CHAPTER 5 Globalization of Popular Culture

OUTLINE

 GLOBALIZATION

 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

 HYBRID TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITIES

 K-FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN GLOBALIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINE SETTING Carlo Jejomar Pascual Palad
Sanchez

GLOBALIZATION  Globalization is defined as the "acceleration and intensification of economic interaction among the people,
companies, and governments of different nations"

 Globalization, propelled by advance in communication and transportation technology, the integration of global
markets, and privatization and deregulation of media outlets in much of the world, has intensified the role of media
and popular culture in shaping or communication and understanding of cultures different from our own.

 TV programs, celebrities, and music videos are often perceived simply innocent and fun entertainment, these and other
forms of popular culture are powerful transmitters of cultural norms, values, and expectations.

✓ United States continues to dominate production and dissemination of popular culture globally, numerous media
circuits today originate from India, Latin America, China, Japan and South Korea.

✓ Thus, central dynamic of intercultural communications is how global media and distribution of popular culture
alternately promote strong desires for inclusion in global culture and also mobilize intense resistance to cultural
imperialism.

✓ Media and popular culture serve as primary channels through which we learn about groups who are different from
ourselves and make sense of who we are.

• Through diverse processes, our globalized world is tremendously interconnected and interdependent (Tomlinson,
2007), characterized by increasingly liquid and multidirectional flows of people, objects, places, and information (Ritzer,
2010).

• Globalization contradicts the very idea that culture is bound to specific regions (Goodman, 2007). It also challenges the
idea of culture as a unified set of norms.

• An analysis of global culture does not require the identification of homogeneity, shared values, or social integration;
rather, it requires the identification of a set of practices that constitute a cultural field within which struggle, and
contestation occur.

 The fragmented space of pop culture nation (i.e., global popular culture) can be understood as perpetually unfolding
tensions and struggles that occur when multiple cultural systems and artifacts flow into and away from one another.

 Popular culture is a resource in identity construction and consequently enables and constrains intercultural
communication. It also disrupts cultural identities leading to resistance and forges hybrid transnational cultural
identities.

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

1. Popular culture functions as a resource in shared meaning making. However, popular culture can constrain intercultural
communication and understanding as much as it enables them.
2. When we take popular culture to be reality rather than representation, the result is an “illusion of knowing.” Much of
what “we think we know” about people, places, and ideas is obtained and confirmed by popular culture. Invariably, this
finds its way into our evaluations of others and communicative choices.
3. Encounters with others through the mass-mediated space of popular culture are helpful but not a substitute for
genuine conversations, relationship building, and self- reflexivity about our positionality. HYBRID TRANSNATIONAL
IDENTITIES

 Cultural identity transcends continental, national, and regional boundaries.

 In the context of globalization, it is a colorful tapestry of transnational experiences and interactions. However, in the
past decade, there has been a resurgence of national pride and identification.
  The hybridization of popular culture holds many possibilities for achieving shared meaning on the global scale and
provides a sense of comfort that all is not lost. In this sense, hybridization can be interpreted not as a sullying of cultural
purity but as a form of resistance against complete domination (Hegde, 2002).

 Considering intercultural communication in the global context sensitizes us to the complex systems of meaning that
impact our communication daily.

 In the fragmented space of global popular culture, our identities are shaped and reshaped as we communicate across
difference and make decisions to resist and comply, diverge, and converge.

 Culture industries are making an attempt to acknowledge a wider range of human experience, and diversity is the
buzzword of the century.

K-FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN GLOBALIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINE SETTING Carlo

Jejomar Pascual Palad Sanchez

The world is like a

The world is like a The world is like a
washing machine: after
washing machine: it washing machine: in it is
warming up, it turns
goes round and round. a bit of everything.
really, really fast.

The world is like a The world is like a

washing machine; it washing machine: It
turns, but sometimes could stop turning, but it
not as fast as others. will eventually begin
another wash cycle.

CHAPTER 6
Local Popular Culture and Global Popular Culture

The globalization of the production and distribution of goods and

services is a welcome development for many people in that it offers
them access to products that they would not otherwise have.

However, some are concerned that the changes brought about by

globalization threaten the viability of locally made products and the
people who produce them.
INTEGRATION OF CULTURES

• Although the United States may play a dominant role within the phenomenon of cultural globalization, it is important to
keep in mind that this is not an entirely one-way street. Many other countries also contribute to global culture.

• Hollywood is a good example of an industry that integrates elements from more than one culture.

• Most people would think of Hollywood as something entirely American. However, while Hollywood dominates world
cinema, American movies are subject to foreign influence.

• According to The Economist, "one reason for Hollywood's success is that from the earliest days it was open to foreign
talent and foreign money.“

• Many American movies are remakes of foreign films.

• For example, the 2007 Academy Award Winner for Best Picture, “The Departed”, is a remake of the Chinese film,
“Infernal Affairs.”

• There has also been a recent explosion of American remakes of European films. A perfect example is “The Tourist”
(originally the French film, “Anthony Zimmer”) which raked in $287 million at the box office.
 •
• In 2011 the Millennium Trilogy, a Swedish series, was adapted to film in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" which
opened to critical acclaim and grossed over $230 million at the box office (Box Office Mojo, 2011).

• Also, many film-making companies, producers, and actors in Hollywood are not inherently American.

• The Columbia Tristar and Twentieth Century Fox companies are owned by Japan's Sony and Australia's News
Corporation, respectively, two foreign media conglomerates.

Moreover, many of Hollywood's most famous actors are not Americans. Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Austria, and
Nicole Kidman grew up in Australia. James Cameron, producer of the movie Titanic, is Canadian.

• From this perspective, it can be argued Hollywood is a multicultural institution.

• However, it is also true that actors such as Nicole Kidman and Mel Gibson, upon arriving in Hollywood, were given
language lessons to help them lose their foreign accents.

• Hollywood producers ask actors to Americanize their accents largely over sensitivities that American audiences might
perceive actors negatively if they appeared to be foreign.

• So, while Hollywood may incorporate many foreign elements into its craft—especially behind the scenes—its public face
is distinctly American.

REAFFIRMATION OF LOCAL CULTURE

• Many observers have speculated that the homogenizing effect of globalization on national cultures in fact tends to
produce a reaction among indigenous peoples, which leads those whose cultures are threatened to want to reaffirm
their own local traditions.

• Despite these homogenizing effects, some people would argue that globalization can also reinforce local cultures.

• In India, for example, satellite TV permits an increase in the number of regional channels, many of which can and do
telecast Indian content. This gives an Indian individual new opportunity to identify with his regional ties.

CULTURAL FLOWS

• The pervasiveness of Western popular culture is common to most east and southeast Asian nations.

• Korea was Asia’s biggest importer of Hollywood movies in the 1920s and 1930s; Thailand was an avid consumer of
American film musicals in the 1950s; hits by the Beatles and Frank Sinatra have long resounded in karaoke clubs from
Mongolia to Vietnam; and each Harry Potter novel was eagerly anticipated in the 2000s.

• Some Western pop culture has been more successful in this region than at home. Danish band Michael Learns to Rock
has won millions of Asian fans with its easy-listening rock songs and American saxophonist Kenny G’s song “Going
Home” can be heard across China on trains and in shopping centers at closing time or the end of long journeys.

• Western popular culture’s reach into east and southeast Asia has met with varying responses. Some have condemned
its corrosive influence upon local traditions, considering as a hindrance to the development of national culture.

• People in the Philippines, for example, bemoan the “hamburgerization” of Filipino culture and daily life.

• American fast-food joints are popular across east and southeast Asia, enticing patrons with their Western-style decor,
free Internet access, collectable gifts, and sociable atmosphere.

• The infiltration of Western popular culture has resulted in many hybrid cultural forms and practices.

• Burmese rock (“stereo”) features Western pop melodies set to Burmese lyrics; Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou mixes
hiphop beats and aesthetics with references to traditional Chinese and Taiwanese culture; and British television formats
such as Pop Idol have been adopted in many countries, including Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore.

• Regionally produced popular culture is often funded by transnational capital and targets multiple audiences.

• Japanese popular culture was the most widely consumed during the 1980s and 1990s, although its popularization was
hindered in some countries by anti-Japanese sentiment stemming from the country’s colonial past.

• More recently, South Korean pop songs and television dramas, known as the Korean Wave, have become hugely
popular throughout Asia.

• Both South Korea and Japan are known for their productive popular culture industries, which churn out commercial pop
acts like Korean boy bands Super Junior and Mandarin-speaking Super Junior M, and all-female Japanese supergroup
Morning Musume.
 • Countries with smaller populations, less affluent pop industries, or which are less fashionable, tend to be bigger
importers than exporters of popular culture.

Examples:

• Japanese cartoons (Pokemon, Hello Kitty)

• Computer games (Super Mario Bros., Dance Dance Revolution)

• Horror movies (Ringu, remade in the United States as The Ring)

• Chinese martial arts films (Hero, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) • Famous Stars (Jet Li, Jackie Chan)

WESTERN VALUES AND ISLAM

• The controversy over westernization had major historical implications in the Middle East over the past several decades.

• Globalization is accelerating some people’s concerns about the infusions of Western values in Islamic countries.

• The clash between Western values and Islam culture reached an all-time high on September 11, 2001, with the terrorist
attack on the World Trade Center in New York City.

• The event widened the chasm between the cultures, exemplified by anti-America riots in several Islamic countries, or
the post 9-11 ‘anti-Muslim backlash’ in the United States.

• In the 1960s and 70s, the Shah of Iran sought rapid modernization--regardless of conservative Muslim opinion.

• His plan called for land reform designed to aid the poor, the extension of voting rights to women, and the allowance of
the formation of political parties. His plan, along with other social and economic changes, led to increased resentment
and hostility toward the Shah.

• Fundamentalist clerics began to rail against Iran’s “westoxification,” and brought about a radical revolutionary
movement that sought to expel all western influence from their ancient civilization.

• The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has likewise adopted an approach with the motto “modernization without
westernization.”

• Seeking in part to avoid the kind of outcome seen in Iran, the Saudi regime has strived carefully to limit the
encroachment of many values that westerners consider fundamental.

• Consequently, Saudi Arabia guarantees no voting rights, and censorship of all things Western, including movies, alcohol,
and Internet access, is deep and thorough.

• More recently, however, during the recent Arab Spring, western cultural values were used to achieve popular political
goals in the Middle East.

• Western cultural staples such as social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter were essential to the organization of
recent uprisings in the Middle East.

• And almost all of these protests came to fruition, inciting popular political action through westernized means

• The use of social media in political unstable regions can be seen in the years following the Arab Spring of 2011.

• According to The National, “nearly 9 in 10 Egyptians and Tunisians surveyed in March [of 2011] said they were using
Facebook to organize protests or spread awareness about them” (Huang, 2011).

• Egypt's Supreme Military Council used Twitter to make official announcements until the deposition of Mohammed
Morsi.

• Social media outlets have also been used to achieve short term political goals by some groups, making use of its
anonymity and global reach to spread rumors and influence public opinion (Morrow & al-Omrani, 2013).

CHAPTER 7 Pop Culture in the Digital Age

THEORY OF THE NETIZEN AND DEMOCRATIZATION OF MEDIA

• The word netizen, though it has been used popularly in current times, is a word from the theory of Michael Hauben
(1996) is a corrupted term from the phrase "Net Citizen".
•
• According to Hauben, as netizens, geographical separation in the actual reality is replaced by existence in the same
virtual space called the internet.

• More so, along with the power of using the internet is the power of the reporter given to the netizen for a netizen could
be a source of primary information regarding certain topics or issues.

• Hauben profoundly cautions that the internet can, nevertheless, be a "source of opinion" though he said that a netizen
can train him/herself to discern real from fabricated information.

• This prophecy will soon be reflected in Graeme Turner's book called the Demotic Turn (2010) but in a certain extreme
way for even news reports are often bent to suit the "infotainment" genre favored by the general audience.

• According to Turner, there is a rise of opinionated news as reporters tend to bend the news to the stories, they often
favor.

• A concrete example of this is tabloidization or sensationalizing small news items and making a big deal out of such. Also
called as yellow journalism.
 •

•
Michael Hauben's theory of the Netizen, when he coined the term in the late 1990's imagined the world's physical
limits collapsed via the faster streaming of information and communication via the internet, and true enough, the
effect is limitless and transcendental -- quite a benchmark of a 21st century high technology.

Hauben also imagined the democratizing power of media, for everyone can voice out their ideas via the internet, but
this can only be achieved if everyone in the society, even those in the margins, can be given the chance to voice out
their ideas.

• In the Philippines, the internet usage penetration is more than 30% as of 2012, and is continuously rising
(YahooNielsen, 2013).

• According to the same survey, more Filipinos use tablets and mobile phones to access the internet, and with the rise
of smart phones in the country, we can assume that the projected number can be rising exponentially.

• In 2020, the number of internet users in the country grew to approximately 79.7 million people, accounting for more
than half of the total population. The digital population mostly belong to the age group of 16 years old and above.
(Statista, 2020)

• However, the democratization of media, even if away from Hauben's ideal 100% penetration in the society, is still
evident in the society, and this is via social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like.

• Among the three, Facebook, is the widely used platform (Yahoo-Nielsen, 2013).

Number of internet users in the Philippines from 2017 to 2020, with forecasts until 2026. (Statista, 2021)

• Public opinion rises from these sites, proliferation of liberal ideas happen especially in the Philippines for the
government never censors the content though there was attempt in the Cyber-crime law.

• The agenda and capability seemed to prove its political worth in the Philippines last September 2013 when, as though
an Arab or Persian Spring that were so-called Twitter or Facebook Revolution, through the facilitation of social media,
many Filipinos all around the Philippines and the world joined a simultaneous protest they called the "Million People
March" (Garchitorena, 2013).

POPULAR CULTURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE by Emanuela Patti

• One of the defining phenomena of most contemporary cultures and societies is the increasing penetration of the
Internet.

• Social media, including blogs, apps, social gaming, microblogs, and last but not least social networks, have opened the
doors to people’s participation in the public arena of cultural, political and social debates, subverting the top-down
model of broadcasting and challenging the role of elites and mass media.
•

•
• The digital convergence of old and new media has taken postmodern cultural and social practices of hybridization
between high culture and popular culture to the next level, overcoming class distinctions in unprecedented ways.

• Digital popular culture(s) seem to encompass all the definitions previously given to “popular culture”: they are cultures
made by the people for themselves, as they gather communities with similar interests; but, they can become mass
phenomena, when they reach popularity with or without the collaboration of mass media.

Moreover, they “remediate” stories, cultural models, ideologies, and lifestyles from other media cultures such as
newspapers, movies, television, radio, advertising, comics, as well as literature, theatre, fine arts of the past and the
present.

In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (2015), John Storey aptly remarks that “popular culture” combines two
complicated words, “popular” and “culture”, which, in their association, have taken different meanings over time. • The
3 definitions of Culture of Raymond Williams

• The 6 definitions of Popular Culture of John Storey

• While these theories are still central in the investigation of popular culture today, most of them belong to another era
of cultural history; one which was still strongly rooted in the mass media culture of 20 th century.

• Mass media such as television, cinema, radio, newspapers, and advertising continue to be influential at a cultural level
today.

• However, first, they have transformed and become part of a system of media convergence; second, they do not fully
represent the media landscape.

• Numerous other digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Wordpress, Instagram, online newspapers, video games,
collaborate and/or compete with the cultural production of so-called “old” media.

• Moreover, in the digital age, popular culture results from a variety of practices which can be initially exclusive of a
specific social and cultural category (“the people” or subaltern groups, “communities of fandom”, masses, elites), but
typically tend to move across these class distinctions creating new cultural phenomena and products

• Digital technologies have become endemic of our cultural landscape at many levels: in terms of lived cultures,
including literacy, cultural habits, subcultures, social life; in terms of artistic activity; and, finally, by shaping the
intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development of society, as the digital turn in the humanities demonstrates.

• The previous definitions of “popular culture” seem to all co-exist, in a way or another, in the contemporary digital
society.

• Consciously or unconsciously, these cultural practices are in fact “widely favored or well-liked by many people” who
regularly use them to perform daily activities to communicate, socialize, work, learn, access and produce knowledge
and creativity, entertain themselves, and so on.

• Very popular apps like Google Maps, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Dropbox, Subway
Surfers, LinkedIn, Academia.edu have changed the ways we interact, speak, gather and disseminate information,
situate ourselves in space, etc.

• Digital culture(s) have also many features in common with mass culture.

• Phenomena like social media influencers, for example, borrow the cultural models of mass media stardom and
authorship, as well as the aesthetic styles of television, cinema, and advertising, but they adapt them to the more
typical informal style of social media where private and public spheres mix seamlessly.

• However, in the way they express social and behavior customs, level of education, linguistic inflections, and symbolic
gestures of localities, one can argue that they are the new “vernacular cultures”.

• Unlike the “folk cultures” we used to associate to non-urban cut-off communities, contemporary ones are often the
combination of national and international mass culture, local and global societies, individual experiences and
education.

• They can be produced by individuals or groups and they are spread quickly and widely, if they attract the attention of
either big brands, companies, mass media and/or institutions, they reach masses, and they can have a moral, political,
commercial or educational impact.

• The term “brand” first emerged in the late 1880s to indicate goods like Coca-Cola which stood out from competition.
 •

•
• David Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” defined brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes”.

• It is a “person’s perception of a product, service, experience, or organization” (Dictionary of Brand).

• It is not a logo, it is not an identity, it is not a product, but, as Marty Neumeier defined it, a brand is “a person’s gut
feeling about a product, service, or organization”.

• In mass media culture, we were used to see goods advertised on multiple media platforms, such as television,
magazines, advertising boards, gadgets, and so on, with the specific purpose to construct a brand of the product.

• We were exposed to various representations of the same object in our daily life experiences and, finally, we
synthetically got a sense of what that item meant to us.

In the age of convergence culture—where social media have allowed virtually anyone to engage in a strategy of
selfbranding and where mass media need to collaborate with new media to achieve effective communication-
people’s identities, like goods, are constructed as “brands”.

The concept of “branding” today goes well beyond promotion, advertising, publicizing to potential masses for
commercial purposes.

• “Brand” today is how we manage to effectively communicate and understand the meanings deriving from the variety
of cultures which blend in our stories, images, lifestyles. It is a snapshot of the multiple cultural intersections which
constitute today’s advanced societies; it is thus crucial to develop the critical tools for a close reading of this emerging
transmedia textuality made of digital and non-digital media.

• This is after all the challenge of “compromise equilibrium” which digital humanities, cultural and media studies will
face in their relationship with digital popular cultures.

CHAPTER 8 Commercial Culture & Pop Culture and the Rise Of Social Media in the Philippines

Advertising and Pop Culture

◦ Infotainment is the trend of making an issue seemingly pressing enough to give an ample or little new information,
but more so, entertainment to the public.

◦ Vulgarization of Art - art forms were popularized by the use of technology and were tailor-fit to exactly serve the taste
of the greater audience, sacrificing its quality in the process.

◦ According to the Yahoo-Nielsen 2013 Survey, infotainment is one of the most searched content and sites most visited
in the Philippines.

◦ This meant a lot of irrelevant news we see on the television or internet that can be dismissed as a fad but were given the
limelight to amuse people, and people seem to buy it.

◦ Aside from "vulgarization of the art" and the "rise of infotainment" to attract advertisers to advertise in commercial
breaks, cross-promotion has been a wide practice and people can actually sense it but not look it straight in the eye.

◦ Cross-promotion - is a term referring to the promotion of an advertisement in a very subtle way inside another program,
or the like.

◦ Imagine watching a movie and seeing a product endorsement of the main protagonist being used in it, say coffee, and
he or she prepares and drinks the coffee in one of the scenes -- that is cross-promotion.

◦ The latent or subtle manifestation of endorsing products.

◦ Even in the internet, there are a lot of articles planted just to make an advertisement and these are often the
infotainment ones.

◦ Even video games have cross-promoting activities, or even radio jockeys do it in a very conversational and suave manner.

The Agenda-Setting Theory

◦ According to the Yahoo-Nielsen Survey of 2013, the top three sources of media consumption in the Philippines come
from the television, the radio, and the continually rising internet usage.

◦ With these media vehicles, one can actually deduce that watching favorite shows on the television, listening to radio
programs, or even surfing the world-wide web can have political, social, and economic implications
 •

•
◦ The Agenda-Setting theory of McCombs and Shaw can simplify by saying that the media influences people to focus its
attention on something under a certain agenda.

◦ It can make people think that something is happening when something is not or give special attention or focus on
certain subjects or topics and hype it to make an impression that something big is going on.

◦ To give an example, the agenda-setting theory can be seen in a newspaper wherein the headline is supposed to be the
biggest news there is, and the other items, decreasing in font size and the farther its location from the front page, the
lesser priority it has.

◦ Similarly, in a news program, wherein the reporter or news anchor gives too much airtime to a certain news, or
depending on the arrangement of the news items, the more pressing issue it is.

◦ This theory can also be applied in the radio, or on new media such as the internet.

The Political Economy of Media

◦ According to Hermann and Chomsky's Propaganda Model, a model they have used to check the various
politicaleconomic implications of mass media, there are several filters to use in relation with the topic to check the
propaganda machine of mass media.
 ◦ These filters are the following:

1. The size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth, profit orientation of the different mass media firms

2. Advertising as the primary income source of mass media

3. The reliance of the media on the information provided by the government, business, and these "experts" funded and
approved by such sources and agents of power

◦ It is important to notice, however, that media's power does not only reside on the economic, but also to the monopoly
of sources (Herman and Chomsky)

◦ There are limited sources by which media can get information, and with it, they control -- government, businesses,
and the like -- whatever is going in and out of the information tube.

◦ Moreover, one must also check the relation of media to its audience. Because of popular culture, media is used to
create a certain agenda on its viewers, and the resulting relationship is a political one wherein the one controlling here
is the media company or institution.

◦ This argument, however, is rapidly changing through leverage, for there is a thing called media democratization and
that relates to the rise of social media. To break the monopoly of media conglomerates on the information flow can be
attributed with the democratization of media via the internet.

◦ One can see the leverage done by media conglomerates in the social media scene by making an account for famous
reporters and television or radio channels so that they can also make real-time broadcasting simultaneous with the
real-time updates of social media information dissemination (Garchitorena, 2013).

◦ There are even portions wherein mere viewers, through mobile devices, are made to report on a first-hand account of
a storm surge or anything, and send the clip via internet instead of sending a real and trained reporter to check out
the situation.

Socio- Political Aspect

◦ It was a common saying that whoever has command of the economic power also wields the political. In the study of
pop culture and Philippine media, one can already see that the economic and political aspects were highly mutual
conditions that are beneficial to each other.

◦ This statement is logical for, according to Herman and Chomsky, media really gets all the income from advertisements
and whoever has the bigger sponsorship gets the media attention, or programs will be bent according to how their
product endorsement vis-a-vis cross-promotion would fit.

◦ It means that if ever the media company wants you to think about a political stand or buying that special perfume,
they will do it in repetition and via cross-promotion using several advertising techniques.

◦ Surveys such as Nielsen give the media companies an idea what formula would work on a sellable television show, or the
like.

◦ One can argue that some news articles can be imaginary or bloated to be sensationalized and newsworthy. This can be
equivocal with the idea that the "naked" news in several western news companies are created not because they need
people to watch news, but also to make them watch and earn their share in the advertising arena.

◦ Thus, media, through its influences, indirectly commands the people to behave the way that is favorable to them.

Conclusion

◦ Through several media theories, it was shown that in media's main goal via the proliferation of pop culture creates a
commercialized world as it generated income through advertisements, and whoever command economic power
commands the political, as well.

◦ Media companies can also facilitate pop culture to make their audience behave the way they would be favorable to
them, also because they monopolize the information stream.

◦ This can also be countered with the democratization of media through the facilitation of social networking sites and by
projecting ideas as a netizen on the internet.

◦ It may also have down effects for media companies can use Netizens as primary sources of information, as though
"empowering" them.

◦ The future of social media's political, economic, and social facility as a tool, or a weapon, against media conglomerates
and the advertising machinery, or the government or any institutional agenda may still be achieved if the general
 public, especially those in the margins who were always victimized by the false images shown through media, should
discover and use its full potential.

READING NO. 3
K-FASHION AND TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN GLOBALIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINE SETTING Carlo
Jejomar Pascual Palad Sanchez
Continuing Professional Teacher Education (CPTE)
Bulacan State University

Abstract

K-fashion is a manifestation of technology-driven globalization. Globalization, or the process of across-borders interaction and
integration, has been fueled by modern advancements in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Popular culture,
of which K-pop would be a good example, is a manifestation of this process. It is likewise fueled by technology, by the internet,
by online means of acquiring data. In this globalized age, ICT is an open source of information on the rise and fall of K pop
groups. The access—to these information—that they give also reflects their role in the actual rise and fall of these global
groups. In the Philippine setting, technology-driven globalization manifests in popular culture only indirectly. This process of
interaction and integration can be visibly seen in the more wearable and more tangible products of K-fashion. With the
internet providing means to download free music and videos, Filipinos can instead use their resources to shop for clothes, in
both physical stalls and online stores.

As a third-world country, the Philippines finds itself not far above the modified poverty-line called the wash-line. Despite this,
however, they manage to innovate and find creative ways to participate—become active receivers—of the process that
continuously connects the technological world.

THE WORLD IS LIKE A WASHING MACHINE: IT GOES ROUND AND ROUND.

For the past decade or so, globalization has been a very famous topic of discourse among people from various fields. It is the
thing of today; it is what makes our current world turn. This paper attempts to present K-fashion as a manifestation of
“technology driven globalization.” Specifically, it aims to define what technology-driven globalization is, what K-fashion is, and
how the latter is a manifestation of the former in the Philippine setting.

TECHNOLOGY-DRIVEN GLOBALIZATION

The concept of globalization is known to almost everyone by now, it is having been explained in various forms of informal and
academic media. Still, here is a definition from aptly-named website globalization101.org: “Globalization is a process of
interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by
international trade and investment and aided by information technology” (Levin Institute, n.d.) The root of the term is the
word “globe,” and interaction and integration in this regard is indeed on a global level. One finds further in the definition: “This
process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on
human physical well-being in societies around the world.”

As pointed out in the same webpage, globalization is not an entirely new thing. Its roots have existed thousands of years back,
from the time our early ancestors started trading across rivers and seas. However, globalization in its present sense goes way
beyond mere instances of perfume or fabric exchange. The world goes round and round: the process of interaction and
integration among people has progressed from “mere” barter trades to complex technological networking. Bridges that
connect countries have well advanced: carrier pigeons became jets, bamboo rafts became high-speed ferries, rivers became
washing machines.

Globalization is not limited to the applications of modern information and communication technologies (ICT) in the global
scale. It is, however, almost impossible to discount the fact that technology fueled globalization. Technology made the world
spin faster than ever. Advancements in information technology and communication media made the effects of globalization
more visible and felt as its paved way to a much faster and freer exchange among global nations. “Snails” of the post office
have curled up to shiny-ringed blue “E‟s” of the monitor screen, making mail and, consequently, almost any information that
would have been previously difficult to gather accessible with one computer click.

Several months of waiting for a parcel from overseas has been vastly reduced, to a few seconds no less. Information on
government policies, economic developments and trade are travelling the world through the internet, through wireless waves
and wires in waves (since kilometers of communication lines are usually installed under bodies of water). The role of
technology is explicitly mentioned in globalization101.org, as globalization is said to be “aided by information technology.”
Data on human societies, the environment, political systems—all of these aspects affected by this process, as in the definition
above—are readily and easily available. More often than not they are available anytime and anywhere to anyone with an
internet connection, to anyone who has an internet connection anytime and anywhere.
Even without the above, the term “technology-driven globalization” is almost self-explanatory. Globalization is process of
interaction and integration among different nations. Interaction and integration are made possible by communication, or the
two-way acquisition and processing of information. These two are made possible essentially by ICT. Air mail used to be the
fastest across-the-globe carrier. The mail jet, however, has been “replaced” by a much smaller yet more efficient paper jet, a
digital folded plane called the cursor.

K-POP AND K-FASHION

As mentioned, advancements in information and communication technology fueled globalization and made its effects more
apparent. Among these, there might be nothing more apparent than its effect on culture, on popular culture specifically.
Extremely easy access to data in this case is more frequently not limited to statistical or scientific information. Data in this
sense is both information on the latest trends, and the latest trends themselves.

The latest on the popular culture trade, of which K-pop would be a very good example, is readily available with just a few
clicks. Be it news articles, lyrics, or concert updates, all that needs to be done is to “search” and the internet will provide in
seconds. Pop stars can be brought down the same way they shot to fame; performing groups get even more and more popular
with every single view of their video. Through cursors and a song, people can interact with societies around the globe.

THE WORLD IS LIKE A WASHING MACHINE: AFTER WARMING UP, IT TURNS REALLY, REALLY FAST.

According to the author, between the years 1999 and 2005, 50 new K-pop groups had their debut. The number increased to 30
new groups in the year 2010 alone. In 2011, however, a sea of 50 new groups--the total of a previous seven-year period--
debuted in one single year (Dana, 2012). In total, the number of new groups formed between 2009 and the year the article
was written— a short span of four years—far exceeds the number of groups that have debuted during the 13-year period
between the years 1996 and 2008. Most of these groups were made known in Korea, and especially in the world, through
information and communication technology. Video and music streaming websites (such as Youtube), free blog portals (such as
Multiply and Tumblr), and social media websites (such as the then-popular Friendster, and the more recent Facebook and
Twitter) are obvious manifestations of modern ICT.

These groups were known, commended, made famous, and brought to the top of the world charts and the peak of their global
careers through technology. It is also in the same manner that they were bashed, associated with controversies, forgotten,
and replaced with new song and dance groups that will be subjected to the same popular-culture cycle.

Dana‟s (2012) article “Idol History: K-pop By The Numbers” accounts for the number of groups that debuted in specific time
periods. A debut, however, does not automatically translate to seconds of fame, even more so to a sustainable career. Not all
50 new groups that debuted in the year 2011, for example, were able to survive the spinning world of popular performing arts.
Groups shoot to fame as fast as other groups are abandoned. With modern technology, 100 new K-pop groups could debut in
a single year, but the same number can also fail to become more than flat statistics.

The above information was accessed with a few taps in a keyboard, in a span of even fewer seconds. Data on the rise and fall
of K-pop groups, and their actual rise and fall, can be acquired, influenced, or controlled with just a few clicks. Technology
powers the globalization washing machine that spins popular culture. Information on the existence of a single rising group
alone facilitates the spread of popular culture across countries. The extent of this spread is even greater since on top of their
identity, their albums, promotions, charities, scandals, breakthroughs, and achievements travel throughout the globe. With
our current technologies, integration among nations in terms of tradable popular culture can occur faster than a washing cycle.

THE WORLD IS LIKE A WASHING MACHINE: IN IT IS A BIT OF EVERYTHING.

If we find time to look at every single piece of clothing that we dump in a washing machine, we will see how this current wave
of globalized popular culture has reached the fibers that we use. Washing machines have replaced rivers not only in the
laundry sense, but in a way, in its transportative essence as well. In general, the clothes that we wear and the look we get from
it resemble, no matter how vaguely, a popular “pop culture” character or idea. The colored pants, the skirts, the neon shirt:
these are parcels of globalization that come in our personal colors and sizes.

Aside from the look, we see this modern river barter in the brands of the clothes themselves. Cotton On, Uniqlo, Giordano:
these global brands will go round and round in the machine side by side with our favorite regional and indigenous brands,
advertised by or with our favored popular culture personalities. We see manifestations of culture bridges in the H&M that
tumbles with the Zara, in the Samsung phone being rinsed in the pockets of a 501. These traded piles of clothes can be
considered as direct merchandise and “products” of K-pop. As K-pop groups, and their music and videos, are being sold and
bought by consumers, they could also be considered as products in their own regard. This allows for the occasional “product
on a product” merchandise in closets, for the Korean-style shirts silk-screened with a photo of K-pop superstars.

One would best explore the K-pop phenomenon, and subsequently articulate its extent in a certain country, by looking into
album sales charts. K-pop groups, first and foremost, sell their music, their songs, their videos. Album sales, therefore, are the
most relevant source of information on the said topic, but it is not the only source. Data on K-fashion can also be useful in
exploring the extent globalization has been made manifest by Korean popular culture. In fact, in some instances, it could be a
more suitable source.

In the Philippine setting, the consumer aspect of K-pop is more apparent in clothing industries. Music albums in general are
pretty expensive. Additionally, the value of music albums lies in the satisfaction a customer gets from playing it through a
computer or music player. As music is virtually “downloadable” from the internet at no cost, it would be understandable if
Kpop fans would rather spend their money on Korean clothes. K-fashion is more wearable, and consequently more tangible
and visible than music albums. Indeed, some of these downloads are essentially forms of piracy, but non-illegal avenues where
fans can download free music and videos do allow them to allot their purchasing resources to the more “practical” goods of K-
fashion.

GLOBALIZATION IN THE PHILIPPINES

The cursor has influenced the direction of the world. True to what a digital arrow does, it has “pointed” nations to new
currents, to entirely new rivers to traverse. Modern ICT allowed for the concretization of globalization that is visible even in the
soapiest parts of the house. Although possibly unaware, we encounter this concretization in almost everything, even the
clothes we wear. Still, this is all thanks to the advancement we have achieved in mediums of global exchange. As previously
introduced, information on the latest trends, profiles of potential buyers and sellers, contact between parties, and actual
delivery can be made with a click of a mouse. Even the integration among people, companies, and governments that
accompany all of these are made possible through global technologies. It is globalization ferried into our closets.

As previously mentioned, international brands Cotton On, Uniqlo, Giordano, Zara, and H&M were welcomed into the Philippine
shores with much anticipation. Filipino K-pop fans, therefore, would be much more thrilled to welcome Korean brands that
bring Korean fashion right at their local mall’s doorsteps.

Jica Lapeña of gmanetwork.com reports the “arrival” of Korean Fashion in the country (2013). The article narrated the opening
of the first branch of Basic House last December 2012. The said shop is located at The Shops in Greenhills. A May 31, 2013
article from inquirer.net then featured the Korean fashion brand’s second store at SM Megamall in Mandaluyong. Aside from
Basic House, the Philippines also became a new home to global brand Mall of Korea. The headline of an article by Jamie
Sanchez (2016) of spot.ph reads: “Now Open: Mall of Korea, a fashionista's shopping paradise.” The said shopping center
opened July 14 of that same year, at Metro Walk in Pasig.

In addition to the above, globalization can also be seen—and arguably better seen—in the buffering symbol that turns round
and round. Korean popular culture—which thrived and has conquered the world through ICT—is concretized by the same
technological media. Online shopping has been a thing of the global age, and Filipino boats have some of the most avid rowers
in this digital floating market. An article by David Dizon (2015) of abs-cbnnews.com shares a WeAreSocial report stating that
“Pinoys are top in Internet, social media use.” From these, one would not be surprised to find out that the Filipinos‟ passion
for shopping translated to a love of its online counterpart.

Online shopping is self-explanatory: it is shopping on the line, through the internet, through ICT. Technology-driven Korean
pop culture, and K-fashion, has made its way not only toward physical stalls but even in virtual stalls. In a July 4, 2016 article by
Louren, powerpinoys.com ranked the “Top 5 Online Shopping Sites in Philippines.” Ranked from fifth to first, in the list are
Widget City, WeeMall, Goods.ph, Zalora Philippines, and Lazada Philippines (Louren, 2016). The top two online shopping sites
are used as references for this paper, also because the other three sites mostly cater to shoppers of gadgets and non-clothing
merchandise.

THE WORLD IS LIKE A WASHING MACHINE; IT TURNS, BUT SOMETIMES NOT AS FAST AS OTHERS.

The fresh scent of globalization, like almost everything, is not felt by everyone. There is this side where things are not as
“globalized.” In a TED conference presentation, Hans Rosling (2010) presents in his talk “The Magic Washing Machine” the
differences in costs of living per day of people. It is no new knowledge that there are groups of people living above, way-above,
and below the poverty line. What is notable from his talk, however, is his new take on the topic. For Rosling, the absence or
presence of a washing machine in “less-globalized” households can show us the extent of integration that “the rest of the
nations” are experiencing. Indeed, there are still a lot of people who “waste” their time washing clothes by hand, whose
“experience of the world” does not go beyond the mass-produced and mass-consumed detergent that roughens their hands.

Introducing the terms “air line” and “wash line” that go with “poverty line,” Rosling (2010) discussed the idea of washing
machines, light bulbs and poor people moving up the highly globalized economic ladder. There are people—these people—
who reside on the other side of the washing machine. It is the side that, amidst all the „up and down‟ cycle of each turn, never
gets to ascend from the bottom of the round world. More than researching for statistics, it is important to take note that these
people, regardless if they wash their clothes with their hands or with machines, come across the same inter-societal bridges as
people above the “wash line.” Be it on less-advanced media, or through other means that they can barely afford to voluntarily
gain access of, globalized popular culture interacts with them.

The Philippine context, being a third-world country, is not far above the “wash line.” What seems unusual, however, is how the
fandom of Filipinos is comparable to that of highly industrialized countries. A few taps in ticket-selling websites will show that
concert prices of international acts—including K-pop groups—are usually a lot higher in the Philippines than in the rest of Asia.
The Philippines is not far above the wash line, yet it can afford the generally pricey K-fashion goods. This could signify two
things: that Filipinos allot most of their usually limited resources for popular culture products, or they make the most out of
what they have.

The submission to counterfeit clothes—those with fake brands or imitated prints of the latest in popular culture—is not an
unusual thing in Philippine markets. Similar to how most K-pop fans download their music from free websites, they get their
Kfashion fix beyond “authentic” clothing stalls and shopping sites that directly import Korean products.

The Filipinos are versed with the non-traditional media that will allow them to consume goods for a much lower price—or even
for free. More so, they may even be part of the production of these mass-produced goods, a trend that has numerously been
associated with small-time entrepreneurship and the increased access to machines and raw materials. The same ICT that
allows for free music and video downloads makes it easy for almost any computer-literate person to layout t-shirt designs. It is
also the same globalization-driving technology that will allow him or her to manufacture, and eventually sell, these products—
counterfeit or not.

THE WORLD IS LIKE A WASHING MACHINE: IT COULD STOP TURNING, BUT IT WILL EVENTUALLY BEGIN ANOTHER WASH
CYCLE.

Globalization is driven by international trade and investment. Through the kind of information and communication technology
that we have, it has been rendering generally positive effects on culture, on economic development and prosperity, and on
human physical well-being in a number of societies. The Philippines, though not “yet” a highly industrialized country, has been
highly efficient in harnessing the benefits of ICT. Technology-driven globalization—of which popular culture is a very powerful
manifestation—would ever-continuously turn and bridge and integrate nations and would eventually fully integrate the world
into the world. Today, communication media are aplenty: people have boats, people have the internet, people have powerful
ideas and trends. In a globalized world, nations continuously interact in a give-and-take fashion that goes round and round.

K-fashion is a manifestation of technology-driven globalization. This process of interaction and integration has brought forth a
positive and felt effect on human well-being around the world. The technology that drove it to its current speed, and that
continuously powers it, allowed Filipinos to consume K-pop and patronize K-fashion within their own ways and means.
Technology has allowed Filipinos to dominantly “receive” popular culture of the globalizing world. It also shows promise to
allow the Philippines—and its technologically articulate people—to be, eventually, on the dominantly “giving” end of
globalization.

READING NO.4
POPULAR CULTURE IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Emanuela Patti

Introduction

One of the defining phenomena of most contemporary cultures and societies is the increasing penetration of the Internet.
Social media, including blogs, apps, social gaming, microblogs, and last but not least social networks, have opened the doors to
people’s participation in the public arena of cultural, political and social debates, subverting the top-down model of
broadcasting and challenging the role of elites and mass media. Virtually everyone who has access to these digital platforms
can express their opinions, creativity and social interaction in the form of texts, images, and audiovisual materials, as well as
order food, locate themselves in space, keep and share records about their health, and so on.

The digital convergence of old and new media has taken postmodern cultural and social practices of hybridization between
high culture and popular culture to the next level, overcoming class distinctions in unprecedented ways. “Folk culture(s)”,
“subculture(s)”, “mass culture(s)” and “postmodernism” converge on the same media and overlap in different ways. In this
respect, as I argue in this chapter, “digital popular culture(s)” seem to encompass all the definitions previously given to
“popular culture”: they are cultures made by the people for themselves, as they gather communities with similar interests;
but, they can become mass phenomena, when they reach popularity with or without the collaboration of mass media.
Moreover, they “remediate” stories, cultural models, ideologies, and lifestyles from other media cultures such as newspapers,
movies, television, radio, advertising, comics, as well as literature, theatre, fine arts of the past and the present.

The Internet, new media and digital technologies have introduced a new cultural dominant which requires a re-assessment of
Gramsci’s interpretative theory and methodology, as well of Eco’s semiotic approach, in relation to our contemporary social
and techno-cultural scenario. From a media perspective, if Gramsci’s reflections on culture mainly revolved around literature,
on the one hand, and lived cultures, on the other, with a special focus on the relationship between class and power, and Eco
reformulated them through semiotics in the context of mass media culture, we clearly need to rethink how their methodology
can be adapted “when old and new media collide” in the digital age of convergence culture (Jenkins 2006). Italian society has
also significantly changed from Gramsci’s times. Various waves of immigration have made it more diverse, although cultural
integration has been difficult. Italians are generally more educated -but not significantly more than in Eco’s times- and they
have been exposed to decades of mass culture. We are facing old and new emancipatory challenges, considering that Italian
society is still considerably retrograde in terms of sexism, racism, and support to civil rights. Scholars in Cultural Studies have
taken Gramsci and Eco’s theories beyond Gramsci’s focus on class and power to include gender, ethnicity, race, sexuality, and
ultimately identity as a composite mix of all these categories. Today, the convergence culture of the digital age raises new
methodological questions.

“POPULAR CULTURE” FROM MASS MEDIA TO DIGITAL CONVERGENCE

In Cultural Theory and Popular Culture (2015), John Storey aptly remarks that “popular culture” combines two complicated
words, “popular” and “culture”, which, in their association, have taken different meanings over time. A mindful discussion
about this topic thus requires, first, a definition of this conceptual category. In his 1983 Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and
Society, Raymond Williams suggested three broad definitions of “culture”. First, “culture” can be used to refer to “a general
process of intellectual, spiritual and aesthetic development”. In this respect, great philosophers, great poets and great artists
play a significant role in the development of a society. Second, “culture” can be used to indicate “a particular way of life,
whether of a people, a period or a group” (Williams, 1983). This definition refers not only to intellectual or aesthetic
productions, but also literacy, festivals, cultural habits, youth subcultures, sport. In a nutshell, this is what we can also call lived
cultures in most urban societies. Third, “culture” can be used to suggest “the works and practices of intellectual and especially
artistic activity” which contribute to the production of meaning— what the structuralists and post-structuralists call “signifying
practices”. According to Williams, “popular” has instead at least four meanings: “well-liked by many people”, “inferior kinds of
work”, “work deliberately setting out to win favor with the people”, “culture actually made by the people for themselves”.

In line with these interpretations of “popular”, a first definition of “popular culture”, as suggested by John Storey, is “culture
that is widely favored or well-liked by many people” (Storey 2015). A second way to define “popular culture” is in terms of a
“residual category” with a certain pejorative connotation: “popular culture” is “the culture that is left over after we have
decided what is high culture” In other words, popular culture refers to those texts and practices “that fail to meet the
standards to qualify as high culture”. A third definition of “popular culture” is as “mass culture” which developed with the rise
of publishing and broadcasting (radio, cinema, television) in the 19th and 20th centuries. It results from people’s exposure to
the same cultural products, values, and lifestyles. Especially from the 1950s on, mass culture has been often associated with
American culture (and the “American dream”)—whose influence on other cultures has more commonly been defined in terms
of “Americanization”. On the wave of the Cold War, various European intellectuals, for example those of the Frankfurt School
and, in Italy, Pier Paolo Pasolini, have seen in this phenomenon an attempt to spread the capitalist ideology and instill wishes
and desires which led to consumerism and cultural standardization. In this perspective, “mass culture” is seen as “a hopelessly
commercial culture [...] mass-produced for mass consumption” [...] which represents a threat for either the traditional values
of high culture or the traditional way of life of a ‘tempted’ working class”. A fourth definition of “popular culture”, following
again the meanings suggested by Williams, is a culture that originates from the people - in this case, “popular culture”
corresponds to “folk culture”. A fifth definition of “popular culture”, as suggested by Gramsci, is as a “compromise
equilibrium” between the culture produced by the elites and/or mass media and the emerging from below, oppositional
culture of the people”. In this perspective, “popular culture” is a site of struggle, based on “resistance” and “incorporation”,
between classes, genders, races, economic powers, and so on. In this respect, Stuart Hall (2009), the father of Cultural Studies,
argued that “popular culture” theories are about the “constitution of the people”, where the people are variety of social
groups in society. Along these lines, as Fiske (2001) noted, “popular culture” is what people make from the products of the
cultural industry—mass culture is the repertoire, popular culture is what people make of it with the commodities and the
commodified practices they consume. A sixth definition equates “popular culture” with “postmodernism”, a culture which
does not recognize the boundaries between high and popular culture, celebrating the end of an elitism constructed on
arbitrary distinctions of culture. For some critics, this is the final victory of commerce over culture (Storey 2015).

While these theories are still central in the investigation of popular culture today, most of them belong to another era of
cultural history; one which was still strongly rooted in the mass media culture of 20th century. Mass media such as television,
cinema, radio, newspapers, and advertising continue to be influential at a cultural level today. However, first, they have
transformed and become part of a system of media convergence; second, they do not fully represent the media landscape.
Numerous other digital platforms such as Netflix, YouTube, Wordpress, Instagram, online newspapers, video games,
collaborate and/or compete with the cultural production of so-called “old” media. Moreover, in the digital age, popular culture
results from a variety of practices which can be initially exclusive of a specific social and cultural category (“the people” or
subaltern groups, “communities of fandom”, masses, elites), but typically tend to move across these class distinctions creating
new cultural phenomena and products, as I will discuss in more detail below.

Digital technologies have become endemic of our cultural landscape at many levels: in terms of lived cultures, including
literacy, cultural habits, subcultures, social life; in terms of artistic activity; and, finally, by shaping the intellectual, spiritual, and
aesthetic development of society, as the digital turn in the humanities demonstrates. The previous definitions of “popular
culture” seem to all co-exist, in a way or another, in the contemporary digital society. Consciously or unconsciously, these
cultural practices are in fact “widely favored or well-liked by many people” who regularly use them to perform daily activities
to communicate, so
cialize, work, learn, access and produce knowledge and creativity, entertain themselves, and so on. Very popular apps like
Google Maps, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Skype, Dropbox, Subway Surfers, LinkedIn, Academia.edu
have changed the ways we interact, speak, gather and disseminate information, situate ourselves in space, etc. In their early
days, many of these practices were considered as “avant-garde” in relation to mass practices and “residual” in relation to high
culture—examples include the first experiments of electronic literature which set the ground for today’s blogs, among other
digital genres, as well as the first online chat boxes which preceded dating apps and social networks. Digital culture(s) have
also many features in common with mass culture. Phenomena like social media influencers, for example, borrow the cultural
models of mass media stardom and authorship, as well as the aesthetic styles of television, cinema, and advertising, but they
adapt them to the more typical informal style of social media where private and public spheres mix seamlessly.

However, in the way they express social and behavior customs, level of education, linguistic inflections, and symbolic gestures
of localities, one can argue that they are the new “vernacular cultures”. Unlike the “folk cultures” we used to associate to
nonurban cut-off communities, contemporary ones are often the combination of national and international mass culture, local
and global societies, individual experiences and education. They can be produced by individuals or groups and they are spread
quickly and widely, if they attract the attention of either big brands, companies, mass media and/or institutions, they reach
masses, and they can have a moral, political, commercial or educational impact.

Crucially, in this new socio-technological scenario, one may wonder whether a cultural studies perspective is still relevant and
what its object of study would be when it comes to identify power relations, forms of incorporation and resistance and
epistemologies of otherness. In digital culture, meanings are not only produced at the surface level of representation of
contents (stories, images, audiovisuals), but, as Lev Manovich has very well explained in The Language of New Media, also right
in the structural levels which organize and manage imaginaries and social relations, namely code, interface, software,
database. It seems to be still appropriate to argue that in these sites where “collective social understandings are created”,
“popular culture” is a terrain on which “the politics of signification” is played out in attempts to win people to particular ways
of seeing the world (Hall, 2009). Thus, what are the emancipatory challenges we are facing today and in which “apparatuses”
and “forms of representations” should we look for the elusive core of convergence?

Conclusion

The term “brand” first emerged in the late 1880s to indicate goods like Coca-Cola which stood out from competition. David
Ogilvy, the “Father of Advertising,” defined brand as “the intangible sum of a product’s attributes”. It is a “person’s perception
of a product, service, experience, or organization”, according to the Dictionary of Brand. It is not a logo, it is not an identity, it
is not a product, but, as Marty Neumeier defined it, a brand is “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or
organization”. In mass media culture, we were used to see goods advertised on multiple media platforms, such as television,
magazines, advertising boards, gadgets, and so on, with the specific purpose to construct a brand of the product. We were
exposed to various representations of the same object in our daily life experiences and, finally, we synthetically got a sense of
what that item meant to us. What lies behind the most successful brands was a well-thought and coordinated strategy of
communication meant to provide a package of meanings, suggest model identities, connect with the masses’ wishes and
desires.

In the age of convergence culture—where social media have allowed virtually anyone to engage in a strategy of self-branding
and where mass media need to collaborate with new media to achieve effective communication- people’s identities, like
goods, are constructed as “brands”. While this might not come as a surprise, what strikes is how this results especially from
the new media scenario in which we are immersed. The increased tendency to take a “distant reading” of the reality which
surrounds us, including people, events, news, in combination with the fragmentation of representations across multiple media,
the overwhelming quantity of data and cultural stimulation we are exposed to each day, the attention deficit which affects
more and more people, especially the Millennials, the rapid evolution of technologies, all make us more prone to grasp the
sense of the world through branding. The concept of “branding” today goes well beyond promotion, advertising, publicizing to
potential masses for commercial purposes. “Brand” today is how we manage to effectively communicate and understand the
meanings deriving from the variety of cultures which blend in our stories, images, lifestyles. It is a snapshot of the multiple
cultural intersections which constitute today’s advanced societies; it is thus crucial to develop the critical tools for a close
reading of this emerging transmedia textuality made of digital and non-digital media. This is after all the challenge of
“compromise equilibrium” which digital humanities, cultural and media studies will face in their relationship with digital
popular cultures