Media imperialism, its critics, and its apologists

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Media imperialism, its critics, and its apologists

• November 6, 2006

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Media imperialism

• Theory usually attributed to Herbert Schiller
  (1919-2000)
• UCSD communication professor
• Leading scholar of critical political economy of
  the media
• Most influential publication
• Mass Communication and American Empire (1969)

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Schillers key claims

• US and Western European-controlled TNCs dominate
  the world market (1-way flow)
• All goods and services
• And, most important, what he called
  communications-cultural output
• What is often called modernization is in fact
  Westernization
• Only one form of modernity is available

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As a result

• The media content produced and distributedaround
  the worldby these Western TNMCs
• Promotes/develops popular support for
  values/artifacts of capitalism as a whole
• And for TNCs in particular
• Enables further growth/spread of Western economic
  interests

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Taking this further

• Worldwide exportation of Western TV shows and
  movies
• Is like an electronic invasion of local
  cultures and lifestyles
• Threatens to destroy local cultures, eroding
  historical traditions
• Result the cultural and ideological
  homogenization of the world

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The underlying idea

• For a nation (say, the US!) to dominate the
  world
• Its not necessary to take over by force
• It may be easierand more desirableand certainly
  less bloody!to control images and opinions

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Challenging/revising MI

• Since Schiller, a number of critics have offered
  opposing views
• Although still accept some basic premises of
  Schiller
• particularly, that US is responsible for vast
  majority of media exports
• many critics have countered with claims grounded
  in active audience and encoding/decoding
  theory

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What do you think this means?

• Even though media products are distributed
  worldwide, it doesnt mean
• they affect everyone identically
• everyone reads them the same way
• Rather (critics of MI claim), audiences
• Read them differently
• Overlay their own cultural understandings
• May be either oppressed by them or liberated by
  them

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In other words

• Lets not forget that magic bullet theory was
  discredited long ago!
• Yet Schiller would have us believe that
  transnational media texts work just that way!
• Lets consider some specific anti-MI (or post-MI)
  studies

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Liebes Katz (1991) the Dallas study

• Israel Arabs, Russian Jews, Moroccan Jews,
  Israeli kibbutz residents
• US
• Japan
• Readings of Dallas varied depending on viewers
  cultural backgrounds
• How real it seemed, cultural messages,
  political messages

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Dallas study (ctd.)

• Americans criticized how well/badly the story was
  written, produced, acted
• Russians criticized politics (capitalism)
  inherent in Dallas
• Arabs criticized dangers of Western culturethe
  moral degeneracy of US life

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Dallas (ctd.) summary

• Audiences draw on their own national/ ethnic
  identities when decoding TV shows
• Decoding process may even strengthen an
  audiences sense of ethnic identity
• You compare whats on the screen (for good or
  bad) to your own culture
• And in doing so, become more in touch with who
  you are culturally

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Studies in Africa

• Davis Davis (1995) studied Moroccan youth
  exposed to Western TV (1980s-90s)
• Found young paper re-imagined aspects of their
  own lives
• Desire for more autonomy
• Awareness of career options
• New approaches to romantic relationships

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US soap operas and traditional Zulu culture

• Strelitz (2004) interviewed young man (Khulani)
  raised in South Africa in traditional Zulu family
• From watching variety of US soaps, came to new
  understandings of
• Male-female romantic relationships
• Son-father relationships
• Womens right to speak their minds

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But a negotiated reading!

• Khulani did not just accept or endorse every
  value he saw in US soaps
• Rejected idea of 15-year-olds being in
  relationships
• Rejected US approach to dealing with elderly

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Another (non-media-specific) challenge to media
imperialism

• MI assumes that prior to TV/movies
• There was no contact between industrial West and
  more traditional cultures
• Non-Western cultures were pure
• Non-Western cultural values were/are universally
  superior to Western values

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Reality

• Theres been cross-cultural contact for centuries
• Most forms of culture in the world are already
  hybridized
• Many values of non-Western cultures are not
  necessarily admirable
• e.g., how women are treated in many Arab
  cultures taboo against fathers and sons sharing
  feelings in Zulu culture

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Another challenge glocalization

• As weve seen with
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
• Desperate Housewives
• Even when US/European TV shows are exported,
  theyre usually adapted to make sense to local
  cultures

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Another angle Promotional Culture

• Even if the US-dominated media dont act as media
  imperialists
• And even if audiences around the world read US
  media actively, and through their own cultural
  lenses
• We cant deny that the worldwide explosion in
  media and popular culture texts are part of a
  larger trend promotional culture

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Promotional culture

• Media/cultural texts as consumer products
• Media/cultural textsand visual imagery more
  broadlythat are used to create (and sell) brands
  and brand images
• Media/cultural texts as both
• Advertising-supported
• Forms of advertising, themselves

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Historical perspective

• Its impossible to separate the invention,
  development, and growth of media from that of
  promotion (esp. advertising)
• Newspapers
• Radio
• Television
• The Internet

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Parallel to growth of media

• Has been the growth of the promotional
  professions
• Advertising
• Public relations
• Sales promotion
• And these professions themselves are increasingly
  pervasive and powerful
• Examples?

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Penetration of the promotion professions

• So much more than simply the way sellers promote
  products to buyers
• Promotion professions influence
• Fashion, politics, policies, values, ideas
• The development of market systems
• The development of democracies
• Our own, and those of other nations

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All supply?or supply and demand?

• Todd Gitlin considers this question
• We know whats in it (media imperialism) for the
  TNMCs
• But whats in it for the worlds media consumers?
• That is, what is it about US media products that
  is uniquely appealing worldwide?

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Gitlins Media Unlimited

• Core arguments
• Media engagement IS our lives
• We are caught up in a flowor torrentof media
  images
• The flow is global
• And it emanates from the US
• But why?beyond the obvious economic answers

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American popular culture a global lingua franca

• Analogous to (American) English being the worlds
  most common second language
• American popular culture is the worlds most
  common second culture
• It hasnt wiped out indigenous cultures
• But it co-exists alongside them
• Thus, around the world, peopleespecially young
  peopleare bicultural

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The global semi-culture

• People around the world dip into and out of the
  comforting, familiar, and highly accessible
  aspects of US popular culture
• Movies, music, fast food, advertising, logos,
  brands, clothing styles

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Whats the appeal?

• A loose sort of social membership that requires
  little but a momentary (and monetary) surrender
• Sampling American goods, images, and sounds,
  they affiliate with an empire of informality
• Consuming a commodity, wearing a slogan or a
  logo, you affiliate with disaffiliation
• What does this mean?

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A limited-liability connection

• You just borrow some of the effervescence of
  the American ethos
• You hope to be recognized as one of the elect
• That is, at no big cost to you, you get to
  borrow Americanness
• And its various associations
• What are those associations?

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The supply side

• Percentage of US-produced media products non-US
  revenues (in 2000)
• Theatrical movie releases 51
• TV shows 41
• Videos 27
• As weve seen, once enough copies are made for
  the huge US market, additional copies for non-US
  market are cheap to make

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But this isnt a new phenomenon

• 1925 90 of movies shown in UK, NZ, Australia,
  Brazil, Mexico, and many other countries were
  US-made films
• Percentages dropped in the 1930s
• But European devastation of WW2 made it harder
  for Europe to recover its popular culture
  industries
• So US swept in again

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The non-US side of supply side

• More than ever, non-US music, TV shows, movies,
  etc
• Reflect US influence, are built on US formulas
• Westerns, hip-hop, action heroes, soap operas
• Why?
• US formulas are proven successes

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But the supply side doesnt tell the whole
story!

• This is Gitlins key argument
• To understand success of US pop culture around
  the world, we must look at the demand side
• Why do non-US audiences want/love US pop cultural
  products?

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Put another way

• What is it about US pop-cultural products that
  resonates so strongly with non-US audiences (as
  well as US)?

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Some of Gitlins explanations

• Our own culture is in fact multi-cultural,
  multi-lingual
• US is a melting pot
• Still highly heterogeneous
• To be successful here, our pop-culture products
  have to speak to a wildly diverse population

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So-called US culture is itself multicultural

• Our most popular music and dance
• Derives from descendants of African slaves, among
  others
• Our comic sense
• Derives from the English, Eastern European Jews,
  African Americans, Hispanics
• Our stories
• From everywhere

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US culture is populist

• Unlike in Western Europe, popular culture in US
  never had to compete against entrenched high
  culture
• Unlike in Western Europe, producing music, art,
  stories, etc. purely to entertain was never
  considered bad or low
• Culture as entertainmentas funwas never
  seriously looked down upon

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And now

• With English (esp. American English) as the
  worlds most popular second language
• It is the language of business
• It is the language of media
• But much of US pop culture is not language-based
• It is visual-image-based
• And visual images translate even easier than
  language (think action movies)

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Why else does American pop culture export so
easily?

• Much of it is NOT truly American
• Consider recent Disney films
• Little Mermaid
• Lion King
• Mulan
• Beauty and the Beast
• Aladdin
• Pinocchio

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Why else does American pop culture export so
easily?

• Much of it is NOT American in origin
• Consider recent Disney films
• Little Mermaid Denmark
• Lion King Africa
• Mulan China
• Beauty and the Beast France
• Aladdin Arabia
• Pinocchio Italy

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How American are our directors and stars?

• Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin, Michael
  Curtiz, Ridley Scott, Ang Lee
• Cary Grant, Sean Connery, Arnold Schwarzenegger,
  Kate Winslet, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Antonio
  Banderas

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How American are our movies locations?

• Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek
• Jurassic Park, Planet of the Apes, Terminator
• Titanic, The Perfect Storm
• Mission Impossible

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Gitlins 3 formulas

• Many US movie and TV genres/formulas that have
  succeeded globally
• Cop stories, horror films, ensemble melodramas,
  beach movies, romantic comedies, soap operas,
  sci-fi, spy films
• But 3 in particular are at the core of
  Hollywoods global appeal
• Westerns, action movies, and cartoons

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Westerns core narrative and thematic elements

• Mix of primitivism, romance, individualism,
  patriotism, moral purity, civilization taming
  wilderness
• Hero
• outsider without a past
• plainspoken skeptic
• straight-shooter who sees through pretense
• friend of the downtrodden

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The eternal appeal of Westerns

• News reports and novels in US since 17th century
• Buffalo Bill Cody (1880s-1910s) performs for
  pope, Queen Victoria, packed houses in Europe

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Earliest days of film and TV

• The Great Train Robbery (1903)
• 20 of US films1910 17 in 1931-35
• TV in 1959 Westerns are 24 of prime-time
  offerings
• Consistently among top-rated shows through early
  1970s
• So where are Westerns today?

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Westerns today

• Dirty Harry, Star Wars, Blade Runner
• 60 Minutes (and other investigative TV
  journalism)
• Good guy breezes into town, uncovers evil,
  defends the community
• Urban action movies, TV cop showsthe Westerns
  of today
• Dangerous frontiers saved by brave, independent
  loners from outside

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Why wouldnt this capture imaginations worldwide?

• The rugged individualist in service of the
  community
• The person who reinvents himself (or herself)
• The hero who masters the wilderness

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Or, similarly, the road movie

• Hero flees community
• Roots are traps
• Re-invent yourself (or find yourself) as you go
  along
• Born to be wild

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Action movies

• Variety of sub-genres
• Rogue cop adventure, Vietnam vet revenge,
  futuristic hot pursuit, Eastern martial arts,
  battle epic, others
• But what do they have in common?
• Kinetic shock
• Disposable sensation jolt of fear, rageful
  satisfaction of revenge

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Action movies payoff the quintessential now
phenomenon

• Objective to jab, startle, shock
• Problem by now, were all over-stimulatednothing
  shocks us
• So action movies have to keep raising the stakes
• What happens, as a result?

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Action films domesticate brutality

• Safe in our comfy seats with our popcorn, we test
  our toughness
• Were cut loose from the gravity of real life
• Can experience violence in a way that puts us at
  no risk
• Get to vicariously live out our aggressions and
  yet always survive
• We can master violence in the cinema in a way
  increasingly cant in real life

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Cartoons

• Packaged innocence
• As epitomized by Disney, the master of efficient,
  factory-like production of cheery, chirpy fun
• Clean, safe, innocent, and shallow
• But there must be more

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What explains the hold of US-made cartoon(ish)
fiction around the world?

• American mass culture appeals to
• The child the audience would like to be
• The child they remember being
• The child they still feel themselves at times to
  be
• Universally shared experience being young,
  biologically dependent, playful, naïve

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America the eternal child?

• Were the child of the West
• The youngest of civilizations
• Cherished and despised globally for this
• But our cartoons ability to speak to the
  universal experiencehaving been a child in a
  world run by adultshits a universal nerve
• We all protect our young, and thus respond
  positively to anything that smacks of juvenility

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The other pleasures of cartoons

• Twitting authority
• The joy of being the little guy who thumbs his
  nose at power
• The joys of flouting social convention
• And who better than Americans at having fun,
  making fun, being fun?

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Transcending genres other traits of US pop
culture products

• Celebration of material excess costumes, cars,
  technical wizardry, excessively perfect
  bodies/faces
• And the lushness of productions themselves
• At the same time, the rich and powerful in US
  movies are almost always vulnerable
• Leaving audiences satisfied with their own lives
  when the mighty (on screen) fall

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Transgressions and happy endings

• Regardless of genre, many US movies pit the
  little guy (or little gal) up against more
  powerful forces
• And the little guy/gal wins
• US films often contain speaking truth to power,
  David vs. Goliath element
• Not just individualism
• But anti-authoritarianism and rambunctiousness

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Comfort and convenience

• Popularity and pure entertainment have always
  been foremost for US producers of popular culture
• Especially appealing now, in an age increasingly
  jarring, multi-tasking, schizophrenic

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But this doesnt mean local cultures are being
eradicated

• To Gitlin, the emergence of a global semiculture
  co-exists with local sensibilitiesit does not
  simply replace them
• Our movies (and TV shows) speak to our desires
  for convenience, escape, and play
• And, overall, our desires to feel
• To feel good, to feel with others, to feel
  conveniently