“Be it resolved that Cultural Imperialism is a viable theoretical model for analyzing the relationship between American cultural production and the rest of the world.”
Following our debate in lecture last week, and our intense discussion over the viability of the theoretical model of cultural imperialism, it has been concluded that it is indeed, not a viable model for analyzing the relationship between American cultural production and the rest of the world. At the beginning of lecture, we were assigned into two groups, either belonging to the group in favor of the model, or the group not in favor of the model; essentially a part of the ‘yay’ or ‘nay’ party. Assigned as a member of the ‘yay’ group, I was initially relieved because I believed that it would be the easiest to defend and because at this point, I thought that was the standpoint I favored the most. However, as discussion commenced and both sides initiated the debate, I could not help myself but be swayed by the opposing party. The ‘nay’ group essentially proved to broaden my once narrow view, and lead me to reconsider the true strength and validity of the theory. The two concepts of re-appropriation and glocalization that were first identified by the ‘nay’ group heavily influenced my reconsideration, in addition to several other key points and criticisms that I remembered from earlier in the course.
At first, I heavily believed that the concept of cultural imperialism was a viable model for examining the relationship between American cultural production and the rest of the world. Chapter five of the Thussu text proved to be quite a shock, as the number of statistics illustrating the extreme abundance of American media content, and its production, distribution and consumption on a global scale was very evident. From the statistics presented on film and television, to the statistics indicating the presence of global brands, it could not be more clear that American cultural content on a global scale, greatly outnumbers any other country. Essentially it is easy to compare; US cultural content saturates the flow. American content is more pervasive than any other cultural form or content broadcasted and disseminated globally. Economically the US prospers, with control over almost every industry and almost no sign of this trend imminently changing. The question is; do these trends reflect cultural imperialism? Is cultural imperialism a viable trend for explaining American cultural production and the rest of the world?
Cultural imperialism is essentially the imposition of a foreign viewpoint or civilization on a people and can be loosely defined as the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture or language of one nation into another (Wikipedia 2008). I believe that the concept of Americanization does exist, and that subsequent terms such as Coca-colization and McDonaldization are valid in illustrating the commercial and consumerist lifestyle that the US promotes. I also see that it is evident that modern information technologies along with global communications systems strongly support the cultural distribution and consumption of American content. It is also obvious that there is an extreme over abundance of American cultural content compared to all others, as it dominates the global network of flows. However, with this said, I do not think that this demonstrates a viable interrelationship that can be labeled as cultural imperialism.
Culture, as it exists within every nation, consists of much more, and can be identified by much more than by the mere presence of various corporate bodies or the copious amount of broadcasted media content. Culture is something that consists of people, customs, traditions, knowledge, family, intellect, ways of life, class and gender relations etc- things that I believe are not necessarily influenced by the mere abundance of global American cultural production and dissemination. One issue that really bothers me, and is a true fault of this theoretical model, is that it ignores the question of media form and content as well as the role of the audience. It does not acknowledge that media texts are polysemic and encompass a range of different meanings and ways of interpreting. In turn this theory reinforces the idea that audiences are passive rather than active in their interpretation of meaning, and it rests on the notion that people are cultural dupes, accepting what is in front of them with face value, neglecting any form of agency or ‘free will’, as one might say. Media cultural content and it’s effects on viewers cannot be explained using a hypodermic needle model, assuming the injection of material into its viewers. People actually negotiate meaning and actively process information.
The concept of reappropriation provides a perfect example of how this cultural imperialistic model simply does not fit. It has been found, through the use of many examples in lecture, that various members within almost every culture reconstruct and essentially reappropriate the value or use of certain subjects (ie- whether it be the Muslim Barbie Doll or the Chinese or Jewish rap groups) to make it their own. Instead of being injected with one nations culture or language, it has been proved that audiences worldwide reappropriate once ‘American’ cultural artifacts and make it there own. The cultural imperialistic model in my opinion essentially fails to point out how various global media texts work and basically fails to look at local patterns of media consumption, and ‘cultural consumption, especially in terms of American content and media.
I believe that it is too simplistic to explain our cultural system in terms of a one way flow (American cultural production). As we have discussed over and over in class; there are multiple flows and counterflows that exist in very complex relationships. Although the US dominates the flow, it does not necessarily mean that its profuse presence can be analyzed in terms of a cultural imperialist model. Just because the US dominates in terms of numbers and statistics, does not mean they dominate culturally. In my opinion, this model has very little academic grounding and is supported with limited empirical data. With this stated, it seems hard to use it to analyze something so significant and complicated as the role that American cultural production plays with regards to the rest of the world.
What I am basically trying to get at, and its something alot of us have explained and reinforced in lecture, is that culture is very complex, the nature of society and our global environment is very multifaceted, and given this model, and its faults, I definitely vote against it, and reinforce that it is NOT a viable theoretical model to analyze the relationship between American cultural production and the rest of the world.
Reference:
Thussu, Daya Kishnan. International Communication: Continuity and Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. “Cultural Imperialism.” 20 Feb. 2008 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism.>.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Journal Entry #4: Disney....always the bad guy?!
The article written by Burton- Carvajal J, “Surprise Package: Looking Southward with Disney”, was one of the two readings assigned for this week and corresponded to this weeks theme of cultural imperialism and the notion of ‘soft power’. Generally speaking, cultural imperialism involves the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture or language of one nation into another. ‘Soft Power’, is associated with cultural imperialism, and is a concept that refers to an indirect form of control exercised under more coercive and subtle means. The United States of American, as the world’s leading empire, has essentially been charged with exercising cultural imperialistic practices onto the South American nations. Essentially, this week we painted a clear picture of how the American corporate body, Disney, utilized ‘soft power’ in the 1940’s to invade and culturally exploit South American way of life.
Burton- Carvajal’s article essentially reinforced this notion, and specifically referred to the Disney film, The Three Caballeros (1944), to illustrate his argument. Although this article proved to be quite intriguing, and compelling, I found myself to be critical of a several of her main points and ‘propositions’. To be completely honest, before learning more about the topic in lecture, and reading other fellow class members blogs, I found Burton- Carvajal’s analysis of The Three Caballeros to valid but also quite ridiculous and far stretched. She addresses Disney’s film, as a perfect instance where the Unites States, represented via the major American powerhouse Disney, reinforce their dominance while simultaneously reinforcing South American subordination. Through the narrated story of Donald Duck and his magical visit to South America, a number of ideologies are reinforced and represented to construct an ‘inaccurate’ depiction of reality. The author illustrates that stereotypes are heavily utilized, evident in the construction of Donald’s main Latin friends ‘ Joe Carioca and Panchito the boisterous Mexican rooster’, as well as unequal depictions of what is masculine and feminine, as they exist within a Latino culture. What is referred to by the author as “the end product of a process of cross cultural refiguration”, is essentially what is illustrated by this film (Burton-Carvajal 136).
Now with these points said, and after viewing parts of the film, I do not feel completely satisfied with her article. Although intense historical, political, cultural and economic reasons underly the motives of Disney for developing this film (motives I wont waste time repeating), definitely have contributed greatly to how it was constructed in representing both American and Latin American culture, I personally do not feel that this film is all that horrible. In terms of cultural imperialism, this definitely falls under the category of extreme soft power. As a communications scholar, as bad as it might be to admit, when I watched bits of this film, given even a minute amount of background information, I did not view it as that overtly detrimental to ones cross cultural understanding of Latin America and its’ people. The author demonstrates many concrete and interesting interpretations of the film as a cultural text, and conveyed a thorough semiotic analysis that really captivated and controlled the way I viewed the film. Her ten propositions proved to go above and beyond the interpretations and connotative meanings I derived from the film but definitely accentuated some valid associations. Several comments the author included about the morality of the film abruptly altered my view of this article and actually bothered me; “ The Three Caballeros, one of the most unfortunate experiments since prohibition... is not Disney’s private monster, his personal nightmare. It is a nightmare of these times....” (Burton- Carvajal 140). These types of comments by various writers in the 40’s really did not fit well with my understanding of the film.
I mean, was this film all that bad? Is it that exploitative of Latin American culture? Is it that sexual in nature? In my opinion I do not think that these types of films exploit Latin American culture, at least not more so than any other average fictional film depicting Latin America. Although I agree that this film displays minutely suggestive content, some sexual imagery, some stereotypical and some more accurately represented characters and scenes than others, I basically feel that this film has been very harshly criticized and used as a poor example of cultural imperialism. As bad as it might sound, (this is my opinion once again), I feel like this author in particular, creates a much more exaggerated depiction of The Three Caballeros than is warranted (especially with regards to sexuality and homosexuality). I think that these types of films should definitely be analyzed and decoded, however, it should also be recognized that they should be taken with a grain of salt, and taken for face value. The film was not designed to present an accurate depiction of South American way of life, nor was it designed to make one feel as if they were viewing a documentary of what the Disney creators experienced while submersed in the culture. This was a fictional, imaginative film, constructed to convey an underlying informative narrative. Don’t get me wrong though, I definitely believe that Disney had a side agenda, one that was absolutely evident in various embedded messages, however I do not feel that it poses as that much of a threat to their culture, their people, or an outsiders accurate view of their country. I strongly believe that the majority of people who view this film, would neglect the messages that express ‘domination’, ‘masculine supremacy’, or an ‘allegory of colonialism’. Basically, what I wanted to convey in this blog was simple; that I felt that this author provided a very harsh and exaggerated, one sided critical examination of Disney’s The Three Caballeros, one that was not necessary to prove her main points.
Sources:
Burton-Carvajal, Julianne. “ Suprise Package; Looking Southward with Disney.” Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic
Kingdom. Smoodin, E. Routledge, 2004. 131-147.
Burton- Carvajal’s article essentially reinforced this notion, and specifically referred to the Disney film, The Three Caballeros (1944), to illustrate his argument. Although this article proved to be quite intriguing, and compelling, I found myself to be critical of a several of her main points and ‘propositions’. To be completely honest, before learning more about the topic in lecture, and reading other fellow class members blogs, I found Burton- Carvajal’s analysis of The Three Caballeros to valid but also quite ridiculous and far stretched. She addresses Disney’s film, as a perfect instance where the Unites States, represented via the major American powerhouse Disney, reinforce their dominance while simultaneously reinforcing South American subordination. Through the narrated story of Donald Duck and his magical visit to South America, a number of ideologies are reinforced and represented to construct an ‘inaccurate’ depiction of reality. The author illustrates that stereotypes are heavily utilized, evident in the construction of Donald’s main Latin friends ‘ Joe Carioca and Panchito the boisterous Mexican rooster’, as well as unequal depictions of what is masculine and feminine, as they exist within a Latino culture. What is referred to by the author as “the end product of a process of cross cultural refiguration”, is essentially what is illustrated by this film (Burton-Carvajal 136).
Now with these points said, and after viewing parts of the film, I do not feel completely satisfied with her article. Although intense historical, political, cultural and economic reasons underly the motives of Disney for developing this film (motives I wont waste time repeating), definitely have contributed greatly to how it was constructed in representing both American and Latin American culture, I personally do not feel that this film is all that horrible. In terms of cultural imperialism, this definitely falls under the category of extreme soft power. As a communications scholar, as bad as it might be to admit, when I watched bits of this film, given even a minute amount of background information, I did not view it as that overtly detrimental to ones cross cultural understanding of Latin America and its’ people. The author demonstrates many concrete and interesting interpretations of the film as a cultural text, and conveyed a thorough semiotic analysis that really captivated and controlled the way I viewed the film. Her ten propositions proved to go above and beyond the interpretations and connotative meanings I derived from the film but definitely accentuated some valid associations. Several comments the author included about the morality of the film abruptly altered my view of this article and actually bothered me; “ The Three Caballeros, one of the most unfortunate experiments since prohibition... is not Disney’s private monster, his personal nightmare. It is a nightmare of these times....” (Burton- Carvajal 140). These types of comments by various writers in the 40’s really did not fit well with my understanding of the film.
I mean, was this film all that bad? Is it that exploitative of Latin American culture? Is it that sexual in nature? In my opinion I do not think that these types of films exploit Latin American culture, at least not more so than any other average fictional film depicting Latin America. Although I agree that this film displays minutely suggestive content, some sexual imagery, some stereotypical and some more accurately represented characters and scenes than others, I basically feel that this film has been very harshly criticized and used as a poor example of cultural imperialism. As bad as it might sound, (this is my opinion once again), I feel like this author in particular, creates a much more exaggerated depiction of The Three Caballeros than is warranted (especially with regards to sexuality and homosexuality). I think that these types of films should definitely be analyzed and decoded, however, it should also be recognized that they should be taken with a grain of salt, and taken for face value. The film was not designed to present an accurate depiction of South American way of life, nor was it designed to make one feel as if they were viewing a documentary of what the Disney creators experienced while submersed in the culture. This was a fictional, imaginative film, constructed to convey an underlying informative narrative. Don’t get me wrong though, I definitely believe that Disney had a side agenda, one that was absolutely evident in various embedded messages, however I do not feel that it poses as that much of a threat to their culture, their people, or an outsiders accurate view of their country. I strongly believe that the majority of people who view this film, would neglect the messages that express ‘domination’, ‘masculine supremacy’, or an ‘allegory of colonialism’. Basically, what I wanted to convey in this blog was simple; that I felt that this author provided a very harsh and exaggerated, one sided critical examination of Disney’s The Three Caballeros, one that was not necessary to prove her main points.
Sources:
Burton-Carvajal, Julianne. “ Suprise Package; Looking Southward with Disney.” Disney Discourse: Producing the Magic
Kingdom. Smoodin, E. Routledge, 2004. 131-147.
Monday, February 4, 2008
ONLINE JOURNAL #3!!!
EDUTAINMENT......
In class this week, we primarily focused on the increasing convergence of corporate entities and the amount of vertical and horizontal integration that has occurred within, and between, major media conglomerates. Our readings consisted of chapters 3,4 and 7 from Thussu’s text, examining the expansion of our global communication infrastructure and the emergence of the internet and its underlying implications. The topic that gained the majority of my interest involved the concept of edutainment. Edutainment is essentially the use of various media, such as computer software, to essentially educate and entertain. Briefly discussed in comparison to ‘infotainment’, Thussu described edutainment as making “education entertaining without sacrificing quality” (Thussu 2000:223). The children’s show Sesame Street was used as an example in the text; a program broadcasted with educational intentions and viewed as entertainment. The idea behind edutainment is that by entertaining while educating, children will engage more positively with the material taught and therefore gain more out of the programs. Edutainment, in its most basic sense, seems like a very beneficial and effective means to teach children.
When reading this section in Thussu’s text, it initially made me think of educational e board games, computer games, and educational television shows such as Barney, The Magic School Bus, Blues Clues, and Teletubbies etc. However, it also reminded me of a recent news program I viewed on CTV that hit a nerve. The news broadcast described an initiative to incorporate interactive e-learning video games into the Canadian elementary school curriculum. Due to the dramatic increase in the amount of time children spend at the computer, messaging and playing games, the idea of using this pastime to help further education has become common. Essentially, the idea described by this initiative was to use video games as a means to aid in child classroom learning. The video games described in the brief news program were basically designed as interactive mediums where children could browse various academic topics. For instance, children could surf various geographical environments,- ie- an African jungle or an Egyptian dessert- identifying certain types of animals and vegetation, in order to learn the components. Once interacting with the objects, the child would be provided with educational descriptions and ‘interesting’ facts etc.
Doug Thomas, a professor at the University of Souther California’s Annenberg School for communication, also an advocate of video game edutainment, is also currently developing a video game for students ages 10-12 that aims to teach ideas and skills not found in traditional textbooks. His game, called Modern Promotheus, uses the story of Frankenstein to teach children ethical decision making. Utilizing the video game genre, he hopes to help place this form of edutainment within the American classroom setting. Thomas acknowledges that his game currently fits into the elementary school system, but doesn't, as of yet, fit into many established middle school curricula. Stated in his article, “ to overcome that obstacle, Thomas is collaborating with Indiana University Professor Sasha Barab whose Quest Atlantis game is used by 4500 students around the world” (Reuters 2007).
In my opinion, edutainment, in the form of television programming, is fantastic, as it definitely aids to enrich children while entertaining them at the same time. However, edutainment in the form of video games should not be utilized as a means to teach children within the classroom. What does that say about our current society/world? These news stories were a definite shock. In my opinion, these stories help reinforce how reliant we are, as a nation, on entertainment and technology. They also reinforce the laziness of our culture- not only the laziness of our teachers, but also the laziness of our children. By utilizing these types of technologies to teach children, we would essentially be depriving them of the independence and satisfaction of reading or researching for example. Something just doesn't seem right about allowing a computer video game to educate our youth. Although these types of ideas are interesting in theory, I believe that if these types of learning programs were implemented, they would do more harm then good.
What is most sobering, is that these types of edutainment forms being combined with various education systems is not an unrealistic thought. Rather, it seems like a number of these educational video games are being utilized around the world...
Maybe I am pessimistic, but I just do not see the value in using video games to teach in the classroom setting...
Reuters.(2007). Video Games Invade University Classrooms. Retreived February 3, 2008, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071206.wgtcollegegaming1206/BNStory
Thussu, Daya Kishan. The Historical Context of International Communication. International Communication: Continuity and
Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
In class this week, we primarily focused on the increasing convergence of corporate entities and the amount of vertical and horizontal integration that has occurred within, and between, major media conglomerates. Our readings consisted of chapters 3,4 and 7 from Thussu’s text, examining the expansion of our global communication infrastructure and the emergence of the internet and its underlying implications. The topic that gained the majority of my interest involved the concept of edutainment. Edutainment is essentially the use of various media, such as computer software, to essentially educate and entertain. Briefly discussed in comparison to ‘infotainment’, Thussu described edutainment as making “education entertaining without sacrificing quality” (Thussu 2000:223). The children’s show Sesame Street was used as an example in the text; a program broadcasted with educational intentions and viewed as entertainment. The idea behind edutainment is that by entertaining while educating, children will engage more positively with the material taught and therefore gain more out of the programs. Edutainment, in its most basic sense, seems like a very beneficial and effective means to teach children.
When reading this section in Thussu’s text, it initially made me think of educational e board games, computer games, and educational television shows such as Barney, The Magic School Bus, Blues Clues, and Teletubbies etc. However, it also reminded me of a recent news program I viewed on CTV that hit a nerve. The news broadcast described an initiative to incorporate interactive e-learning video games into the Canadian elementary school curriculum. Due to the dramatic increase in the amount of time children spend at the computer, messaging and playing games, the idea of using this pastime to help further education has become common. Essentially, the idea described by this initiative was to use video games as a means to aid in child classroom learning. The video games described in the brief news program were basically designed as interactive mediums where children could browse various academic topics. For instance, children could surf various geographical environments,- ie- an African jungle or an Egyptian dessert- identifying certain types of animals and vegetation, in order to learn the components. Once interacting with the objects, the child would be provided with educational descriptions and ‘interesting’ facts etc.
Doug Thomas, a professor at the University of Souther California’s Annenberg School for communication, also an advocate of video game edutainment, is also currently developing a video game for students ages 10-12 that aims to teach ideas and skills not found in traditional textbooks. His game, called Modern Promotheus, uses the story of Frankenstein to teach children ethical decision making. Utilizing the video game genre, he hopes to help place this form of edutainment within the American classroom setting. Thomas acknowledges that his game currently fits into the elementary school system, but doesn't, as of yet, fit into many established middle school curricula. Stated in his article, “ to overcome that obstacle, Thomas is collaborating with Indiana University Professor Sasha Barab whose Quest Atlantis game is used by 4500 students around the world” (Reuters 2007).
In my opinion, edutainment, in the form of television programming, is fantastic, as it definitely aids to enrich children while entertaining them at the same time. However, edutainment in the form of video games should not be utilized as a means to teach children within the classroom. What does that say about our current society/world? These news stories were a definite shock. In my opinion, these stories help reinforce how reliant we are, as a nation, on entertainment and technology. They also reinforce the laziness of our culture- not only the laziness of our teachers, but also the laziness of our children. By utilizing these types of technologies to teach children, we would essentially be depriving them of the independence and satisfaction of reading or researching for example. Something just doesn't seem right about allowing a computer video game to educate our youth. Although these types of ideas are interesting in theory, I believe that if these types of learning programs were implemented, they would do more harm then good.
What is most sobering, is that these types of edutainment forms being combined with various education systems is not an unrealistic thought. Rather, it seems like a number of these educational video games are being utilized around the world...
Maybe I am pessimistic, but I just do not see the value in using video games to teach in the classroom setting...
Reuters.(2007). Video Games Invade University Classrooms. Retreived February 3, 2008, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20071206.wgtcollegegaming1206/BNStory
Thussu, Daya Kishan. The Historical Context of International Communication. International Communication: Continuity and
Change. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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