and Media
Media plays a significant role in our daily lives. Many of our ideas about the world, the sense that what is happening everyday, or even the values come from beyond our individual daily or experiences usually come to us via the media. The media has a very strong influence on individuals and society, as our ideas of the world are derived from ‘packaged’ versions of events and issues in their output (1998). Yet, globalization has become a big and popular topic, therefore this essay will focus on cultural imperialism. The best known model of cultural globalization is cultural imperialism theory. To understand more about cultural globalization, we need to examine the economic organizations and political institution which contribute to it or attempt to respond to it. This essay argues that the success evidence of cultural imperialism can be seen in the marketing strategies of major media compare.
Cultural globalization refers to the transmission across national borders of different forms of media and the arts. Mainly the circulation of cultural products appears to be between developed countries, especially those countries which constitute desirable markets for the media. Globalization is seen as a complex and diverse phenomenon consisting of global cultures, initiated from various nations and regions. Assuming that social identities and social relations are constructed and deconstructed by all forms of culture, cultural globalization brings out important issues concerning the affect on national or local cultures and their responses.
(1990), the theory of cultural imperialism emerged in the 1960s. A part of Marxist critique of advanced capitalist cultures, including their emphasis on mass communication and consumerism. The theory of cultural imperialism theory refers to ‘the imposition on the other countries of a specific nation’s beliefs, values, knowledge, behaviour norms and style of life’ ( 1991 ). It is also defined as a kind of cultural domination by stronger and more powerful nations over the weaker ones. Because cultural imperialism corresponds to the political interests of the United States and some other powerful capitalist societies, it is viewed as purposeful and intentional. Reflecting the attitudes and values of the western countries, especially America, capitalist societies, views are very pervasive and are leading to the homogenization of global culture ( 1993). According to an Australian scholar (1983), the Americanization process becomes much more formidable while the basic concepts of a national identity of a society are remodeled in the American image.
The concept of cultural imperialism concept is inherently unclear and includes a negative evaluation of the behaviour and intentions of advanced countries, particularly the United States ( 1995). Some scholars criticize that the term ‘imperialism’ because it implies the imposition of power from rich to poor, from powerful to weak and implies a degree of political control by powerful countries that is no longer exists. The idea of imperialism contains the idea of an intended project, ‘the intended spread of a social system from one center of power across the globe’ ( 1991 ). contrasts the concepts of ‘globalization’ and imperialism and suggests that ‘interconnection and interdependency of all global areas happening in a far less purposeful way’ ( 1991 ).
Despite these arguments, cultural imperialism has been reconceptualized as media imperialism. It is still a helpful perspective because it can be used to analyze which national actors have more impact on global culture, and therefore how cultural values and identities are being shaped and reshaped ( 1995). Moreover, there are some important issues because the influence of the global cultures is expanding rapidly. Next section of this essay will be focus on the changes from cultural imperialism to global capitalism and media imperialism.
According to (1999), economies and organizations are the major forces that lead to cultural globalization. Cultural globalization needs an organization infrastructure. One form of globalization appears as a result of the activities in developed countries of news and entertainment media that produce music, television programs and movies and also distribute them all around the world. In the global media marketplace, the dominance of a particular country is more a function of economic than cultural factors. American corporations have gained considerable benefit specifically from the size of their national market and the availability of funds for investment.
Although there is a small number of media groups which are based in some western countries, they still dominate the production and global distribution of the media, such as films, popular music, television program and book publishing. According to (1999), the new technologies and the deregulation of national media industries have occurred because of the existence of a global media market. The level of the investment needs to be high because of the high production costs and costs of distribution. These combined corporations make a big profit by selling the same product in various media. For example, a film can be shown in the cinema and on pay television, sold in the form of DVDs or even as books. The production of merchandise are mainly based on the film generates additional profits and a spin-off they may be use for a drama series. The US would be incapable of competing in the global market without these corporations.
Although some of the global media conglomerates are European, American media products still dominate in global markets because foreign conglomerate owners invest heavily in American media companies. Although few foreign companies have bought several major American film studios this had some little effects on the nature of the Hollywood movie industry. The Australian-American media magnate Rupert Murdoch, owns more American television stations than the local entrepreneurs. Also he has created a thriving television network, Fox, which competes with three main American television networks. This is a good example of globalization where have an Australian controlling media interests in another country.
America companies can earn enormous profits by producing and distributing films because of the huge audience for films in United States. Therefore, American producers are able to spend more on the production of films than their competitors in other countries and this in turn gain more profits. The more expensive a movie is to produce, the more profits are more likely to be make (1998). However, the expensive films represent ‘a type of homogenous, uniform culture permeated by western capitalistic values’ ( 2002,). They are full of elaborate technical effects and focus on stunts, action, and violence instead of character and emotion. Action movies are more easily understood in diverse, non-English-speaking cultures than other type of films. Given the huge cultural differences among the potential audiences for globally marketed films, film producers have to find a common denominator that is universal and will attract different audiences in various countries.
Nowadays, Hollywood dominates the international market for films as well as its local market. Compared with local film companies, American film companies have been creating film distribution networks successfully in competitive with these. Therefore film industries in many other countries have declined. However, there are two exceptions, which are India with its big internal market and the other one is France, which has subsidized this form of popular culture. India is the worldwide leading producer of fiction films, and while there are a few exceptions, they circulate entirely within Indian Asia and Indian Africa ( 1997). Over the past year the Australian government has been involved in a series of high-level negotiations with the US for a bilateral trade agreement, Australian have to agree some things the Americans put to them. This is a good marketing strategy by the US film industry to compete successfully globally. Even though the film industry is governed by investment and profit, it does spread cultural imperialism by accident. This support (1991) means the cultural imperialism is not as purposeful as suggested.
The United States also predominates in the production of television programs, which is more to economic factors than to the spread of cultural attitudes and values ( 1997). and (1990) claim that the reason of American television programs are so successful in the international market is the conditions under which they are produced. The size and wealth of the country means that successful programs are very profitable. As a result, the high cost of television production can be covered internally so that the programs can be exported at substantially with lower prices. For example, in Latin America, American companies have been sued for flooding the media scene by ‘dumping’ old films and television shows ( 1991). In some countries, United States television represents about 50% of the programs. Many of other countries are not able to invest at the same level as America in television programming because they cannot reach the cost of production through distribution in their own countries nor are they able to afford the distributing and marketing costs in other countries. The cost of an imported television series drama can be less than one-tenth of the costs of producing an original one ( 1990). Therefore, cultural imperialism occurs by default, simply because of the economics advantage provided to producers by the huge US populations,.
According to (1990), the technology changing in developing countries has led to an increase in the transnational dissemination of the television program and spread of demand for programs worldwide. International satellites have been a important delivery system, disseminating television programs from advanced countries to some less advanced countries. In Latin America, increases in the number of VCRs, cable TV, and direct satellite reception program facilities has expanded the audiences for United States and European television. In some countries, there are some media restrictions or limitations, however the foreign programming greatly increases the range of the cultural choices. On the other hand, the countries that have powerful capital and resources behind their media,industry, can dominate the dissemination of programs globally. This reduces the profitability of national programming and also limits the range of cultural choices. However, there are many less developed countries which have their own media resources and inadequate resources to buy in media from powerful US conglomerates ( 1996). These countries will not be affected by western cultural imperialism simply because they cannot afford it. The developed world has nearly six times as many radios per capita as the developing world and nearly nine times as many TV sets. The level of communication in many poor countries is also indicated by the fact that approximately half the people in the world have never made a telephone call ( 1998).
In conclusion, it is cultural imperialism on just economic imperialism. The essay supports the view that cultural imperialism is an accident of economic power. The enormity of financial support for the media industry in the US, and the US capitalist device for profits has led to the world being swamped with cultural products.
0 comments:
Post a Comment