2.3 Entertaining the world: using media across cultural boundaries

This week focuses on global media entertainment, pop culture, convergence and maintaining culture, we were asked to focus on the following questions:

  • What does it mean to live in era of global media entertainment?
  • How does globalisation change the ways in which media is produced, distributed and consumed?
  • How can specific cultures use the internet to maintain their systems of social organisation language and belief?
  • What is the digital divide? What are its consequences, and how can it be overcome?
  • Do you think fears that the internet will lead to media imperialism and cultural homogenisation are justified?
  • How does participatory culture allow for alternative paradigms of these institutionalised and naturalised power relations to be examined?

What does it mean to live in era of global media entertainment?

It means we live in a new world where we are empowered by information, surrounded by global capitalism, media imperialism and cultural homogenization, but we have the power to change it.

How does globalisation change the ways in which media is produced, distributed and consumed?

Lucky Imade suggest that Globlisation “has promoted information exchange, led to a greater understanding of other cultures, raised living standards, increased purchasing power” (Imade, 2003). However the level of technology available in your country will determine the benefits you receive from globlisation (Imade, 2003). According to Henry Jenkins we are living in a world where “media will be everwhere and we will use all kinds of media in relation to each other” (Jenkins, 2006) Globlisation has removed the boundaries, we can produce media using global content, this media can be distributed globally at the same time and it can be consumed by anyone anywhere.

How can specific cultures use the internet to maintain their systems of social organisation language and belief?

Ramesh Srinivasan suggests that new technologies can be used to achieve “community-focused cultural, political, educational and social objectives” (Srinivasan, 2006) by using these technologies these community members can create media that reflects their political and cultural agenders, reflects on daily life and retells the stories of the past.

What is the digital divide? What are its consequences, and how can it be overcome?

According to Patricia Pascual “The digital divide refers to the gap between individuals, households, businesses and geographic areas at different socio-economic levels with regard both to their opportunities to access information and communications technologies (ICTs) and to their use of the Internet for a wide variety of activities.” (Pascual, 2003) The consequence of the digital divide is that more developed countries (USA, UK etc) have assess to and can produce the content & information, while this is not necessarily a bad thing it does expose us to a one sided view of the media. To overcome the digital divide we need to bridge the gap between developed and developing countries, by giving them access to information and technology so that they can learn and create their own media.

Do you think fears that the internet will lead to media imperialism and cultural homogenisation are justified? 

To a degree the fears that the internet will lead to media imperialism and cultural homogenisation are justified, Chadha and Kavoori state that “media imperialism thus essentially articulated a vision of Western cultural dominance and impositions, created by a ceaseless flow of cultural products that invaded and overwhelmed the developing world” (Chadha & Kavoori, 2000). Currently what we are seeing is a trend in which developing nations copy/clone what they see from developed nations, this happens mostly with the younger generations where they leave their cultural values behind in pursuit of western ideas, if this continues to happen, where these values and ideas are not preserved and re taught then we would loose these cultures.

How does participatory culture allow for alternative paradigms of these institutionalised and naturalised power relations to be examined?

Reference:

Chadha, K., & Kavoori, A. (2000). Media imperialism revisited: some findings from the Asian case. Media Culture Society , 22 (4), 415-432. DOI: 10.1177/016344300022004003

Imade, L. O. (2003). The Two Faces of Globalization: Impoverishment or Prosperity? Retrieved from http://globalization.icaap.org/content/v3.1/01_imade.html

Jenkins, H. (2006). Pop cosmospolitanism: Mapping cultural flows in an age of media convergence. In Fans, bloggers and gamers: exploring participatory culture (pp. 152-172). New York, New York, United States of America: New York University Press.

Pascual, P. J. (2003). E-government, E-Asean Task force, UNDP-APDIP. Retrieved from http://www.apdip.net/publications/iespprimers/eprimer-egov.pd

Srinivasan, R. (2006). Indigenous, ethnic and cultural articulations of new media. International Journal of Cultural Studies , 9 (4), 497-518. DOI: 10.1177/1367877906069899


Leave a comment