5 Communication and Cultural Globalisation

1. AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES 5 Communication and Cultural Globalisation Lecture by Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine based on Thussu’s International Communication

2. The statement of the day • I hear, I forget • I see, I remember • I do, I Understand Confucius

3. Structure of the Lecture • 1. Globalization of Western Culture • 2. The flow of International Television Programmes • 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony • 2.2 • 3. Concerns for Cultural Diversity • 4. Global English • 5. Regionalization and Localization in the Media Market • 5.1 Regionalization in Print journalism • 5.2 Regionalized Advertising • 5.3 Regionalization of Pop Music • 5.4 Global Media local Audience

4. Structure of the Lecture • 3. Media exports from the South to the North • 3.1 Case 1: TV Globo • 3.2 Case 2: The other Hollywood: the Indian film industry

5. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • The effects of the explosion in international communication has been mainly preoccupied with the economic dimensions of globalization at the expense of cultural aspects of interactions between and among the world’s peoples

6. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • Is globalization another term for Americanization? • The general pattern of media ownership indicates that West, led by the USA, dominates the international flow of information and entertainment in all major media sectors • What is the impact of such one-way flows of global information and entertainment on national and regional media cultures

7. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • It has been argued that international communication and media are leading to the homogenization of culture, but the patterns of global/national/local interactions may be more complex • The issue of hybridity: How global genres are adapted to siut national cultural codes

8. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • Some argue that such globally transmitted programming will promote a shared media culture, based on English and American lifestyles and values • The globalization of the privatized, advertisement-driven model of American commercial television has brought consumer culture to living rooms across the world • Graphic • As a visual medium, television has much wider reach than the print media

9. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • The international dissemination of images transcends linguistic barriers • Television is thus central to what Stuart Hall has called a “global mass culture”, one dominated by the image, imagery, and styles of mass advertising • This mass culture may be influencing the way people think about their regional or national identities

10. 1. Globalization of Western Culture • The globalization of consumerism has been variously described as “Coca-Cola-ization” or “McDonaldization”, creating a credit-card global society modeled on US commercial culture epitomized by Nike and Addidas and their promotion by celebrities like Michael Jordan (Graphic ) • It has been argued that one reason for the global appeal to US popular culture is its openness and mingling of multiplicity of cultures • The intercultural density may constitute part of the subliminal attraction of American popular media, music, film and television

11. 2. The Flow of International Television Programmes • The global flow of consumerist messages through international television has been by some as evidence of a new form of cultural imperialism, especially in non-Western world • The US use its “soft power” to promote its national interest • The flow of international television programmes from the West to other parts of the world has become more pronounced in the era of multi-channel television

12. 2. The Flow of International Television Programmes • There is generally one-way traffic from the major-Western-exporting nations to the rest of the world • In Latin America, virtually all imports are from the USA, even in countries where a strong domestic television industry exists such as Brazil and Mexico • Even in a country like Britain, with substantial earnings from exporting its own television programmes, the US television presence is still significant

13. 2. The Flow of International Television Programmes • The US presence on European television has increased substantially, especially in film-based programming, which is often dubbed into local languages • With a forecast growth in digital satellite subscribers across the continent, the US programmes intake is likely to grow

14. 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony • The US presence on European television has increased substantially, especially in film-based programming, which is often dubbed into local languages • With a forecast growth in digital satellite subscribers across the continent, the US programmes intake is likely to grow

15. Hegemony • Hegemony is a key term in the critical studies of international communication • The term hegemony is associated with the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci and • his famous book, Selections from the Prison Notebooks published first in English in 1971

16. Hegemony • The term is rooted in the notion that the dominant social group in a society has the capacity to exercise • intellectual • moral • direction over society at large • to build a new system of social alliances to support its aims

17. Hegemony Gramsci argued that • Military force was not necessarily the best instrument to retain power for the ruling classes • The more effective way to use power was to build a consent by ideological control of cultural • production • and distribution

18. Hegemony • The dominant social class exerts • moral • Intellectual • leadership through its control of such institutions as • Schools • Religious bodies • Mass media

19. Hegemony • In international communication, the notion of hegemony is widely used to • conceptualize political functions of the media in • propagating • maintaining • the dominant ideology

20. Hegemony • In international communication, the notion of hegemony is widely used to • In explaining the process of media communication production • The dominant ideology shapes the production of news and entertainment

21. Hegemony • Though the media are notionally free from direct government control, • yet they act as agents of legitimization of the dominant ideology

22. 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony • One of the most contest issues in global film exports has been the trade in films between the USA and Europe • The audio-visual market in the EU remains overwhelmingly dominated by American productions • American productions account for between 60 to 90 per cent of members states’ audio-visual markets • Receipt from cinema ticket sales • Video cassette sales and rental • Sales of TV fiction programmes

23. 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony • The process of trade deregulation and expansion in the US film and television industry in the 1990s has also undermined the heavily subsidized European film industry • Mexico’s film industry experienced a dramatic fall in production between 1988 and 1998 • In Japan film production has halved in the past three decades • The leading Russian studio, Mosfilm, which used to produce up to 50 films a year in the 1970s and 1980s, released only three films in 1997

24. 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony • European countries have developed joint ventures to deal with thiis challenge

25. 3 Concern for Cultural Diversity • The standardization of programmes on the world’s cinema and television screens risks the disappearance of cultural and linguistic identities • Many countries have regulations on maintaining a certain level of programming on television dealing with local content • Canadian Broadcasting Corporation = 60 percent • France = 60 percent

26. 4 Global English • English ahs emerged in the pats two hundred years as the lingua franca of global commerce and communication • The US assumption of this pre-eminent position ensured the continuation of English as the key language of global communication, with significant implication for the future of the world’s other language • English has acquired the status of being the language of power and prestige

27. 4 Global English • This is particularly noticeable in the field of book publishing, where English-language publishers set the literary agenda globally, which is often detrimental to the interest of many Southern writers • English, preferably American English, the Californian English dialect, the chief of the computer and the Internet and the accepted of global communication • The growth in multi-channel television, filled with American programming or its local clones, is likely to extend an American version of English language to all parts of the world

28. Regionalization and Localization in the Media Market • Although there is enough evidence of the globalization of Western media products to raise profound concern fore cultures outside the USA and UK • There is also a trend towards the regionalization and localization of media content to suit cultural priorities of audiences and fears of a homogenized world culture may be premature • It has become a commercial imperative for international media organizations to adapt their product and services to local cultural conditions

29. Regionalization and Localization in the Media Market • Even in Europe, regionalization has become a commercial imperative for international broadcasters • Adaptation of US programming is easier in the countries where English is widely used, as in Scandinavia • Some see this regionalization of products as a sign of global-local cultural syncretism • In the Arab world, key Western television channels are increasingly localizing their contents to go beyond the expatriate constituency • Even the BBC channels have regionalized their content

30. Global Media and Local Audience? • The providers of global media messages are primarily Western, though they employ an array of regional and local strategies to maximize their audiences and advertising revenues • Western media texts bring with them images of lifestyles, expected social relations and ways of representing

31. Global Media and Local Audience? • While the presence of imported television products on screens in the South and in Europe is undeniable, the consumption of them is by no means a passive, receptive process • The interactions with mediated Western culture can produce complex results • People first filter and reorganize what comes from hegemonic culture and then integrate and fuse this with what comes from their own historically memory

32. Global Media and Local Audience? • This plurality of interpretations of media messages is borne out by the studies of television, the most powerful global medium • Although the number of people watching CNN or reading Time magazine in developing countries may be tiny, they are often those with power and influence • It could be argued that international communication is promoting a globalized, “westernized” elite which believes in the supremacy of the market and liberal democracy

33. Global Media and Local Audience? • A pan-Asian cross-media survey in 1999 found that CNN and MTV were the most popular channels among the elite affluent sections of society in Asia • Rather than creating a homogenized culture, globalization of Western culture my be producing “heterogeneous disjunctions” • The global-local cultural interaction is leading to a hyprid culture, which blurs the boundaries between the modern and the traditional, the high and low culture and the national and the global culture

34. Global Media and Local Audience? • Roland Robertson called this mingling “glocalisation” characterized by cultural fusion as a result of adaptation of Western media genres to suit • Local languages • Styles • Cultural conventions • using new communication technologies