1. 5 Communication and Cultural Globalisation
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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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16. direction over society at large
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
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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
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18. The dominant social class exerts moral Intellectual
Hegemony
The dominant social class exerts
moral
Intellectual
leadership through its control of such institutions as
Schools
Religious bodies
Mass media
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19. conceptualize political functions of the media in propagating
Hegemony
In international communication, the notion of hegemony is widely used to
conceptualize political functions of the media in
propagating
maintaining
the dominant ideology
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20. In explaining the process of media communication production
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
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21. Though the media are notionally free from direct government control,
Hegemony
Though the media are notionally free from direct government control,
yet they act as agents of legitimization of the dominant ideology
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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
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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
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24. 2.1 Hollywood Hegemony
European countries have developed joint ventures to deal with thiis challenge
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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