Electronic Colonialism

Question 1

What does the Electronic Colonialism Theory State?

Answer 1

Foreign-produced, created, or manufactured cultural products by multinational corporations have the ability to influence, or possibly displace, indigenous cultural production, artifacts, and media to the detriment of receiving nations.

Question 2

What are the effects of the ETC?

Answer 2

Attitude formation, inparticular among young consumers who buy comic books, videos, and music from distant cultures.

Question 3

What do global media influence? How?

Answer 3

• How people look, think and act - “we become what we watch, what we listen to.”
• Multimedia conglomerates control, reproduce, and spread the global flow of words, images, sounds
• While mass media is a western phenomenon, its reach extends across national borders into communities and cultures around the world

Question 4

How does the ETC work?

Answer 4

• The core of electronic colonialism is the propogation of Western values and ideals through the symbolism of technology and the transmission of info through the hegemonic Western media.
• A disproportionate volume of films, television programs and websites originate in the “global north” - namely U.S. and Europe.

Question 5

List the largest media corporations.

Answer 5

1. Time Warner
2. Viacom
3. Disney
4. BBC
5. Sony
6. News Corporation (Murdoch)
7. Bertelsmann
8. Associated Press/Reuters
9. General Electric NBC Universal
10. Omnicom/WPD

Question 6

Military Colonialism

Answer 6

• BC-1000 AD

- Greek-Roman Empire ruled; one in every four people lived and died under Roman law

Question 7

Christian Colonialism

Answer 7

• 1000-1600

- Crusades sponsored by Pope to take holy land led to creation of European colonies in Middle East and Africa

Question 8

Mercantile Colonialism

Answer 8

• 1600-1950
• Industrial Revolution led European empires to seek cheap labor, import raw materials and expand markets. Eventually, those empires began colonizing southern Africa and the Americas. World Wars I and II eventually ended Mercantile Colonialism.

Question 9

Electronic Colonialism

Answer 9

• 1950-Present

- Represents the dependent relationship of poorer regions on core countries for communication hardware and software.

Question 10

What does the ECT focus on? What does it examine?

Answer 10

• Focuses on how global media, including advertising, influence how people think, look and act
• Examines how the socialization process is hijacked by the media empires which spread a global flow of words, images and sound (people all over the world are on Facebook)