Transcript Document
AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES
6 Contra flow in Global Media
Lecture by Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine
based on Thussu’s International Communication
Structure of the Lecture
•
•
•
•
1. Seeing the big world on a small screen
2. Global culture’s discontents
3. Global counter flow of television
3.1 Cultures of Diaspora
3.1.1 Case: Middle East Broadcasting Centre
3.1.2 Case: Phoenix Chinese Channel
18/07/2015
2
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
18/07/2015
3
1. Seeing the big world on a small screen
•
Television has come to dominate the media scene
in virtually every part of the world
•
Icons of global television such as CNN and MTV
have become ubiquitous
•
Global television has helped promote American
consumerist culture
18/07/2015
4
1. Seeing the big world on a small screen
Governments
Transnational corporations
Terrorists
•
have harnessed the power of television to put
across their case
18/07/2015
5
1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen
•
The globalization of such a powerful visual medium
has tended to increase Western cultural influence
but other models exist
18/07/2015
6
1. Seeing the big world on a small screen
•
US-led media conglomerates have used an array of
strategies, including
•
Regionalization
•
localization of their content to extend their reach
beyond the elites in the world and to create the
global popular
•
18/07/2015
7
1. Seeing the big world on a small screen
•
Global television has created a new phenomenon
of “media events” the live broadcasting to historic
events around the world
18/07/2015
Olympic Games
The Gulf War
Natural or human disasters
8
1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen
•
Western-inspired television has benefits
18/07/2015
It has contributed to the creation of jobs in media and
cultural industries
It has contributed to strengthening liberal democracy
It has improved media quality products (professional
journalism, Mohammad Ayish, 2000)
9
1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen
•
The expansion of Western publishing houses in
the global South has some positive impacts:
Mexican writer become popular in the USA,
with many more being translated into
English
Can this lead to what a Mexican scholar
called “Latinization of the United States”
18/07/2015
10
“Latinization of the United States”
•
Can this lead to what a Mexican scholar called
“Latinization of the United States”
•
Huntington, S. (2004). Who Are We?: The
Challenges to America's National Identity.
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
18/07/2015
11
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
The expansion of Western cultural presence in he
developing world has negative impacts:
•
In the Islamic world: Iran “Westoxination” is the
adoption and flaunting of superficial consumerist
attributes of fads and commodities, originating in
the USA
•
Iran banned Western television on the grounds
that it was culturally inappropriate in an Islamic
nation
18/07/2015
12
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
Why has Western liberalism its most robust
resistance in the Islamic world
Political discourses (ideologies,
Weltanschaungen)
Anti-Western
Islamo-phobia
Symbolism of interactions with Western
cultural artifacts
18/07/2015
13
JIHAD VS. McWORLD
•
“Just beyond the horizon of current events lie two
possible political futures -- both bleak, neither
democratic. The first is a retribalization of large swaths
of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened
Lebanonization of national states in which culture is
pitted against culture, people against people, tribe
against tribe -- a Jihad in the name of a hundred
narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of
interdependence, every kind of artificial social
cooperation and civic mutuality. McWorld tied together
by technology, ecology, communications, and
commerce” (http://www.benjaminrbarber.com/)
18/07/2015
14
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
In the McWorld, culture is being commodified to the extent
that it impacts on religious sensibilities of various communities
•
American individualism, mediated primarily through television,
is seen as undermining traditional values
•
As a reaction to perceived Westernisation of their cultures
•
As a reaction to the alleged misrepresentation of non-Western
cultures in the global media
18/07/2015
15
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
The result is a cultural revival
•
The world is experiencing the “revenge of the sacred”
•
The cultural revival is reflected in the use and production of
media content
India: The Hindu epic Ramayan 1998
China: Beijing opera 1998
18/07/2015
16
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
Although Western domination (television forms and
formats) of the global media and communication
remains overwhelming, the cultural interactions
between Western media products and non-Western
societies are deeply complex
•
People prefer entertainment in their own language,
catering to their cultural priorities
18/07/2015
17
2. Global Culture Discontent
•
Obvious unfamiliarity
Limited and often distorted understanding of
History
Traditions
Languages
Cultures
of many developing countries leads to such
undifferentiated view of the “majority world”
18/07/2015
18
3. Global Counterflow of television
•
A more nuanced understanding of the complex
process of international cultural flow will show that
the traffic is not just one way
From South to North
•
Southern media organizations are becoming visible
across the globe and
•
Feeding into the emergent “diasporic public sphere”
18/07/2015
19
Discourses of Globalization
•
Arjun Appadurai specifies five “spaces”:
–
–
–
–
–
18/07/2015
Ethnospacess
Technospaces
Finanspaces
Mediaspaces
Ideospaces
20
Discourses of Globalization
•
Ethnospacess:
denotes the flow of people
– Tourists
– Immigrants
– Refuges
– Students
– Professionals
From one part to another
18/07/2015
21
Discourses of Globalization
•
Arjun Appadurai specifies five “spaces”:
–
–
–
–
–
18/07/2015
Ethnospacess
Technospaces
Finanspaces
Mediaspaces
Ideospaces
22
Discourses of Globalization
•
Ethnospacess:
denotes the flow of people
– Tourists,
– Immigrants
– Refuges
– Students
– Professional
From one part to another
18/07/2015
23
Discourses of Globalization
•
•
Technospaces:
includes the transfer of technology across national
borders
18/07/2015
24
Discourses of Globalization
•
Finanspaces:
•
deals with international flow of investment
18/07/2015
25
Discourses of Globalization
•
•
Mediaspaces:
refers to global media, especially its electronic
version both its hardware and the images that it
produces
18/07/2015
26
Discourses of Globalization
•
Ideospaces: suggests ideological contours of
culture
18/07/2015
27
3.1 Cultures of Diasporas
•
The Southern presence in the metropolitan
centers of the world has caused the “loss of the
natural relation of culture to geographical and
social territories”
Diasporas are living “between cultures”/dual
identity
Identity of imagery “homeland” # identity of
host country
18/07/2015
28
3.1 Cultures of Diasporas
•
= Cultural hybridity ->
•
The cultural mixing can lead to a hybridization of
cultures (Martin Barbero)
•
Think of the “diasporic public sphere” and the role
of international communication (read handout,
Arab communities in Europe)
18/07/2015
29
Discussion
•
Counter flow of cultural products in no way show
that the Western media domination has diminished
Their output is relatively small
Restricted to the diasporas communities
18/07/2015
30
Key Terms
•
Please do supply a definition of one of the following
key terms:
Nationalism/Regionalism/Internationalism
Colonialism/Empire
Capital/Capitalism
Regime (not politics)
Communication/Propaganda
Technology
State
Convergence
Globalization
18/07/2015
31