Beyond 'Media & Cultural Imperialism'

The notion of ‘Media & Cultural Imperialism’ began to dominant the belief of many scholars and gained prominence in the 1970s. The objectives of cultural imperialism as Petras (1993) has argued, were planned, and campaigned constructed. He has raised the example about the United State cultural imperialism has two major goals, one economic and the other political (Peter & Phil, 1996). The first goal as he describe is to capture markets for its cultural commodities and the second is to establish hegemony by shaping popular consciousness.

Cultural Imperialism was described and explain as the way that the first world country use large multinational corporations and that include the media to dominated developing country or the third world country (Herbert, 1976 Quoted by Livingston, 2000).

However, the notion of Cultural Imperialism to some extent has really explained the way on how the developed country dominate with the developing country (. e.g. MTV, American Idol, & MacDonald) but the criticisms about this notion are never end. According to Livingston (2000) in his journal, reconsidering cultural imperialism theory, has been gathered all criticisms and weakness of this theory from other researchers and theorists.

The first critic from Livingston (2000) himself is that ‘Cultural Imperialism’ is based partly on the view that no periphery country will ever be able to produce media product of its own. Since the time when the United States was the first country that could produce movie, music and any others product; and start to contribute to the neighboring countries, this notion had developed. The fact is that time flies and thing change due to the time. Nowadays, not only the United State that have a capacity and ability to produced the media product but the other countries though the developing one also can produce their own media product in their own language. TV Globo is also one of the world’s biggest television networks outside of the US, and Globo not only export media programs, also transmit them via satellite into intended regions (Sinclair 344 quoted by Musa 2011).

According to Herb Schiller (1973), the ontological assumption of Cultural Imperialism stated that “human do not have the free will to choose how they feel, act think, and live. They react to what they see on television because there is nothing else to compare it to besides their own lives, usually portrayed as less than what it should be. However, each individual have their own reality about life in the way that they want to construct as potter (1996) has argued.

Another epistemological assumption explains that there is one truth and no matter what that truth never going to change. As long as the third world countries continue to air Western Civilization’s program then the third world countries will always believe they should act, feel, think, and live as Western Civilizations act, feel, think and live. However, Potter (1996) has argued that assumptions that the ways human interpret information about culture are shaped by international media organization, are the very base assumption guiding cultural imperialist thinking.

Another assumption of cultural imperialism is that media play a central role in creating culture (Livingston, 2000). However, this assumption seems to oversimplify that media really have such a power to influence people. One of the most remarkable studies about media from Lazarsfeld is that media do not really have a direct influence on people but rather to reinforce the old belief that people held before (Stanley J. & Dennis K., 2009). In Lazarfeld’s theory, explains that media rarely directly influence individuals and when media do seem to have an effect, that effect is filtered from other parts of the society, for example through friends or social group.

One more point to notice about the weakness of cultural imperialism is that this theory doesn’t acknowledge an audience’s ability to process information and interpret message different based on their individual background (Liebes & Katz, 1990 cited Livingston, 2000). If we go to look at the theory from Staurt Hall (1973), he had developed a theory called ‘Reception Studies’ (Stanley J. & Dennis K, 2009). This theory focus on how various types of audience member make sense of specific forms of content. He explains the three types of how audience makes sense of the content: preferred reading, negotiated reading and oppositional reading. Preferred reading is the way that the audience interprets the message from the producer hundred percent exactly the same as what the producer intended to sent. Negotiated reading when the audience creates a personally meaningful interpretation of content that differs from the preferred reading. Oppositional decoding when the audience develops interpretations of content that are indirect opposition to a dominant reading. The study of the cultural imperialism seem to be broad and over generalized the power of media and ignored the individual differences that would lead this theory becomes weak. 

How can we make nationalism serve rather than damage relationship?

We (citizen or government) should not try to everything to ban the flow of foreign immigration but we want it to be legally. It is also important for us to understand about the important of diversity. So what does diversity mean? 

Diversity refers to the state of being diverse or different. This could count into the account with the dimension of gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs or other ideologies. 

I think we people in Cambodia or some other Asia countries when hear the word 'Diversity' we would fear about the problem of social disorder, losing our own culture, language or religion. This is worth to worry about the problem of social disorder but not to over worry about losing culture, language  or religion. Take a minute to think what is culture, what is language, and what is religion? Does all of these make us a real and hundred percent Cambodian? 

The UNDP's press release says unambiguously that "there is no evidence that cultural diversity slow development", and dismisses the idea that there has to be a trade-off between respecting 
diversity and sustaining peace. Some of the world's richest and most peaceful countries are historically multi-ethnic, such as Switzerland, Canada, and Belgium. And most of the world's richest countries are now the destination of immigration from around the world, making America, Britain and other wealthy nation hugely diverse. 

To make our nationalism inside us more beneficial is to promote the culture of our country to our neighbouring country or the world, if possible. We should not think that there purification nation in one particular country because it impossible to have on person that have pure blood of their nation. We can actually produce films, music, or any events. As a good example in Cambodia, we can surly see foreigners specially from Japan. They try to promote their culture to Cambodia by organising the events and invite youths to join. 

That's how they use their nationalism in a peaceful way without harming others people. It gives benefit a lot to Japanese such as building the relationship between Cambodia and Japan, and promoting their culture as well.

Japan has the world's third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the world's fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. We can see they are the develop country but they still love their culture, so the important point is to know how to use nationalism in a standard level and in a good purpose without harming other nation. It is also important to understand the other's nation that they have their own right to live and they also have feeling. They can be hurt when we discriminate or judge them and we have to keep in mind that we all are human being.

We want to hear from you, Plz drop your comment down. 

Is media really have direct influence on us?

It is almost a century that many scholars were trying to seek for the truth of media and consumer. The question has been raised and hotly debated after the World War II since the Nazi Germany or Adolf Hitler used media as a tool to spread his ideology. This is called propaganda. In the U.S., propaganda is categorized in three types such as white, gray and black propaganda. Hitler wrote in chapter IV "Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favourable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favourable to its own side. 

He put those ideas into his practice with the establishment of a daily newspaper which is called Volkischer Beobacther published by Nazi party. Hitler and Nazi propagandist played on the antisemitism and resentment present in Germany. The Jews were blamed for stealing the German people job while Jews avoiding physical labor. A Nazi propagandist told German that Jews kidnapped small children before passover because they need the blood of a Christian child, maybe, to mix in with their Matzah. Posters, fliers, films, and cartoon were seen throughout Germany which attacked the Jewish community. 

"So media really have a direct influence on us?"

Have you ever heard about an imaginary war that is happened in the U.S. which began on a peaceful evening in late Octorber, 1938? This is a time which help the researches to change their perspective that media have a direct influence on us to limited-effect.

Let's begin with definition of limited-effect theory; it is the theory that media have minimal or limited effect because those effects are mitigated by a variety of mediating or intervening variables such as family, peers, or education. 

This idea was supported by many media intuition and as well as many other scholars because it seems to be in middle-range theory which is fare more reliable than mass society theory that all way blame media of causing harm to the society by influenced to people. Though this idea that media have a limited-effect on people but how about children who exposure themselves to media everyday. More importantly, their schema is different from the adult and elder people. Have you every seen your children acting like a spiderman or superman? Have you ever seen your chlidren dressing up like their idol singer? Have you ever seen the ads of a new bag from 'Chanel' with special promotion and you are thinking of buying that bag? These all the question you should ask yourself or your family? You can decide wether media have direct influence on you or other or not? Most people will always and most of the saying that they are not influence by media because in psychology of people we always believe that we are in control of ourselves in every decision we made but that's actually a misconception of everybody's thought.  

Do you have any to add? Please don't mind to share your opinion. We want to hear from you.