Change of Heart: "Nay" side wins my vote!!!

“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.>.