Media - Globalisation of culture Flashcards
Postmodern society is defined by
- Globalisation and the decline of metanarratives
- Media saturation and hyperreality / simulacra
- Global culture + cultural homogenisation + hybridisation = cultural imperialism (Westernisation)
- Global village - barriers between time and space are eroded; the world is like one village or community (McLuhan)
What is global popular culture?
- Global popular culture - societies across the globe have become increasingly interconnected as people are exposed to the same information and messages through media across national frontiers; increasingly interconnected societies are exposed to the same cultural products across the world, leading to a globalisation of popular culture (Strinati - not a single mass culture and mass audience, but rather wide choice and diversity, and people select and critically respond to media, such as soaps being used to inform on cultural issues, present political opinions and debate, but this sometimes causes stereotypes)
- Sometimes referred to as mass culture, or low culture; mass culture, the popular culture of the majority is high commercialised, involving mass produced, standardised and short lived products, sometimes of trivial content and seen by many as of no artistic value
- These products are designed to be sold on global mass markets for profit in the ‘culture industry’ - it is everyday culture of dumbed down products that demand little critical thought, analysis or discussion and do not challenge existing social structures, as explained by curran, Barnett and Seymour
- Low culture is used to derogatorily to critique and insult popular culture, and suggests popular or mass culture is of inferior quality to high culture of the elite - popular culture is an alternate word, suggesting it is a culture enjoyed by ordinary people, and is worth of study, rejecting the suggestion of its inferior quality
- High culture - refers to cultural products that are seen to be of lasting autistic of literary value, which are particularly admired and accepted by intellectuals and predominantly the upper and middle class
- Flew - suggests that the evolution of new media technologies, such as satellite TV and internet has played an important role in the development of global popular culture, with Kellner arguing that the media has the power to globally produce images of lifestyles that increasingly become part of everyday life which people use to form identity - the global popular culture is primarily American
- Globalisation has undermines national and local cultures, as the same products are now readily available, spreading popular culture in a way that makes all cultures the same
- Today’s media conglomerates operate in a global marketplace, as the breakdown in the distinction between high culture and popular culture as they incorporate into one another according to Strinati and Giddings explains elements of the high culture are used to market popular culture, there is also a breakdown in cultural distinction
- Sklair - suggests the media, largely American, the media blurs the differences between information, products and entertainment, with values and products associated with what is the idealised, happy and satisfying consumerist lifestyle of the West encouraging the dominant ideology of Western culture (X Factor in different countries, ‘insert country’ Got Talent - US and British film have become known across the world, enabling huge success but creating cultural imperialism and dominance
Other definitions in regards to the effect of globalisation on culture
- Global village (McLuhan) - The electronic media and the speed of its change, such as satellite technology and the internet, collapse space and time barriers in human communications, and people from around the world are now able to interact with one another instantly on a global scale; this shrinks the world into a single community or village
- Hybrid culture through the internet - Two or more cultures mixing to produce a new culture - Flew (happens through sharing of media)
- Cultural imperialism - Western culture undermining and replacing local culture - Fenton (popular TV)
- McDonaldisation - Modern society are in many respects increasingly standardised, predictable and uniform - Ritzer (coca-colonisation; franchises expand, fragment across the globe)
- Cultural homogenisation - the process whereby the separate characteristic of two or more cultures are lost or erased, and become bonded or blended into one uniform culture, and this is tied to globalisation of global culture - Klein (shared media)
- Hyper-reality - a distorted view of the world presented by the media - Baudrillard
- Simulacra - Media images that appear real but have no basis in reality - Baudrillard
Postmodernism on the effect of globalisation on popular culture - mass media and identity
- Postmodernists argue that the media has also changed and shaped consumption patterns by making consumers more aware of the diversity of their choices (Strinati) - distinction between high culture and low / popular culture has become blurred and this too has increased consumer choice because popular culture is increasingly assimilating high culture and vice versa.
- Global expansion of new media, especially social networking websites and smartphones has attracted a global presence and audience in a short period of time - globalisation is essential because it increases the consumption choices and opportunities that are now available to media audiences and society in general, particularly in regard to personal identity and lifestyle.
- These types of global media have therefore been essential in the rapid spread of consumption of global images, logos and brands that are now central features of global consumption and the way people present their identities to the rest of the world via Facebook etc.
Postmodernism on the effect of globalisation on popular culture - media saturation, rejection of metanarratives and the relativity of knowledge
- An important aspect of postmodernism is the decline of metanarratives - people are disillusioned with these and a media-saturated society provides a more media-literate society that because of the diversity of media output are aware that there is no such thing as absolute truth.
- Knowledge is underpinned by diversity, plurality and difference, and the world is relative, all points of view are valid as a result. This media-led way of looking at the social world has allegedly produced a more critical and participatory global culture.
Postmodernism on the effect of globalisation on popular culture - Participatory culture
- Jenkins - the involvement of users, audiences, consumers and fans in the creation of culture and content. Jenkins and Shirky argued that global culture and society has become more democratic as users and audiences are able to produce culture themselves. Media such as Facebook have resulted in the ‘wing of humanity’ and free time which is used to interact online has become a shared global resource. Creates new forms of community because those involved feel connected to one another in that they care about what other people feel about what they have created.
- Globalisation of popular and participatory culture has been enhanced by the spread of social media and if audiences are not encouraged to gt involved in actively shaping content, then it won’t globally expand.
- Audience participation inspires consumers such as social media allowing the contesting of the cancellation of TV shows and blogs challenge metanarratives associated with mainstream media.
Postmodernism on the effect of globalisation on popular culture - Popular protest
- Murthy - empirically investigated the impact of Twitter, concluding that these websites can help increase political awareness on issues such as human rights abuses, repression ad protest and help coordinate mass political response to these issues. Murthy concludes that as the communication medium of the young, Twitter has the potential to shape many aspects of people’s social, political and economic lives.
- Spencer-Thomas - global reach of new media; mass anti-government demonstrations in Burma in 1988 failed to receive much mass media attention because the military regime banned overseas journalists from the country, but the demonstrations in 2007 received far more global attention as the Burmese people had the access to new media technology and were able to instantaneously send messages and images of violent government reactions to protest and generate international criticism.
Postmodernism on the effect of globalisation on popular culture - Media and local culture; analysis
- Thompson (1995) - globalisation of communication is so intensive and extensive that all consumers of the global media are citizens both of the world and their locality. However, global media products are often domesticated by local folk cultures and this creates a hybrid media culture that makes sense in individual communities - local cultures are not becoming a singular global culture, but they adopt global culture into their own culture e.g. Bollywood.
- Cohen and Kennedy - local people do not abandon cultural traditions, family duties, religion or national identity because they listen to British music or watch Disney, but they instead appropriate elements of global culture and mix and match them with their local culture. British culture, for example, is increasingly hybridised. Cultural hybridity, not global homogenisation, is the norm.
Key terms - 2
1) Infotainment - Material which is intended both to entertain and to inform
2) Americanisation - the action of making a person or thing American in character or nationality
3) Coca-colonisation - refers to the globalization of American culture (also referred to as Americanization) pushed through popular American products such as soft drink maker Coca-Cola
4) Hybridised culture - The merging of two or more cultures to create a new culture such as Bollywood
5) Homogenised culture - Two or more cultures are lost as they blend into one.
6) Cultural imperialism - The imposition of American cultural values on non-western cultures.
7) Global village - The media shrinks barriers of time and space
8) McDonaldisation - The principles of fast food dominate + standardise aspects of economic as well as cultural life
Cultural imperialist argue about the globalisation of culture
Influenced by the Marxist Frankfurt School, which argues popular culture to be an ideological product aimed at distracting poorer groups from the exploitation and inequality which is a feature of everyday lives
Marxists claim that it encourages conformity and a lack of critical thinking, especially about the organisation of capitalism - Marcuse (1964) claimed that this conformity is the product of media audiences being encouraged by media companies to subscribe to three ways of thinking and behaviour:
1) Commodity fetishism - the idea that the products of popular culture have special powers that somehow enhance the life of the user - Turkle’s 2011 research research suggests many people see their smartphones as extensions of their self and feel lost and disconnected without the device
2) False needs - this is the idea generated by the media through marketing, advertising and branding that in order to conform to a modern lifestyle, consumers need to have a particular product and these products are not essential and therefore false needs. The consumer is persuaded that they are central to their lifestyle and identity - such products are deliberately designed to be obsolete (short-life) before the next range appears, with Adorno describing that these products exist to bind to consumers
3) Conspicuous consumption - particular products of the media and the popular culture generates are presented as having more status than other items for consumption - consequently, certain brands are credited with imbuing the consumer with more status than others and people are therefore encouraged by the media to conspicuously consume to be seen with the right cultural products such as designer labels to attract praise from others
Cultural imperialism - the Marxist view summarised
Marxists argue that the role of the global mass media is to indoctrinate global consumers into capitalist ideology and to produce a homogenised culture that mainly promotes capitalist values such as materialism and consumerism, therefore producing a false class consciousness that inhibits any criticism of the global capitalist system - the global mass media are from this Marxist perspective agents of cultural imperialism shaped by capitalist ideology
Cultural imperialism; Globalisation as Americanisation
- The spread of global media and popular culture has led sociologists such as Flew to claim that globalisation is a misnomer for Americanisation
Flew argues that this amounts to cultural imperialism in a powerful cultural force and the USA that is imposing its media products and therefore its popular culture on less powerful nations - American culture is ubiquitous - Crothers observed that American produced audio-visual media like movies, music and television which provide a significant means by which images of the American way of life, whether political, social, or economic are transmitted around the world
- Fast-food restaurants like McDonalds, drink companies like Coca-cola and Pepsi sports like NBA basketball and major league baseball, Levi’s jeans etc
Media acts as a hub through which American culture reaches ever-widening parts of the world and through these artefacts the rest of the world sees American values and lifestyles - McChensey and others argue that the domination of this American cultural imperialism is a direct result of the increasing concentration of the world’s media companies in the hands of a few powerful American transnational media corporations (Disney, Apple etc) which have achieved near monopolistic control of newspapers, films, news programmes, streaming etc as well as ownership of huge chunks of the internet
Cultural imperialism - the effects of Americanisation (1)
- There have been concerns that the globalisation of American culture will result in marginalisation or destruction of rich and diverse cultures and identities - mass advertising of American products can result in their logos becoming powerful symbols to people in the developing world of the need to adopt the American consumer lifestyles in order to modernise
Cultural imperialism thesis sees globalisation of the media and American popular culture, with Kellner suggesting this global media culture is about sameness and erases individuality, specificity and difference - Crothers - everyone everywhere will end up doing the same thing and cultural diversity is lost, with soulless consumers that are just looking for the next new thing that looks the same as the last thing to keep up with everyone else
- Cocalinisation (Hannerz) sees American cultural products like Coca Cola were penetrating cultures and consciousness of underdeveloped cultures and means their needs, desires and wants are American not their own - Ritzer; McDonaldisation describes the increasing tendency in the developing world for cultural products, whether burgers or media to be delivered as though the American popular culture model is the standardised system
Cultural imperialism - the effect of Americanisation (2)
- Barber - one extreme response to Americanisation is the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the provoking of ‘jihad’; a bloody holy war on behalf of partisan identity that is metaphysically defined and fanatically defended; fundamentalists see American popular culture as a threat that undermines their people’s commitment to God and this becomes a rationale for terrorism; ubiquity of American culture creates a risk society
- Fuchs argues that the owners of transnational corporations not only dominate world trade in popular culture, denying true choice to consumers but they are also able disproportionately to influence governments and so threaten democracy and freedom of expression
- Fuchs is dismissive of the notion of participatory popular culture (Jenkins) as he argues a media dominated by corporations that accumulate capital through commodification and exploitation can never be participatory
- Keen argues that global media such as Twitter are too wrapped up in ‘me-culture’ to be effective tools for social change
-> Putnam and Turkle express concern at global media spread, due to it causing civic disengagement in countries across the world - Western communities are no longer willing to get involved with one another and would rather stay at home and engage in media and there is a worry they are feeling as though they no longer have a real local community
-> Turkle argues that chat rooms, online communities and blogging create imagined communities that replace real communities of families
Criticisms of cultural imperialism
- Held et al (2003) argues that cultural imperialism argument makes the mistake of suggesting that the flow of culture is one way only - from the West to the developed world, but this focus fails to acknowledge reverse cultural flows, with how Western culture is enriched by inputs from the popular culture of other societies
- These flows are like to produce hybridity as people in the West and developing world select from the global only what pleases them and alter it so that it adapts to their local culture and needs, or mix with the local media to produce new forms of media
- Cultural imperialism underestimates the strength and richness of local cultures, such as young people in developing countries enjoying aspects of American culture but they do not abandon their customs, traditions, family, religious obligations of national identities
