Cosmopolitanism, Globalisation and Cultural Identity 2 Flashcards
Can the media turn us into cosmopolitans?
Do we become ‘world citizens’ concerned with those affected by disasters on the other side of the world?`
What is Mediated cosmopolitanism?
Mediated cosmopolitanism is the belief that media, in their technological form, open up possibilities which foster or create a form of cosmopolitanism amongst their users or consumers.
What are the 2 key concepts from McLuhan’s media theory?
1) “the medium is the message”
Medium = “the change of scale or pace or pattern that it introduces into human affairs” (Understanding Media, 1962)
2) ‘The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village’
‘the world has become a computer, an electronic brain, exactly as in an infantile piece of science fiction…. we shall at once move into a phase of … total interdependence, and superimposed co-existence.’ (Gutenberg Galaxy, 1962)
‘time-space compression’ due to global, instantaneous nature of media.
Do ‘global media’ due to their form (regardless of content/mode of presentation) produce mediated cosmopolitanism?
McLuhan believes:
‘Traditional’ media (particularly print) reinforce national consciousness.
Electronic media foster global consciousness.
What are the 2 other important concepts in terms of mediated cosmopolitanism?
1) Nations as ‘imagined communities’ (Benedict Anderson)
2) National media and ‘banal nationalism’ (Michael Billig)
Do global media replace them with ‘imagined global communities’ or ‘banal cosmopolitanism’?
What are the alternative views of global media and cosmopolitanism?
1) Cosmopolitanism as ‘banal globalism’ of brands, advertisers etc.
2) Global Media as means of expansion of global consciousness
3) Cosmopolitanism at level of individual biography/media consumption (‘everyday cosmopolitanism’)
What is the feeling of ‘being there’ (de-severance) in global media?
What kind of approach does this take? Use examples.
‘Where are we?’ when we consume global media?
Here (point in geographical space where we are located)?There (distant point/countries) where events are happening?
To answer this question we need to adopt a phenomenological approach. How the media bring the distant to us is called ‘de-severance’ (Heidegger, Being and Time).
Example: (foreign) correspondents:“pull our sleeve to point to something that is there now. Simply absorbing their claims on our attention as an integral part of a forever fleeting news awareness may add to this (cosmopolitan) awareness” (Ulf Hannerz (2004). Foreign news. Exploring the world of foreign correspondents).
What to some theorists believe flood of global images is?
1) A simulacrum (Baudrillard); ‘staged’ reality (Virilio)
2) Telecity (Bauman): the world (disasters, wars) become almost form of entertainment, rather than ethical engagement.
Describe what Cosmopolitanism as ‘banal globalism’ of brands, advertisers etc. is according to Biling.
Billig: defined ‘banal nationalism’ in media as essential to national consciousness.
In global media not just ‘banal nationalism’ replaced by ‘banal globalism’
People identify with the global through global news e.g. CNN, global brands, advertising etc.
Images give feeling of ‘being cosmopolitan’
Example: John Urry (2000) measured numbers of global images in CNN broadcasts:
‘‘In just 29 seconds dozens of global icons and exemplars are employed. This flood of images represents how over just one day there is the observation of, and appeal to, all cultures across the globe’
Describe what Global Media as means of expansion of global consciousness is.
Global media foster awareness of global issues, not just national: environmental damage, wars/conflicts, aids, famine, disasters etc.
Viewers are motivated to take action: donate money/sympathy, organize (demonstrations, Live Aid etc.), demand political change (e.g. anti-globalization campaigns)
What does Luc Boltanski’s (Distant Suffering) distinguish between?
Sympathy: audience member is cut off from the events in a tragedy.
Empathy: the gap between the sufferer and the spectator is reduced by means of the imagination (this could be me, this person is like me). Some forms of presentation invoke empathy, some not.
What is Lilie Chouliaraki’s The Spectatorship of Suffering?
Modes of presentation of suffering in news: a ‘hierarchy of suffering’:
Lowest level: “adventure news” “consists of random and isolated events” which “fail to make an ethical demand on spectators to respond to the suffering they report”. Chouliaraki (2006), p. 97.
Highest level: “ecstatic news”: live footage, correspondents reporting from the scene: “a regime of pity and a manner of moralizing the spectator”, p.157
What are the critiques of Chouliaraki and Boltanaski?
Sceptical view?
Sympathy seems to be limited: ‘compassion fatigue’
Which disasters/issues presented by global media? Hurricane in US covered but not in Guatemala, Floods in Europe covered but not in Bangladesh? Do global media promote understanding of causes?
Sceptical view: ‘The images and perspectives of the media do not have any automatic moral consequences. The representation of murder, war and suffering on television has no necessary connection to the development of cosmopolitan solidarity’ (Stevenson, Nick. 2003. Cultural Citizenship. Cosmopolitan Questions p.104)
Describe what Cosmopolitanism at level of individual biography/media consumption (‘everyday cosmopolitanism’) is.
Tehri Rantanen (Media and Globalization, 2005) looked at 3 families (Finland, Israel, China)
Compares 3 generations of family (Grandfather/mother, Father/mother, Son/Daughter)
Uses ethnographic methods to map interests, socialization, travel, attitudes, media use > how cosmopolitan each person is.
Media use/consumption is only one of 5 ‘zones of everyday cosmopolitanism’, what are the others?
1) Media and communication usage
2) Learning/speaking another language
3) Living/working abroad (or family member)
4) Living with a person from another culture (e.g. marriage)
5) Engaging with foreigners in the locality (cosmopolitan cities) (Rantanen 2005: 124)
The more of these 5, the more likely to be cosmopolitan’.
