China
The Role of Media in Creating an Imagined Community:
According to , an imagined nation is a community socially constructed and ultimately imagined by the people who perceived themselves as part of that group (). In an imagined community or nation a person does not see face to face the other members of the nation. Instead, he holds in his mind a mental image of his affinity. The media has an important role in fostering national imagination. According to “ a nation is imagined because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion". Because of what Anderson calss as “print – capitalism” imagined communities are formed. The local and public bvroadcasting models construct imagined communities by broadcasting in the vernacular in order for the people who speak various local dialects to understand each other. The loacl and the public broadcasting models construct imagined communities by creating a unified field of exchange and communications. People of the same dialect are able to understand one another and they become aware of the hundreds of thousands or even millions of people in their particular language field. They are connected to their fellow speakers through media. They are able to form, in their secular, particular, visible invisibility, the embryo of the nationally-imagined community. In China, the only television allowed is state owned. The state is restricting private television ownership and no foreign television ownership is permitted. , the founder and the late chairman of the Chinese Communist Party controlled the media and stressed that the media must be run by the Party and become the Party’s “loyal eyes, ears, and toungue”. Television was primarily used by the Party as the mouthpiece of the leadership. It was regarded as both a political institution and an ideological apparatus. The television was used by the Party to promote its Statist Objectives. It was used to popularize the Party’s policies and directions and motivate the masses in the construction of communism. It was used to encourage a national imagination based on the principle of communism. There was no freedom of expression, the Party was the sole owner of the stations (The Museum of Broadcast Communications). The Party leader used media to the full extent. He used every form of media to foster his ideologies and to promote communism. used wall posters as his first line of artificial charismatization. Huge color posters of Mao were put up everywhere. Chairman was omnipresent in the people's view. Then Mao disseminated his "little red book" of wise sayings and sage advice and the Maoist view of history. " thought" was now held to be hallowed like that of and , and sanctified like that of Confucius. The little red book was given out everywhere. Everyone had a copy. But, the young people (the Red Guards) especially were inculcated with thought, and were sent on their mission of cultural rectification with the little red book in their hands, as if it had magical qualities. used every dramatic and media device at his disposal to expand his deified aura. For instance, he initiated the young people into the Red Guards by assembling millions of them in Beijing. Standing on the Heavenly Gate, high above them, he donned the red arm band of the Red Guards, letting them know that he was their personal supreme leader--their heavenly guide to a magical utopian future of pure socialism. Mao's genuine charisma became manufactured pseudocharisma, his genuine charismatic unification of China became a media-enhanced magic show ()
Media: Shaping and Representing National Interest
Now the Mass Media is playing a pivotal role in shaping and representing the National Interest. China’s media is prevented from criticizing the country’s leaders. The media is used as an instrument to praise the Chinese government by criticizing the outside world especially countries like Japan and United States. China remains sensitive to any foreign challenge even if its position in the world continues to rise and its citizens are becoming more self-confident. The people seem to support criticisms against Japan, United States and Taiwan. Publishing anti-foreign articles plays to national sensitivities that always simmer, and thus can be brought to a boil, with obvious benefits for the bottom line. The media caters to the nationalist sentiments of the citizens and can attract large numbers of readers, viewers and listeners. However, too much jingoism can damage the nation’s interest and international standing (Marketing Nationalism in China). The lack of press freedom in China and self-centered coverage allowed room for extremist views. The biased reports in China are breeding misunderstanding and hatred. The media in China are influenced by commercialism and the tabloids are using provocative reports to sell newspapers. China’s national interest is being represented in a biased and self-centered way. The Government is using the media to divert the people’s attention. The media is damaging China’s international standing by being selective in what they talk about. The Chinese mass media represents the national interest in a one-sided way. The media is able to present the nationalistic view of the citizens but fails to educate the people about the flaws of the government and make them aware of sensitive domestic issues. The misinformation coming from the state-controlled media fuel the ultra-nationalist citizens’ anger and animosity against other countries particularly Japan and United States.
International and National Media and National Identity:
Communications Media can be viewed as industries that commercialize and standardize the production of culture. There are two equally important characteristics of media, one is it being a product that produces, distributes and sells marketable products. The other is its being cultural. Media as a cultural product reflects the cultural values of their producers and the social reality in which they are produced.
China is experiencing gradual liberalization of mass communication. This includes expansion enormous expansion in television and other mass media and importation of western mass media. The government in Beijing controls the preparation and dissemination of domestic news under the principle of propagating the Party’s policies. In the 1980’s news from the western world started to appear in official Chinese media. Various semi-official set of media started to flourish in the 1980’s. These media, mainly tabloids and periodicals covered a wide range of stories from Western nations including feuds in the British Royal family, U.S. election campaign strategies, and popular personalities from the west. Movies and televisions from the United Kingdom, United States, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, started to appear in local theaters and TV networks. These alternative new media sources imply sharply contrasting cultural values. The importation of western media to China is controversial. China is a developing country and one of the chief critical themes regarding international communication is that Western cultural values tend to be imposed on traditional and developing societies; this can undermine Chinas indigenous culture. The importation of western media has a negative effect on the cultural identity of a developing society like China. Western media present an entirely different culture and value. Western media can lead to cultural deterioration. The emergence of western media has an effect to national identity. More educated and internationally exposed Chinese seem to embrace the western way of life. They seem to hold ideologies and beliefs that are similar to the western people. China, like most developing countries is losing its national identity, a dear price to pay for globalization.
Disneyland Resort Paris and Parc Asterix
Disneyland Resort Paris is a holiday and recreation resort located in Marne-la-Vallee, 32 kilometers east of Paris France. It has two theme parks, an entertainment district and seven resort hotels. It was the second Disney Resort to open outside the United States (the first was Tokyo Disney Resort). It is one of Europe’s Top Tourist Destinations. The complex was a subject of controversies and protests among some prominent French figures and labor unions. Some critics think that the prospect of opening a Disney Theme Park in France would encourage an unhealthy American type of consumerism. It was considered as cultural imperialism or neoproivincialism. For others it became a symbol of America within France. According to (2004) Cultural imperialism is rooted in a common-sense notion many of us understand: It is the reduction in cultural differences around the world” (). It is seen as a distribution by global corporations of commodified Western culture. A process which has worked to the advantage of the USA and Western nations. Cultural Imperialism is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, and artificially injecting of the culture or language of one nation to another. Many prominent French figures oppose the opening of Walt Disney Resort Paris because they see it as an American invasion of French Culture. They fear that it will influence and promote an unhealthy type consumerism in France. Cultural Imperialism often involves a large, economically or militarily powerful nation influencing a smaller, less affluent one. Its opening was greeted by unfavorable response. The park opened on 12 April 1992. Its structure is very much the same as the American parks. Unlike Tokyo Disneyland, Euro Disneyland does have a Main Street, USA, but its Tomorrowland is called Discoveryland. Most of the attractions are versions of those found at the US parks. As with Tokyo Disneyland, there are subtle concessions to the local culture and conditions. There are more covered areas than in the US, because of the less reliable climate of northern Europe, while small Gallic touches were introduced. However, these concessions to French taste were not sufficient to quell dismay about Mickey's arrival. It was branded by some as a 'cultural Chernobyl' and was greeted with near-universal derision by French intellectuals. The French unions railed against the 'fascism' of the company's recruitment policy, with its stress on a certain 'look' (1992). (2004) defines Interdependence as “two more or less equal partners willingly agree to contribute and extract from their relationship in approximately equal amounts” (p. 5). Of course, this is an ideal state that may approach reality in some instances, but the prevalent pattern in binational regions throughout the world has been one of asymmetrical interdependence, where one nation is stronger than its neighbour and consequently plays the dominant role. In the case of two substantially unequal economies, the productive capacity of the wealthier countries is often matched with the raw materials and cheap labour in the poorer nation to create complementarity which, while asymmetrical in nature, none the less yields proportional benefits to each side. The French Government and Euro Disney agreed that the theme park concentrate on tapping the local French labor market. The employees of Euro Disney would be permanent cast members on the Euro Disney stage. The company made an effort to reflect the multicountry aspect of Euro Disney’s visitors. Disney requires employees who possess sufficient communication skills, can speak at least two European languages (French and others). They are also looking for people who are social and extroverted. Regionalization can be defined process on the regional level with the help of governments. These regional arrangements appear to be the direct result of governmental actions instituting regional trade regimes and creating deeper integration of separate economies on the regional level. Regionalization is a recent phenomenon. After the sharp reduction in world trade flows in the 1930s and 1940s, and the slowness with which the governments reopened their markets to global trade in the 1950s and 1960s, regionalization was the result of US multinational firms investing in production units overseas. These multinationals shifted a good part of their production units into relatively closed markets and sometimes they integrated their operations globally. None the less, regionalization refers to the development of intra-regional trade and investment, each inducing a process of ‘deeper’ behind-the-border industrial integration. Within this process of regionalizing economies liberalization is seen as a force that helps channel the resources of economies and people into activities where they are most likely to excel. Regionalization appears as a force that softens the effects of globalization by pooling governmental policies and also compensates for the loss of national policy sovereignty (1998). Glocalization in its business sense represents a direct acknowledgment by corporate actors of the necessity to cater to -and, indeed, invent -- local conditions, producing and transforming commercial items so they become marketable in different regions and cultures. Glocalization is essentially a refinement of the older concept of globalization (which has become increasingly problematic as it has become more and more identified with economically driven globe-wide homogenization). Glocalization refers directly to the ways in which globalization necessarily involves the adaptation of global processes to local circumstances ( 1998). The initial problems of Euro Disneyland illustrated not only the difficulties of exporting a commodity inextricably associated with American culture to Europe, but also the sorts of changes Disney officials had to make to survive in an unfamiliar and occasionally hostile environment. That Disneyland had such trouble establishing itself in Europe was ironic, since amusement parks were as much a European as an American invention. Indeed, they exemplified the cultural cross-breeding that had always marked the relationship between the two continents. Parc Asterix is a French Amusement Park based on the famed comic book character created by Rene Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. The creators wanted to build a theme park, patterned after the Disney Maodel. However, the French market, where amusement parks were readily associated with small, often shoddy travelling carnivals, appered unready for a theme park. When Disney announced its intention to open a Disneyland in France a new interest in the sector emerged. In April 1989, Parc Asterix opened. The opening was accompanied by the creation of a company that will operate the theme park – Parc Asterix SA. The opening of Disneyland Resort Paris had a negative impact on the French Theme Park. Disney attracted most of Parc Asterix Clientele dispite the country’s much-trumpeted disdain for American culture. Many local Theme Parks were forced to close because of bankruptcy. Although draining Parc Asterix initially, Disneyland Resort Paris proved to have certain beneficial side effects for the company. Disney’s heavy marketing helped educate the French public about theme parks and amusement parks in general, helping overcome reluctance from many potential Asterix customers as well. The popularity of both has increased as a result, exhibiting a synergistic effect seen in other places with multiple theme parks.
Cultural Imperialism and Protectionism:
From the late 1960s to the early 1990s, a growing number of European politicians and social critics referred almost automatically to America's cultural and linguistic "imperialism" whenever they wanted to describe the effects of Europe's subservience to the American entertainment industry. They worried more than ever about the disappearance of European cultural traditions and the diminished sense of national "identity." And in their most far-reaching attempt yet to impose continent-wide restrictions on America's cultural exports, they succeeded in excluding audiovisual products from the antiprotectionist provisions of the 1993 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, known colloquially as GATT. The French, as always, were more hyperbolic than anyone else in describing the disastrous effects of American culture on their national heritage. In (1967), had been distressed not only by America's economic superiority but by the implications of its cultural dominance. If the French allowed their movie and television studios, as well as their magazines and publishing houses, to be taken over by American companies, he argued, "our system of education--in the large sense of channels of communication by which customs are transmitted and ways of life and thought [are] formulated--would be controlled from the outside." For nearly a century, European governments had been trying, in a variety of ways, to protect their cultural industries from American domination. Repeatedly, the Europeans claimed that first their films and then their television programs were artistically ambitious and socially uplifting whereas American moviemakers and TV producers--compelled to maximize profits--catered to, rather than challenged, their audiences. However familiar these arguments were, at no point did European politicians or intellectuals sound as antagonistic to the American media or as apprehensive about the survival of their own cultural institutions as in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Although their rhetoric during the GATT discussions was often overheated, European (and especially French) officials were wrestling with an issue that none of their predecessors had been able to resolve ( 1997).
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