For Monday, November 30th class, please read the following:
- Thomlinson, John. Globalization and Culture, Chapter 4—available on Blackboard.
- Bagdikian, Ben. New Media Monopoly, Chapter 2—available on Blackboard.
- Canclini, Néstor García, “Hybrid Cultures”—available on Blackboard.
We only have three blog responses left, so if you still need to do some to meet the minimum three for this half of the semester, please make sure you get them in.
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November 30, 2009 at 11:11 am
Néstor García Canclini argues that the city has lost its meaning because it is not what it used to be. This is true because cultures are fluid and are always changing but the city is still important. The world population is expanding and so are the cities but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are less important or have lost what they used to stand for and represent. There is now a move inward towards the cities and a move away from rural areas so new ideas and practices are being exposed and incorporated in new ways, this is happening especially in South America. This is known as urban expansion which has intensified cultural hybridization or the mixing of different cultures.
With advanced technology people are able to communicate and travel more efficiently than ever before. This allows for a spread of ideas which influence other cultures and therefore become integrated into daily life. There are ideas about what a city is like and anonymity is associated with the megalopolis. Cities are so big now that popular groups have their own spaces and rarely move away, they adjust to their surroundings. Radio and television provides information to everyone and is easily accessible but the computer brings information and entertainment home for those that can afford it.
Canclini’s main argument has to do with deterritorialization which is the “loss of the ‘natural’ relation of culture to geographical and social territories and, at the same time, certain relative, partial territorial relocalizations of old and new symbolic productions” (499 Canclini). This means that the metropolitan nations are making their boarders more flexible and they are integrating their economies, educational system, technological and cultural systems. The hybridization of culture is due to the multidirectional migrations, this schema though is one directional, meaning migration happens from poor regions to urban areas and from 3rd world to 1st world countries. This is seen in the United States as people from all over the world come here to seek work opportunities.
One example of this is the relation between the United States and Mexico. Between the boarders there are intercultural movements and the incorporation of modern and post modern influences into the North American mainstream. Many Mexicans travel back and forth either daily or over a season to work in the United States. These workers bring with them parts of their culture, we can see this by the number of radio stations that are Spanish as well as advertising. This hybridization of cultures helps to form identities and each individual will identify themselves as they choose. I believe this is an important concept of cultural hybridization because mostly globalization is talked about. But how do these people define themselves through all that is going on? People change identities depending on their situation and how they perceive themselves at that particular moment. As Americans we have many stereotypes and form identities for other cultures because that is how we perceive them “people who have arrived recently and want to discover us and tell us who we are” (504 Canclini).
The boarder town of Tijuana is a prime example of a cultural hybrid. It used to be known as a casino town but that changed and is now known as a tourist spot. The town changed to accommodate tourists and gringos expectations, “faced with the lack of other types of things, as there are in the south where there are pyramids, there is none of that here…as if something had to be invented for the gringos” (503 Canclini).
I believe that the mixing of cultures has to happen in order for our society to move forward. It allows for us to understand one another and connect on different levels. This should not be seen as a threat but rather as a step forward because new ideas will be introduced and incorporated into our daily practices. Although the city may not be what it used to be it is still a sign of power and a center in which cultures are able grow and expand.
November 30, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Tomlinson’s chapter 4 focused on the mini-subject (within the larger topic of global culture): deterritorialization which can be vaguely can be defined as globalizing process, also often understood as delocalization and displacement. Tomlinson used many example of how modernity brought about deterritorialization, where people almost lost the aspect of locality and individual identities as they combined into the so called global culture. Tomlinson does not stop his argument at delocalization but went a bit more extreme to explain the term deterritorialization to non-places: which, to my understanding, are products of globalization and do not carry historical impacts or cultural identities. Tomlinson also went on to talk about global food and local culture, where the used to be “local” products are belonged to the global commodity chain. The Mundane Experience of Deterritorialization paragraph is most astonishing with the British family’s sarcastic description proved how globalization is actually affecting culture by creating this globalized culture rather than a global culture. Globalization’s impacts changed certain aspects of national culture.
It is impossible to deny the fact that globalization shaped the modern world. Even in Asia and Africa, you could find products of globalizations such as multinational corporate buildings, super markets, to much smaller items such as household utensils and foods. Deterritorialization is accepted worldwide because people still tend to believe that Western tradition and modernity is the ultimate goals and dream. Global culture refers to the “emergence of one single culture embracing everyone on earth” but globalization does not promise a global culture, instead globalization promised Westernization and devalued the important of existing cultural identities.
The Big Fives of the New Media Monopoly are: Time Warners, Walt Disney, Viacom, (Fox) News Corp and Direct TV (Bertelsmann). Bagdikian shows that these “conglomerations” have been able to use their assets-money and power-to swallow independent radio stations or newspapers or publishers to exponentially increase profits while decreasing actual news reporting. In 1983, most major media outlets were controlled by 50 major conglomerates, by 2003, the number dived to 5 companies or mergers whom owned the nation’s media. By doing so, they have more power than the government in the nation’s knowledge.
The public is well aware of the fact that media control images of anyone and anything. But it is impossible to (up to this point) to not follow the track because there is nothing else that have comparable credentials than these big Fives. Independent media and internet might be possible solution but who can guarantee that those information is more accurate than these offered by the big Fives. As we have discussed more than once in class about the topic of neoliberalism, I believe neoliberalism is the reason for the formation of the big Fives due to the policy during Reagan and others former US presidents of free trade and free competition. Monopoly is the ultimate goal of any corporation and the number 5 might even go down as time goes by (the example of ESSO).
In the essay “Hybrid cultures, oblique powers,” Canclini mentioned more than once about the role of electronic technologies (modernity) replacing the traditional public interactive spaces. While still taking into account the exercise of power between “First” and “Third” world nations, Canclini argues that the mass media have not erased or delocalized the traditional Latin American forms of cultural expression; rather that they have contributed to a cultural reconfiguration that has displaced established modes of thinking about culture. This transformation, however, is tied to other social shifts, including the expansion of metropolitan areas, the decrease in collective public action, the increase of imaginary world of technology, and the unfinished projects of political change in many Latin American countries. The mass media constitute a new kind of public sphere as they simulate the integration of a disintegrated society. Contrasting media culture with traditional symbols of modernity — monuments and museums –Canclini engages the central question of how the new, dense networks of economic and ideological crossings, and the deterritorializations and hybridities born of them, reconfigure power relations.
Canclini’s essay is the counter argument with Tomlinson and Bagdikan, where Canclini does not deny the impact of globalization and media influences on governmental powers, he rather claims that globalization is only incorporating new aspects into the existing cultural history of the global world. Where as in Tomlinson article, Tomlinson used may examples to pointed out the biases of Canclini’s essay in the very first paragraph of chapter 4.
In my opinion, I think that globalization had created a globalized culture because of the observed changes in many traditional societies such as Japan, S.Korea, Hongkong, and Vietnam. The vivid cultural hegemony of globalization appears on every corner of big cities and capital around the world. But, the existing cultures are not diminished but rather got stored in a more discreet places within the people heart while they follow the modernized trend of globalization. But the issue is, to me, not completely forgotten as we continuously been reminded by numerous cultural activities, TV shows, heritage months. To the contrary, traditional cultures are also being sold during our generation besides greens and peace.
November 30, 2009 at 3:25 pm
After reading The Big Five Chapter I was able to get a better understanding of how things really work out here. I knew that ‘elite’ 10% of our country owned roughly 90% of it all, but was not aware that even foreign nationals, companies, owned a piece of it too. These companies have allied themselves with one another in order to gain more wealth and prosperity. Murdoch seems to be one of the smartest ones of all, using political power and influence to change national laws, in the two biggest and most powerful nations, (US and UK). This is a perfect example of Darwinism, the strong and powerful survive. The article mostly exhibited the mergers of each company, but did not explain the effects to the local communities after such mergers. According to this article, all of our broadcasting/printing/media companies globally are owned by these fab five… wow. In Hybrid Cultures, Oblique Powers, Canclini describes how heterogeneity and homogeneity cultures integrate due to ‘mediatization’. The traditional community that has left their communities for urban area, for various reasons, has reorganized public space and media. The hybridization between urban and country cultures has bought a modern redistribution of artistic work that can be bought in the cities in small novelty shops and not directly from the indigenous areas. These artistic expressions, along with a new media wave of information, has contributed to the decollecting and deterrirorializing of Latin American countries.
November 30, 2009 at 3:28 pm
While reading about The Big 5 Corporations, the sentence stated at the end of the page best describes the article. Bagdikian wrote, “That is why the not-so-hidden meaning behind the slogan ‘get government off our backs’ eventually is ‘let us have either a monopoly or cooperative arrangements with a small number of our companies in the same business.” Bagdikian also mentions Adam Smith’s opinion about how capitalism will fail when there are many monopolies established. The article was interesting because it opened my eyes up and I took notice that pretty much everything we do daily, from reading the news to taking flights on Lufthansa, is owned by one of these top five corporations. The top five corporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corp, Viacom and Bertelsmann, all have brother and sister companies linked to them, making their empires huge. These empires have a lot of monopolies, it’s kind of scary. I’ve always heard stories about Rupert Murdoch but I wasn’t sure exactly who he was, aside from him owning the Fox networks. Through his big corporations, he influences policy-making in Washington through lobbying and his news-media empire. The first thought I had while reading the article was money is power. There is a lot of influence, not just policy-making, but over the magazines we read and the television we watch. Government should regulate this more. This is why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. All this money is going to the same people, up top and the more they continue to build these multiple enterprises, the more the average American loses.
November 30, 2009 at 3:40 pm
“The hybridizations described throughout this book bring us to the conclusion that today all cultures are border cultures” (Page 507)
The reading “Hybrid Cultures” by Néstor García talks about the cities and how they are changing constantly due to the movement of people across borders, thus making cities a mixture of peoples from all around the globe. When I think of cities like for example Mexico City in the reading you can see that there is evidence of the old and the new. There are Mayan ruins not far from Spanish colonial architecture and not to far from that there are skyscrapers scattered throughout the city. Cities are constantly changing and evolving due to modern technology. It is important to note that the past should always be remembered because it shows civilization how far it has come. Destroying are part of the past, for example the ruins in Mexico City is taking away a part of the city. This idea of “city” encompasses a variety of history and people. It tells a story and helps us not to forget were we came from. You can not learn anything if you do not know anything about the past.
Another discussed was the movement of people and how groups of people will move in order to find a better life. This is evident in cities because there is a mixture of poor and rich and nationalities. São Paulo is the largest city in South America and has a lot of immigrants. People from the poor region of the North-East of Brazil come to the big city to find hope and economic prosperity. Immigrants from other continents come also to seek a better way of life. Even though there is a mixture of people and languages does not make São Paulo any less Brazilian. A hybrid of cultures is present but the backbone of the city is still very much Latin/Brazilian. Portuguese is still the main source of communication.
The quote above talks about how all cultures are border cultures. This means that globalization has made the world a little smaller and brought groups from all corners of the globe together. All cultures have immigrants, which means that every country experiences some form of globalization and hybridization. We cannot escape the fact that people will continue to move around the globe into other countries in order to live better. We are all border cultures because of the modern transportation methods like airplanes that make travel to far away places easier. Thus, borders have been smaller and even though South Africa is across the ocean it is only a flight away. But even though cultures are coming together it does not mean that we are all becoming the same and losing our unique cultures and identities. Society is now changing to a globalized society, meaning that we are better linked through tansportation rather than a global society where we all have the same culture.
November 30, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Néstor García Canclini describes on Hybrid Cultures, Oblique Powers how the cities have been affected by urban expansion originated by migration, which has created hybridization of cultures. Also, García Canclini portrays how the continual construction of memory is based on daily life experiences, especially in urban settings. On the section From the public space to teleparticipation, García points out that social movements have lost credibility and power over political representations and that their efficacy could increase with the use of more electronic information media: teleparticipation. García also refers to the fact that in urban culture and settings, the media have come to rule over the public sector and everything in the city happens thanks to the media. Media have become a main factor on the political game, either to support or to reject political actions and to motivate social movements. Besides, media in the ways of radio, TV and propaganda have become imperative in establishing history and public meaning in the urban setting and as García implies, television and radio broadcasting have impose large portion of influence on the style, language and goals of the country and its people.
Furthermore, García analyses how historical monuments represent the social faith of a community and how tension may be created between this historic places and artwork and new visual designs of modern cities, such as graffiti and advertising. For García, this interaction between the historic and the modern in urban settings is one aspect of hybridization. For me museums and monuments are essential to an urban setting since they portray the past and create a historic meaning of their populations. However, every modern city will have this interaction with new ways of representing meaning, such as the graffiti and propaganda which creates a new visual order. García also states how new technologies have affected the collection system of images and context, in essence he states that meanings are destroyed by these technologies, such as video recorders, photocopiers, videos and video games. In this aspect, García focused on how these technologies create social meaning according to the economic social class of the population. García states that the meanings of the technologies are constructed according the ways they are institutionalized and socialized (498). Moreover, he focuses on two concepts related to globalization in the development of modernity in urban settings: Deterritorialization which is the loss of the natural relation of culture to geographical and social territories, and reterritorialization which is the partial territorial relocalization of old and new symbolic production (499). For me, colonization in the Americas is a case of deterritorialization in which native cultures lost their meaning and traditions when imposed the new culture of the Spaniards over their territory. Also, migration to other countries is the case García portrays in the lecture. García shows a case study of Tijuana which focuses on the border life between the US and Mexico and how the multicultural contact and exchange affect the cultural meaning of each country. For instance, the people he studied didn’t identify as migrants or citizens, instead they had several ways of portraying their various identities. I consider that migration is one of the main factors that have contributed to the hybridization of cultures in an urban setting. Plus, the wider access to information of other cultures, have led to the option to form a different identity from the natural culture of the traditional territory. It is upon the person to choose what identity to form based on the exposure of characteristic of different cultures.
On the other hand, in the same case of Tijuana, García shows how people have created a movement for reterritorialization, meaning that native people try to establish back the natural/ traditional culture in order to show the differences between them and the tourists. Reterritorialization tries to impose the culture of the real people that habit that territory.
I consider that these to aspects of modern development create in a certain way a loss of culture exclusively related to its territory. However, cities may also benefit a mixture of cultures that brings with it a wider range of options such as: different traditions, music, food, art, and so on.
John Tomlinson chapter four on Deterritorialization: The Cultural Condition of Globalization focuses on how deterritorialization is experienced in all aspects of mundane lives in modern societies and explores some aspects of what might be considered factors of deterrirorialization. One of Tomlinson points is that non-places, which is a space that doesn’t have any relational or historical relation to identity, is one aspect of a deterritorialized culture; yet, real places and non-places are intertwine and societies relate and interact with both in modern urban settings. Tomlinson shows that for some people a non-place is a real-place as in the case of people working at airports, for them the airport (usually considered a non-place) is their workplace a their real-place. Then, Tomlinson concludes that the designation of spaces/ places as non-places depends and is determined based on each person’s perspective. Moreover, media and communication technologies also influence the representations and significance of daily experience related to the use of time and space. Tomlinson states that the choices provide by new media technologies like worldwide TV programs and Internet contribute to deterritorialization (116). Another aspect of globalization and deterritorialization is food culture and how food is now more accessible in every part of the world. Tomlinson concludes that deterritorialization has benefits as well as cost and that as globalization it is a push-and-pull process. As Garcia Canclini stated his article on Culture and Globalization deterritorialization comes also with reterritorialization. Tomlinson concludes that deterritorialization doesn’t mean the end of locality but instead a complex cultural space open for new interpretations and construction of cultural meanings and identities.
Ben Bagdikian on the article The Big Five describes how the power on media corporations has changed within 20 years. Ben describes The Big Five – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) – as the five major communications and media companies that have gained control over this market in the United States since 2003. One of the points of this article is that these major companies are not only big in size but they also have enormous control over politics by providing politicians with media support in exchange for political favors in order to gain even more control over the market and modification of laws that prohibit these major media corporations to create a monopoly. Also the article states that these Big Five have also conditioned the social values of children and adults alike since they have created monopoly over the market that are the mainly producers and distributers of magazines, newspapers, books, radio and TV programs, and movie studios of the United States.
To conclude, I consider that the culture is not only exclusively to the territory. Each person has formed an identity based on the traditions and culture of the place he/she was raised and if he/she migrates to another territory, the person mainly will tend to maintain its natural identity and culture. Also, communications and media technologies have facilitated the tie to a person’s own culture when he/she is out of the natural place. Besides, these technologies have opened the doors for new forms of identities and modifications in traditions and the culture in essence. In a certain way these changes have been positive for a territory, but this is not the case in all places. Some cultures have lost their meaning and this global culture has also led to effects on the social, political, and economic development of the territory.
November 30, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Chapter two in the New Media Monopoly was a great surprise to read. About 26 years ago fifty men and women owned the media. However, in 2003 it’s a great surprise that know only five men control most of the media in the United States and abroad. Reading this was problematic in many ways. These five people undoubtly have a lot of power, because eventually ‘political power is media power’. Having five men able to control the media is ludicrous, because of the great influence they can have on the public. According to Canclini, one of the great influences if being able to make thing s ‘happen’ the way the media wants it to happen. They are able to control the information that is going to form public opinion. Because of their influence on the public, these five men are able to do and get away with most things ordinary people would not be able to get away with.
A great example of this is when Bagdikian talks about Murdoch, the person who started his fame with only one newspaper in Adelaide, which he later expanded in the UK and the US. He bought DirecTV and is the owner of the notorious channel of Fox 5, and much more. Murdoch has properties in film, media, news, magazines, and much more. So it isn’t a surprise that someone as powerful and influential as Murdoch would want to share his ideas and point of views which ‘promote his deep seated conservative politics,’ after all what fun is to have all that power if he can’t use it to influence people with it? Murdoch was later able to use his power in the media to help Margaret Thatcher with his candidacy, since they were both conservatives. Later when e wanted to create Fox, stationed in the U.S he was not able to because he was not a citizen, which states that foreign entities can only own up to 24.9% of U.S radio and for the parent corporation to be based in the U.S. So, Murdoch changed received a U.S citizenship but was not willing to give up his company in Australia. As a result he was able to used his new power and his negotiation skills to ‘obtain special favors, ’ which granted him the first and only waiver to enter the U.S.
I was truly surprised when I read that Murdoch has a half-interest in National Geographic which is by far my favorite magazine. Know that I know that Murdoch, the founder and owner of the notorious Fox 5, (which I dislike, and most teachers gear us away from) has some kind of interest in it the National Geographic, I have to be more critical in what I read in that magazines!
In the article by Tomlinson,mentions that because of the internet, TV, and other technologies we have become more ‘open’ to new information. All these different ways to get connected, he argues that these different sources provides people of a different vie point and gives people the choice to believe who they believe is right which ultimately makes people ‘better informed’. After reading the Big Five, I would question the point that we as people are ‘better informed’ when we are not. The fact that most of the influential TV networks and news channels are all owned by only five people makes me cynical to the fact that we are more informed. Although we might get different view points from watching the news, who is it to say that we are receiving the right information. We are taught that most of the information on the news and newspapers is distorted, biased, and thus never providing the ‘real’ story, for the viewers’ to be fully aware of an event or to be better informed. Instead of relaying us the information whichwould provide the veiwers to come up with their own opinions, the news presents us with the information in a way that is hard for us to make up our opinions.
From the comfort of our living room we can switch channels and find channels from all over the world. This phenomenon is also found in food items, where we can go to our local grocery store and be able to taste various diverse foods no matter where there origins are. This constant availabilty to ‘ethnic’ foods may cause a sense of deterritorialization to the national living in that country. Tomlinson uses how , in Britain Indian food outnumbers the ‘traditional’ food of Britain. However, this mth that food provides a sense of cultural identity is false because foods are created through various ‘trades links, cultural exchanges, and colonialism.’
November 30, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I found the excerpt from The New Media Monopoly very interesting. I was very unaware of the amount of power that is in the hands of a very small number of people. It seems as if supporting these companies is unavoidable. It is my instinct to think that these mergers are bad and try to think of possible ways of changing the pattern. The amount of influence that these five companies have over the way that we think, read, and interpret the world is undeniable. It’s nearly impossible to turn on the television or go see a movie without seeing Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, NewsCorp, Bertelsmann, or one of its subsidaries. How is anyone to be able to form their own opinion when they are being constantly bombarded by someone else’s? I think that the people have a very important responsibility to watch and absorb many different media outlets, including the ones they disagree with. This responsibility directly effects every American because of the relationship between media power and political power. It is very well known that Fox news is very right-wing conservative. It would therefore come as no surprise that it’s CEO, Rupert Murdoch, has similar extreme conservative beliefs as Newt Gingrich. The media should not be able to persuade millions of people to think a certain way, whether it be liberal or conservative. Having such intense power in the hands of 5 people feels like brainwashing. It seems as if the American public is having their choices taken from them without even knowing it. What we see in the movies, news, and on TV directly effects where and how we shop, eat, travel, and THINK.
Because this book was last published in 2003, I wonder how much this has changed in the past 7 years. It is probable that bootleg streaming and illegal downloading has severely effected the music and movie industries. The prevalence of DVR and DirecTV has probably nearly eliminated the power of commercials. Even buying books is no longer necessary with the invention of Kindle. While this is great for the environment, it takes away some of the magic of reading a book. I don’t feel as if a reader can connect as well with a words that are being read off of a device as opposed to having a book with pages to turn and corners to fold over.
November 30, 2009 at 8:05 pm
To focus on Chapter four of Thomlinson’s “Globalization and Culture,” “Deterritorialization: The Cultural Condition of Globalization” and the excerpt from Bagdikian’s work, “The Big 5,” I find the world being painted in grey scale on a green canvas. In other words, these two readings leave me with the impression that the world is becoming less diverse, less distinct, and connected primarily and purposefully based on the desires of the few as opposed to the many. The creation and development of deterritorialization as described by Thomlinson seems to be able to occur due to the increased interconnectedness and augmented ability and ease at which trade can occur, thus causing culture to not be specifically grounded by locality but rather widely exportable. However, these two ideas can be directly related back to what is being addressed in Bagdikian’s work- the idea that capitalism, profit, and the desire to monopolize are the main components of today’s interconnectedness. Business, in order to be successful in a capitalist society, must strive for the endless accumulation of wealth. It makes perfect sense, then, that once a corporation profited the most it possibly could from doing business in one region or in one local, the corporation would look to expand its market-base. This innately, then, promotes and leads to the development of multi or transnational corporations. The desire of these companies to profit, succeed, and survive on the international level requires that business can be managed through overcoming various cultural divides, physical borders, and other barriors. So, it can be argued that deterritorialization is a direct result of businesses and business leaders attempting to, in effect, diminish cultural differences and create a more universally accepted culture so that their business can strive globally. I find it rather frightening that corporations could actually impact a global culture, or rather, change how local cultures develop. In addition, it is scary that these corporations, in reality, are not so much a multitude of companies headed and impacted by a diverse group of people as they are a conglomeration of companies which have merged and/or are owned and operated by one large corporation. This means, that in reality, companies which are changing and impacting the cultures that were once diverse and locally specific or exclusive are now encouraging a new culture to form. To phrase this differently and more directly, the board of directors of these corporations: a small, microcosm of the world’s people, play an unbelievably great role in framing the culture of the world.
Although Thomlinson argues that yes, even though globalization is causing a change in culture and the deterritorialization of the world, there is another side of the story we must not ignore, and with this sentiment, I agree. The other side of the story, or rather, the counter-argument to globalization creating “non-places” is that no matter how you slice it, humans are physically located and residents of a specific area. By nature, then, location can never be “completely severed and locality continues to exercise its claims upon us.” Although culture can be sent throughout the world and imported to anywhere businesses want or desire based on their motivation to profit, a culture will always exist amongst those people who occupy a certain region because of the increased interactions and habits that these people will develop in being so closely situated. As Thomlinson finishes his chapter, “deterritorialization cannot ultimately mean the end of locality but its transformation into a more complex cultural space.” We will not end up as one completely medium-grey painting, but rather a portrait of all shades of grey. We will have the common thread, but each section of the rope will be a slightly different stitch, material, or texture. And no matter how the giant corporations of the world attempt to impact and mold culture into a perfect place for profit, they will never completley diminish the local culture.
November 30, 2009 at 8:09 pm
The Big Five article, was truly eye-opening. I had no idea that most if not all of our media exposure is filtered through five massive companies.
In the article it mentions how politicians are well aware, and are slave to the media. The media controls how they are perceived by the public. The politicians must play nice with the media in order to avoid having their ‘dirty laundry’ aired out for all to witness. Basically, the media outlets and the politicians are in bed together. This fear from the politicians is giving the media so much power, they are basically playing the system. They are not held to the law, and have been able to create five huge media firms that control everything.
Additionally, the importance of media cannot be understated. Bagdikian mentions that Americans spend a reported $800million on media products alone. With American’s investing so much time, money and effort into obtaining more and more media information it proves to be quite an influential agency. In ‘Hybrid Cultures, Oblique Powers’, Canclini mentions the importance of video media. How entire events of history, opinion, controversies and issues are being represented by videos, thus being absorbed by the mass public. People watch these videos and absorb the imagery, and the dialogue based on the discretion of the producers of how they wanted to depict a scene. The ‘ready to think culture’(p. 496), allows and promotes the unthinking of historical events and issues. Having control over the production and distribution of such powerful media devices is an additional power. Those that control the media outlets, seem to control the world.
It is alarming to think, that it is the Big Five’s world, and we are all just living in it. Everything we watch, buy, read, is part of a intricate system of direction. Depending on what set of new shows, or shows you watch on a certain network, or what magazines you read–they are all coming from a very methodical, targeted scheme to promote a message from the higher-ups. These messages could in some cases be directly linked with politics–conservative broadcasting, conservative books from conservative authors, or another specific view.
Bagdikian mentions synergy, which can be defined as different entities working together to cooperate advantageously for a final outcome. Meaning, they benefit more from each other then simply alone. I was thinking about this concept and started thinking of more partnerships that I’ve noticed in my daily life. Let’s take Starbucks for example. Starbucks has agreed to partner with Apple to collaborate on making more of the ‘coffee house experience’ which traditionally would include music. Starbucks currently promotes I-tunes ‘Pick of the Week’ songs by offering free downloads to be redeemed. Also, Starbucks sells CDs retail (right next to the coffee beans) in order to promote the ‘Top Picks’, and reinforce the connection with I-tunes. In turn, on the I-tunes page there is a section devoted to Starbucks entertainment, where users can buy and sample music similar to that being played within the coffee houses. The partnership between the two began in 2006 and has no signs of slowing down.
The more and more I read about the connections being made in a globalizing world, the more and more I realize that globalization is a greedy, greedy monster. Perhaps creating opportunities for some, but not for all. In fact, it is creating more and more ways for existing companies to scheme their way into the domination of all markets.
World domination? Sounds funny and far off, and we often joke that someone is going to rule the world, when in fact–we are pretty darn close.
December 1, 2009 at 1:00 pm
The article of Deterritorialization: The Cultural Condition of Globalization describes deterritorialization in relation to globalization processes. Giddens argues that modernity frees social relations from the contractions of face-to-face interactions in the localities of pre-modern societies, allowing for the stretching of relations across time and space which is, for him the core of globalization. He describes modern places as continuously changing or evolving. However, he also argues against the familiar claim that modernity means the loss of the existential comfort and assurances of local communal experience in the face of increasingly abstract social forces which structure our lives. Rather, he argues that we retain a sense of familiarity in our day-to-day experience of local contexts, but that this familiarity no longer derives from the particularities of localized places. Overall, the experience of displacement in modernity is not one of alienation but of ambivalence. This chapter describes how the small retail businesses run by local families which were once everywhere in the UK, as in many European countries have been largely replaced in the last forty years by supermarkets. Deterritorialization touches nearly all aspects of our mundane practices, it has become naturalized and taken for granted in the routine flow of experience and yet it is a complex and unsure cultural condition. The French anthropologist, Marc Auge argues that contemporary capitalist modernity creates a distinct mode of mundane locational experience which he describes as “supermodernity”, defining our increasing interactions with these non-places. These supermodern locals are, for him, non-places in distinction from the anthropological places that create the organically social. Non-places are as we can see bleak locales of comtemporary modernity. They are places of solitude, silence, anonymity and alienation. They are places where interaction is instrumental and contractual. Therefore; the experience of non-places is an aspect of what we can understand by deterritorialized culture. Auge discusses about the eternal passenger; always viewing locales as one passing through them-on trains, in cars, on planes, etc. This perspective accentuates the alienating and individualizing aspects of non-places. The designation of non-places is clearly not an absolute, but one that depends on perspective. What he also implies is that non-places are not necessarily so alienating, but can be places where social relations can be re-embedded. The point is that non-places can be seen as particular, distinct instances of deterritorialized locales, dissociated relations but this does not necessarily leave them socially or culturally sterile.
Raymond Williams wrote about The Mundane Experience of Deterritorialization. He discusses how the globalization of mundane experience may make a stable sense of local cultural identity increasingly difficult to maintain, as our daily lives become more interwoven with, and penetrated by, influences and experiences that have their origins far away. Part of his argument is that globalization is a rapidly accelerating process. He describes the last 25 years as directly connected with the broad processes of globalization: both resulting from and contributing to it. The examples are the European currency, the deregulation of global capitalist markets exemplified in the “Big Bang” of the London stock exchange, global summits on environmental pollution and climate change, and of course, other wars that were played out with increasing technical sophistication. We were all able to witness these by simply watching TV.
Global Food and Local Identity was also discussed in this chapter. It is true that today we can find an even wider range of foreign food on the shelves of the supermarkets. Also, there has been a huge expansion in the range of foods marketed precisely on their attraction as exotic. In addition, imported fruits and vegetables, both familiar and exotic, are now more or less constantly available, regardless of the season. David Harvey discusses the rise of a global food culture as an example of the time-space compression; the way in which on supermarket shelves or in the range of ethnic restaurants to be found in any moderate-sized western city, the whole world’s cuisine in now assemble in one place. Susan Willis expands on the abstraction and commodity in her analysis of the ambience of the supermarket. For example, she links the themes of refrigeration, chilling and air-conditioning as they are experienced in the walk around the supermarket aisles, with the temperature control used in shipping technologies that brings tropical fruits to us. Exotic imports were mostly restricted to the luxury commodities available to small elite. Globalization, from its early impact, does clearly undermine a close material relationship between provenance of food and locality. This particular transformation of modernity must surely have generally counted as a good thing: an improvement in diet, not only in terms of variety, but of constant availability. However, these advances had a bigger cultural impact. This has been a striking acceleration of the industrialization-globalization of food in the supermarket. This has been a different order of transition in which deterrorializtion works on the ground of the myths of food and culture, as much as on actual consumption practices. The very cultural stereotypes that identify food with natural culture become weakened. Food-nation identifications surely exist today not as an unexamined second nature but as self-conscious traditions. I am originally from Bolivia and I have experienced how globalization has shaped the food industry in this country. When I came 12 years ago, it was very difficult to find food from Bolivia. Now, there are my places where you can buy products from Bolivia, many Bolivian restaurants and many Bolivian clubs around the area. It is surprising how this industry has grown because of globalization and it is not necessary anymore to travel abroad to be able to taste food from different countries.
Deterritorialization is something like a general cultural condition which proceeds from the spread of globalization modernity. There are other cultural implications of the processes of globalization, but those that were discussed under the category of deterritorialization are centrally significant ones that touch most people in the world and transform their daily experiences in radical ways. Deterritorialization is not a linear, one-way process, but one characterized by the same dialectical push and pull as globalization itself.
December 1, 2009 at 6:47 pm
When reading the Big Five article, I couldn’t help but think of Noam Chomsky’s Propaganda Model. The model explains that the traditional Iron Triangle of government has been replaced by media, the government, and corporations. What the article does carefully point out is that these media institutions have acted like corporations, consolidating 50 companies to 5. These five media outlets wield considerable influence to the American public and even populations abroad. The discourse, which Harvey explained in Chapter 2 of his book, happens within the elitist level. The problem, as Bagdikian points out, is that this elite has shrunk considerably. The article goes into detail how the mergers happened, but what is more interesting is the fact that big time corporations merged into companies forfeiting their voice for profit motive. Time Warner and the AOL merger is probably the most interesting. AOL was recording record profits and was well on its way to maintain its monopoly on the internet (think AIM and AOL “you’ve got mail” which was also made into a movie). These mergers happened for the sole reason for profitability. The connection I want to make here is that the media outlets have strategically positioned themselves for money, but more importantly discourse. Because they have strict control of the market place of ideas (for the most part), corporations, people, and government alike must appease and adhere to their demands. In fact, newspapers lose money by circulating newspapers, but receive their profit margins from corporate advertizing and government subsidizes. This impacts globalization because the exchange of ideas and the global market place of discourse are directly impacted.
The article of hybrid cultures is not groundbreaking, but is something that needs to be mentioned. The urbanization of the world has forced differening cultures to come together (the reasons why cultural studies has become increasingly important). What is interesting to think about is China in particular. From their population size, a small town typically consists of a million to two million people in a “village.” These people migrating to urban centers, even from the same country at times, have vast cultural differences (Google “Chinese smurf village”). This has created very different responses. Benjamin Barber in “Jihad vs. McWorld” explains that the movement of globalization has created a reactionary response known colloquially as “terrorism.” The other reaction is for people to assimilate. These two competing ideas and reactions to globalization have had a very real impact on how the world operates today.