Cultural Imperialism

Provider: Kate Liu / 劉紀雯

Central Issues:

John Tomlinson's views from Chapter Three of Media and Cultural Regulation
How do we examine globalization critically?
Cultural Imperialism argument --Importance: It concerns cultural identity and government policy.
                                    Danger: It is adopted as a ready-made position; protectionism
Counter-Argument

globalization as a global project
As a densening web of interconnectedness on all levels, globalization is ordinary.  (Kevin Robins in Tomlinson 118).

Cultural Imperialism argument
--the dominance , worldwide, of a standardized, 'homogenized' consumer culture, emanating from western (and particularly North American) capitalism, represents a form of global cultural regulation.

Basic thesis: certain dominant cultures threaten to overwhelm other more vulnerable ones.  e.g. America over Europe, "the West over the Rest," the core over the periphery, capitalism over more or less everyone.

two major strands:
　

1. "anti-Americanism"--against American cultural and  economic dominance, could be a form of cultural protectionism (e.g. the banning of importation or use of satellite dishes in Islamic states).

• danger of protectionism or nationalism: who are "we" that get represented in national culture?

• What makes cultural protectionism difficult to implement is not merely the technological innovation in electronic media that are making national borders more and more permeable, but--more significantly-- the divergence between the routine cultural desires and practices of ordinary people and the state's interest in the preservation of 'the national culture.'

2. against transnational capitalism supported by communication systems--
e.g. Herbert Schiller on transnational media and communication industries
"they are the 'ideologically supportive informational infrastructure' of global capitalism.  The agents for 'the promotion, protection and extension of the modern world system' which 'create ...attachment to the way things are in the system overall'" (Schiller qut in Tomlinson 125).

(examples of cultural domination: Disney, Hollywood Film [e.g. the film Evita], MacDonald's, Coca-Cola)

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Counter-Argument
1. not predominantly American culture--The complex cross-cutting and overlay of communication paths and flows takes on a less benign aspect: now it appears as a 'web' which enmeshes and binds all cultures.
the dominant culture as "the 'distanciated' influences" which order our everyday lives
　

2. the viewers may receive dominant culture differently.
patterns of TV viewing--a. 'primetime' scheduled for local shows; b. imports operate at a 'cultural discount'
　

3. the 'decentering' of capitalism from the West
--against core-periphery argument: This structuring of the global capitalist system assures the continued economic weakness, cultural subordination and conditions for the exploitation of the Third World by the First.  It does not adequately grasp the complexities of the operation of global capitalism.

4. Globalization is a global project

Globalization is unlikely to produce an entirely regulated, homogenized global culture.
　

A. 'indegenization' of Western cultural goods, localization
　

B. deterritorialization caused by the capital; by the immigrants from Asia, Africa or Latin America

Conclusion: what is needed is a far more nuanced, flexible and dialectical critical perspective than that provided by the cultural imperialism approach.  Such a perspective should not attempt to 'totalize' in the manner of the cultural imperialism thesis, but to respond to the very different configurations of power and resistance--the various local-global dialectics--that we are increasingly likely to be confronted with.

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