IS YOUR LOCAL GLOBAL?
Globalisation as cultural hegemony
Essays
The essay questions are now available on BlackBoard (and in your hands…)
Choose ONE option and write 2500 words
They are due on April 10th
Key criteria: Make an argument Critically evaluate evidence to support your argument Write logically, concisely and coherently
Today
An introduction to cultural imperialism
Mediating the imagined community
Spreading Western values
Critiquing cultural imperialism
Our Progress 
We introduced the development of globalisation and the competing conceptions of these processes
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We considered the impact of transnational media conglomerates in developing a global communications system
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We will now examine how this system impacts upon cultures and people around the world
The Situation
The processes of globalisation mean that the majority of cultures are now heavily exposed to ‘foreign’ cultural influences
These influences are primarily American and are dominated by transnational media conglomerates
But does exposure to foreign cultures result in cultural changes?
Cultural Imperialism
This predominance of Western media has led many to suggest that these forms of media, along with the spread of ‘Western values’, are the latest form of ‘cultural imperialism’
Schiller (1976, p.9, cited in Rantanen, 2005, p.76) defined cultural imperialism as “the sum of processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system”
The Soft Empire
Imperialism is the development and reproduction of an unequal relationship between civilisations
Cultural imperialism involves the shaping of local institutions and social practices by an outside power
This once involved the active takeover of one civilisation for another; now it can often be a voluntary process
Understandings of global cultural homogeneity have struggled to overcome these original conceptions of the active domination of a nation-state over another
Media and imperialism
Concerns over the impact of global communications on developing countries emerged in the 1960s as these nations began to enter global society
As many nations were establishing their independence, global media influences were seen to be stifling this growing cultural expression
Yet Hollywood, and other forms of Western media, found an enthusiastic audience in post-colonial cultures
This process is not the old colonialism of forced cultural assimilation, but occurs through a desire for the media content and an increased homogeneity of its form
Do youitconsume Does change your British ideas about entertainment British people? media?
Chinese mimicry
This trend of ‘architectural mimicry’ or duplictecture in China (Bosker, 2013), is consider ‘self-colonisation’
These towns are entirely ‘themed’ around Western icons, but are Chinese interpretations or ‘remixes’
This pattern of replication is repeated in other industries with China and South-East Asia
Why?
An imagined community
When defining the nation, Benedict Anderson (1983/91) argued that because large communities cannot be cohered through face-to-face interaction, cohesion must occur through an imaginary identification with others
Our communities are ‘imagined’ on the basis of identification with cultural symbols
Media, broadly imagined, provide these points of identification
We can identify with certain shared cultural ideas, practices, images and ‘sayings’ on a global scale
Name these celebrities
What is their cultural status?
Name these movies
What is their cultural status?
Imagine No (local) Communities
If communities are imagined on the basis of shared resources, globalisation provides a much wider range of symbolic points of identification
Culture is no longer ‘naturally’ attached to certain locations, instead global brands and media allow connections beyond the local
Moreover, national boundaries are have little influence on social media, even if local identities remain
This use of media allows for the development of local/plural globalisations outside of the dominant channels
Are we becoming more similar through these shared cultural understandings?
Well, is this a problem?
Cultural change always involves power relationships as one culture becomes more like another
Who benefits from this similarity?
Does this lead to a more global consciousness and the spread of morally universal values?
Or does it work in the favour of an economic and political elite?
Spread of western values
The spread of entertainment and news media has occurred within a wider acculturation by Western civilisations
Not (only) the control of power or land, but of minds, values and cultural practices
English has become the dominant global language and primary means of global communication
Whilst English is regarded as the 3rd most common native language, it is ‘spoken’ by an estimated 1 billion people
American brands are globally ever-present, although their message is not entirely dominant
The End of History
If history is the story of human struggle, the fall of communism was thought to signify the end of this story Liberal-democracy Free-market capitalism Expressive individualism and self-responsibility
The world had worked out how best to live, the rest is just details
McDonaldization
Cultural imperialism and the ‘End of History’ are captured by George Ritzer’s (1993) concept of McDonaldization
Comparing global cultural process to those of McDonald’s restaurants, Ritzer argued that global cultures are becoming increasingly standardised and calculable
Similar concepts of ‘Disneyification’ and ‘McWorlds’ portray the homogenisation of culture through commercialisation, mass reproduction and inauthenticity
Spreading Rationality
Perhaps the strongest example of cultural homogenisation has been the spread of Western corporate values of rationality and profitorientation
Acting rationally and logically is seen as universally correct and supersedes any local cultural traditions
This leads to a standardisation of cultural practices, often in the name of the profit motive
Have you found that customer services processes very different in Britain?
Rationally reproducing culture
Privately owned media focus on what is profitable, not what is culturally valuable
Re-makes, cross-overs and re-runs are becoming increasingly common to avoid the risks of originality
The 24-hr news cycle also represents this trend - we don’t get more content, just more of the same
The drive for profitability has led to the reproduction of similar forms of entertainment, even if the content is different
National homogeneity 
This commodification of culture and ideas through media is not necessarily global
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Local (or national) media take on the same form as global media
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It is not so much that global media impose content on local populations, but that local populations begin to reproduce it themselves
What reality shows are popular in your home locality?
Commercialisation and advertising 
Often promoted and normalised through media, commercial and consumerist values has allowed for the expansion of global capitalism as diverse range of customers with similar desires emerged
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This commercialism extends to the development of global brands and ubiquitous spread of advertising
The Culture Industry
For many these global, or American, brands wholly represent Western values
They become an aspirational point of identification that mediates cultural identity
The concern is that ‘local’ culture is being replaced by a consumer culture that works for the benefit of global capital rather than local people
Here a large ‘culture’ industry has developed that promotes and sells cultural images and ideals in a commodified form
But‌ 
Cultural and media imperialism is based on a mass media model in which media have a direct and unmediated impact upon audiences
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There are a number of challenges to this understanding of the effect of media on culture
Critiques of cultural imperialism 
It is not what media does to people, but what people do with media
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The appropriation of global media influences and culture is often an active choice from audiences, producing hybrid appropriations of global tendencies
Beyond imperialism? 
Cultural imperialism implies a unity amongst receiving cultures
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Assuming others are cultural dupes is almost a form of cultural imperialism/superiority
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The flows of cultural imperialism can also bring strong resistance and the development of local content/rejection of cultural influences
Self-Summary
Is global media creating an increasing homogeneous global culture?
Next Week Week 4: Glocalisation: Understanding local appropriations CORE READING
Chapter Five: Rantanen (2005), ‘The Media and Globalization’ GROUP READING
Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2006) Globalizations. Theory Culture Society 2006 23: 393
CULTURAL CHANGE
Lee: Globalisation and cultural change
p.33
“Put another way, globalisation does not necessarily produce cultural uniformity but stimulates cultural reinvention�
Discussion questions
What is meant by ‘cultural reinvention’?
Do cultural identities change through the consumption of media?
If so, how?
Does global media simply replace local culture, or does it change its form?
If so, how?
The Culture of Capital “However, homogenization in this case is not the same as a condition which undermines local cultures by displacing them with new cultural forms. What is meant here is the insertion of specific commodity forms that result in a type of consciousness that is both particular and universal at the same time� (Lee, p.7)
Discussion questions
What is meant by ‘particular’ and ‘universal’?
What is the influence of global capitalist media on local culture? Does
Or
it produce greater homogeneity?
is diversity more profitable?
p.29 “The penetration of multi-national capitalism into non-Western societies brings with it popular TV serials, fast-food chains, shopping malls, freeways, theme parks and sports entertainment. These cultural forms signify instances of the good life desired by non-Western consumers whose pursuit of modernity is mimetic by virtue of an imaginary relation between cultural reproduction and advanced lifestyles�
Discussion questions
Why has Western, particularly American, culture become so globally popular?
What does this culture represent?
Do forms of media seek to actively promote this culture?
If so, for whose benefit?
p. 29 “However, in a global cultural industry signifiers become detached from referents rapidly (or even become manufactured without the necessary of referents) and connect with each other in a myriad of ways to the extent that the meaning cultural authenticity is irrelevant� Is cultural meaning still relevant, or have (commercial) appropriations of traditional cultural meaning dissolved all sense of tradition?