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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