Semester II

COMM 5310

Media, Culture and Globalization

Dr Giorgia Aiello Lecturer Institute of Communications Studies University of Leeds

Countertrends to cultural imperialism

U.S. continuing production and export dominance
bifurcation in global cultural interchange between the "global popular" in movie production and "glocalization" in television production. -- i.e. blockbuster vs. regionally relevant soap operas new global and regional producers, genres and audiences -- Telenovelas Global format producers Global genre producers

Cultural proximity
National TV industry produces more programmes because they need cultural relevance; advertisers support this. -- the importance of linguistic markets How much of two nations culture is similar, how much different? -- how much is language shared, how much not? Must be in relation to geography Where all factors are shared, a weaker nation can become flooded with media/culture from a stronger one (Canada, Ireland, Botswana, others?) Asymmetrical interdependence: e.g. trade between Brazil and Portugal weighted in favour of Brazil (opposite of traditional dependency theory) -- some countries are big exporters to their markets, but still highly dependent on US

Re-characterization of globalization along geolinguistic and cultural-linguistic lines

regional markets linked by geography, language and culture are the UK and Zimbabwe culturally proximate? Zimbabwe and Mozambique? where would the strongest flow of culture come from?

Countertrends to cultural imperialism

Diasporas -- deliberately local global media for diasporic communities; local media far from home Glocalization" -- universalizing and particularizing tendencies happen simultaneously -- converting global cultural products to local ones (news as example)
Cultural hybridity -- i.e. Indian MTV

Case Studies
-- Bollywood -- Brazil, Portugal and the United States -- The United States, Canada and Mexico -- The United States, France, and Britain

What in the world is important?

Glocalization
Is global news localized? -- made politically and culturally relevant to local audiences? Or do news audiences everyone see essentially the same story? -- in 61% (n=53 of 87) of news stories which could clearly be identified as containing news agency footage, most of the story relied on the editing of images provided by the news agency