Annotation: Complete an annotation for each article. The annotation is not a summary or paraphrase. In this paragraph, you will interpret an

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Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, First Edition. John R. Baldwin, Robin R. Means Coleman, Alberto González, and Suchitra Shenoy-Packer. © 2014 John R. Baldwin, Robin R. Means Coleman, Alberto González, and Suchitra Shenoy-Packer. Published 2014 by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Culture on the global media stage: How does the global flow of information impact culture?

Power and globalization: What drives the global media?

Global media, global cultures: How do culture and globalization influence each other?1

Chapter 11

Chapter objectives After this chapter, you should be able to:

➔ Define and give examples of global media

➔ Provide examples of media products that have crossed borders or have inspired cultural productions in another country

➔ Outline some of the historical and technological influences in the history of global media

➔ Evaluate the impact of globalization on notions of time and space

➔ Describe what is driving globalization of the media and predictions about its long-term effects

➔ Discuss positive and negative implications for global media in terms of local cultures

1 This chapter was co-authored by William Lafi Youmans, Assistant Professor at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs.

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Part four Contexts228

I n 1984, the rap group World Class Wreckin’ Cru released the 12-inch single Surgery. The single celebrated one of the core elements of rap music and hip hop culture—the DJ. It is the DJ who not only brings the music, but also puts it together to create unique blends, or mixes, of sounds and beats that are the hallmark of hip hop music. However, the group’s

song reminds us that the DJ is just one central part of rap music; the others are the techno- logical tools upon which hip hop DJs are so reliant—headphones, mixing boards, speakers, and turntables.

Rayvon Fouché, (2009; 2012) a technology scholar at the University of Illinois- Urbana Champaign, uses the example of the DJ and her/his technological resources to illustrate how the art form of rap music is the quintessential global intercultural phenomenon. Fouché reminds us that hip hop DJs rely upon turntable, speaker, and mixing board technologies such as those created by the Japanese electronics company Technics to develop “party energy.” To put it more pointedly, hip hop culture’s origins become much more complicated when we consider more broadly the sources of all that has contributed to the essence of hip hop. Prof. Fouché’s work is guided by a research question that is useful to all of our thinking: What are the multiple, global intersections and relationships between cultural representations, racial identification, and techno- logical design?

At the heart of this question, and what we are most concerned with in this chapter, is the notion that mediated communication knows no borders. Keeping with the hip hop exam- ple, we can imagine how diverse cultures have influenced the art form, but also how the art form has similarly informed cultures. For example, some have linked breakdancing to Chinese martial arts, while the popular American rap group, the Wu-Tang Clan, pay hom- age to Hong Kong Kung Fu films through their name and lyrics.

We can also talk about a host of other media that have gone global—from the films of Bollywood to the children’s television show Sesame Street. Global media can be understood as sources of mass communication that involve the transmission of messages, formats, programming, or content across national boundaries. It is often a complex, trans-national network of different media systems. It still makes sense to understand global media, much  as we do traditional communication, through a model of senders and receivers. Similarly, global media operate in patterns by which we can speak of sending countries, those where global media sources are based, and receiving coun- tries, those that consume global media products based in other countries. While the

Lyrics from World Class Wreckin’ Cru highlight the global forces, even within a single culture, of blending cultural beliefs and discourse styles with technological tools—here, to craft hip hop music.Records. Mixer. Turntables. Speakers.

7 days a week, He’s on call, to get the party people up off the wall. You’ll feel motivated… as He operates… cause party energy is what He generates. He’ll prescribe for you his potent elixir —two turntables, speakers, and a mixer.

(Surgery by World Class Wreckin’ Cru, 1984)

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Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Chapter 11 Global media, global cultures 229

growth of multinational corporations increasingly breaks down this distinction, it is still possible to generalize flow patterns of cultural and media products from certain coun- tries or regions to others.

Global media need not have the purposeful goal of becoming a global phenomenon, even though content creators usually would like the largest audience possible. A media product, such as a television show or performer, created for one country could catch on elsewhere, and be translated or dubbed in different languages. For example, the popu- lar British television show Pop Idol became American Idol in 2002. Shakira, who recorded her CDs in Spanish, was a well-known brunette performer in Latin America and Europe years before she became the blond singer of Whenever, Wherever, and Hips Don’t Lie. Global media companies, those with production and distribution channels in different countries, may produce media with the idea and goal of sending it to mul- tiple countries. This has economic benefits since it means gaining more revenues. In other instances, there is a concerted effort to circulate media to other countries and cultures in order to have some public or political impact. For example, the Children’s Television Workshop, the producer of the U.S. children’s television show Sesame Street, offered the series internationally to countries such as Bangladesh, Indonesia, Jordan, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Palestine, Russia, and South Africa, with the hope of addressing conflict or empowering children to better their societies (Figure  11.1). Media content can move across borders and reach new audiences through many differ- ent means and with different goals. This chapter summarizes some of the mutual influ- ences between culture and globalization, including positive and negative consequences for local cultures from globalization.

Figure 11.1 Characters from Pakistani Sesame Street are displayed in Lahore, Pakistan. Source: KM Chaudary/AP/ Press Association Photos.

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Part four Contexts230

Culture on the global media stage: How does the global flow of information impact culture?

As the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster film Avatar drew in record box office sales worldwide, the Chinese government ordered its country’s theaters to pull the movie’s 2–D version to make way for the 2010 Chinese government-subsidized biopic Confucius, about the ancient Chinese philosopher, whose thinking has been deeply influential in China (LaFraniere, 2010). China, which has in place strict limits on the number of foreign movies that can be shown and how long they run, allowed the 3-D version to run (Figure 11.2). The reason for these limits was to protect China’s film industry from losing market share to non-Chinese moviemakers.

Bloggers and film critics in China speculated that it was not simply the rapid success of Avatar that alarmed officials. Some theorized that the plot too closely resembled the controversial government and corporate policies of forced removal, or the mass evictions of people to make room for new development. On an online forum in China, one viewer drew the connection:

They are very much alike. For instance, the conflict in the film also starts with land. When real estate developers want a piece of land, the local residents must move away; if they decline to leave, then real estate developers will resort to violent ways. (Han, 2010)

Break it down

The major Hollywood studios make most of their money from global markets. Try to figure out

the impact of U.S. films on foreign markets. Select a country outside of the U.S., and then

identify the top four movies, based on box office sales, for that country. Identify who produced

those movies by researching the film company and its affiliated media conglomerate, and make

a note of which country it originates from. See the worksheet below for a model on how to

approach this exercise. Note that Hollywood dominated the global media landscape in 1999.

Based on your study, has anything changed since then? What are the implications for local

cultures and international media flow, based on your findings?

COUNTRY:

Top 4 films Production company National origin

1.

2.

3.

4.

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Chapter 11 Global media, global cultures 231

Another joked that the Chinese demolition crews should sue James Cameron, who produced and directed Avatar, for pirating their actions.

One underlying message of Avatar is an environmental one. Cameron himself said at a news conference that he saw the movie “as a broader metaphor, not so intensely politi- cized as some would make it, but rather that’s how we treat the natural world as well” (Itzkoff, 2010). Debates about the environment in general, as with globalization, mirror debates about global media. The environment is like global media in that what one country does impacts others. Pollution, for instance, does not stop at a country’s bor- ders. Increasingly, news, entertainment, and images have the same kind of fluidity. Transportation technologies have been a boon to media globalization. Reels of the latest film or boxes of a popular novel can be shipped by airplane to distant theaters or book- stores in a matter of days, or even hours. In the era of the Internet, this sort of border- crossing is instantaneous. As soon as someone in Tanzania updates her Facebook status, her friend in New Zealand can see the change. Communication technologies such as radio, satellite television and the Internet make it inexpensive for information and other media content to move through the world. Therefore, while governments may try to control media exposure—such as China’s movie import limits or the American govern- ment’s censorship of war images—there is no way to fully prevent media messages from circulating. More, information sources and media environments are increasingly impacted by this dynamic global connectivity.

Most often, global media is discussed within the context of globalization, the social, cultural, economic, and political integration of different parts of the world. Globalization is facilitated by the movement of goods, capital, ideas, and people among nations. Under this definition, globalization has been taking place for as long as humans have moved. However, current globalization processes are arguably more intense, given advances in transportation and communication technology (Giddens, 1990). Also important is the integration of the global economic system, which allows for a more rapid circulation of people, ideas, and resources.

Figure 11.2 Chinese moviegoers donned 3-D glasses to watch Avatar in Hefei, in Anhui Province. Source: AFP/Getty Images.

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Part four Contexts232

Central to contemporary globalization—since the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s—is the economic engine of capitalism, an economic system based on exchange through markets and the private ownership of capital. Global media, though going back decades, emerged most prominently in its current form in the early 1990s, after capitalism expanded in the midst of the Cold War’s end. The Cold War saw the world split into three ideological camps: the capitalist bloc, centered on the United States; the communist bloc, which emerged around the Soviet Union (Russia and surrounding countries); and the non- aligned countries, of which Egypt, India, and Indonesia were leaders. These divisions meant that no one economic system ruled the world. As a result, for a time, international media were constrained from having truly global reach. First, as countries in Eastern Europe, South America, Asia, and Africa allied themselves with one side of the Cold War or the other, countries tended to import only media from those countries. Also, because of the challenge of opposing countries’ media, countries deliberately blocked media input from other countries. In fact, the primary global media crossing Cold War lines were state-run broadcasters that were founded to fight the Cold War through messages and reporting rep- resenting their sponsoring governments; stations such as Radio Free Europe (United States) and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) were broadcasting across borders and ideological lines. With the end of the Cold War, economic integration and capitalist media prevailed, leading to a proliferation of private media crossing international lines.

Globalization is symbolized by the fact that an audience in China can enjoy Avatar, the most costly Hollywood movie up to that point. At the same time, a cinema audience in the United States, albeit probably a smaller one, watched the 2008 film Red Cliff, produced by Magnolia Pictures, which was then the most expensive Asian-produced film. The John Woo-directed Chinese epic film presented the legendary Battle of Red Cliffs during the end of the Han Dynasty. In the age of media globalization, expensive movies are often made with international audiences in mind. They must be marketed internationally, with the movie posters framed differently for different audiences.

Just because both movies could be seen in both places, it does not mean that globaliza- tion is an equal or mutual process. While Avatar made more than 540 million yuan ($80 million) in the Chinese box office, Red Cliff pulled in little over half-a-million dollars in the United States. This relates to one of the most important debates in global media: whether global media means stronger and more powerful countries and companies will come to dominate international media environments.

Many are concerned with what this means for the native cultures and national identities on the receiving end of global media. Some critics tend to see globalization as a homogeniz- ing force. Others argue that globalization also includes fragmentation, which means that standardization is not truly possible; while another group of critics argue that cultural inter- actions and borrowings are natural in history (as we have seen with hip hop culture), and that more often cultures adapt concepts and tools from other cultures in unique, hybrid ways. The cultural implications for the growing spread of media globally are considerable.

The global media experience Have you listened to a song by Jamaican-born singer Bob Marley, seen the American television show The Office, or viewed news reports from the Al-Jazeera network headquartered in Qatar? If so, you have been on the consuming end of global media. The global nature of the mediated communication we experience in our lives is often inescapable, and frequently, we do not even know how international the media product is that we witness. For example, the popular

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Chapter 11 Global media, global cultures 233

American situation comedy, The Office, was developed from a British series of the same name. The British actors were replaced by American ones and the American show was set in Scranton, PA. The humor changed as well. It came to reflect cultural differences in comedy.

Perhaps you were one of the one hundred million people to watch Susan Boyle astound the audience with her vocals on the British version of the reality-based talent show American Idol. If so, you saw first-hand how media content can travel between countries with ease in various forms and in different avenues. In her first appearance on the program, she seemed so awkward and un-starlike, yet shocked the audience with her impressive singing. Susan Boyle was first seen by many in the United States in mid-2009 on YouTube, a video-hosting website that lets anyone upload their own clips. She was not introduced in the United States as she was in the UK, on a regular television channel. Many learned about this video clip from their peers—friends and families—through email, social networking sites (Orkut, hi5, Facebook, Twitter, etc.). As Boyle became an Internet sensation, local and national enter- tainment and news programs began to cover her worldwide popularity. Even more people, those who still gained their news through the traditional channels of communication, learned about her eventually. Her popularity shows that there are still national divisions in the still powerful systems of television networks. Additionally, online content can easily go viral—that is, spread rapidly at the person-to-person level. This can have the effect of bringing the media experiences in one nation to another nation, even if the traditional media, such as TV networks, are not fully integrated. In a more recent example, South Korean overnight superstar, Psy, sang Gangnam Style, a parody video about the materialism of an upscale Seoul, South Korea, neighborhood (Figure 11.3). The video went viral, with

Figure 11.3 South Korean pop star Psy, whose video, Gangnam Style, went viral, with 131 million YouTube views in its first 52 days, making it the fifth most viral video of all time. Source: Charles Sykes/AP/Press Association Images.

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Part four Contexts234

131 million YouTube views in its first 52 days, making it the fifth most viral video of all time, and earning Psy a prominent place in the New York, U.S.A. massive New Years festi- vals (Webfluenz, 2012).

Satellite television: The progenitor of global media While national television systems such as cable TV or traditional over-the-air, terrestrial broadcasters are not fully integrated internationally, the proliferation of satellite television has greatly expanded the reach of stations to hit regions. Cable systems are limited by the reach of the wires, which transmit the TV signals. Over-the-air, or terrestrial broadcasting involves signals transmitted through the air from land-based antenna and is limited in reach to a radius of relatively flat ground, based on the power of the antennas. While signals of this nature may cross borders if the receiver is close enough to the source of the signal, their lim- ited reach does not make them a significant feature of the current global media context. Satellite TV requires a powerful uplinking antenna on earth, sending a signal to a commu- nications satellite that is stationed in space. The satellite processes and reflects the signal to an area of the earth where homes with satellite dishes receive the signals. This reaches a generally greater percentage of the earth than does terrestrial broadcasting; also, satellite television can carry more channels than cable or terrestrial broadcasting. In many parts of the world, satel- lite dishes are ubiquitous, on the tops of homes and businesses everywhere.

Satellite television was called the “new media” before the Internet became widespread. Satellite TV grew to define new audiences and led to the growth of regional and trans- national channels. It also significantly undermined the power of national governments to control their population’s media diets. In many ways, the story of the global media can be said to begin with satellite television. Today, an increasing number of countries are send- ing satellites into space. However, as Thomas McPhail (2010) notes, only satellites at a specific height at the equator have maximum coverage; and the available locations for these satellites are already occupied by the industrialized (Western) powers that first had the technology and funds to put satellites there, leaving less desirable locations, with smaller signal spread, for newly developing nations.

Producers in one country will purchase successful programs produced in other coun- tries and either dub their country’s language over the original programs or include subtitles. One of the easiest television formats to cross-over, or adapt from one country to another, is animation. Dubbing new languages over animated moving mouths works better, it seems, and this correlates to the large number of cartoon adaptations. Comic books, by the same token, are frequently translated and republished for new national audiences. A leading producer of animated content is Japan. In 2003, animation, including manga, or comics, and anime, or cartoons, was a $26 billion industry for the country (Thussu, 2008). The avenues for cross-over can be varied as well. The television show Mobile Suit Gundam Wing, which first aired in Japan in 1995 to only moderate success, came to the United States through fansubbed videotapes—videos in which fans provided the subtitles. The show was then carried by the Cartoon Network, where it became very popular, to the extent that it was more popular in North America than in Japan. Other well-known Japanese shows that  gained visibility in North America include Dragon Ball Z and Pokémon. The latter was a major franchise that included shows, video games, soundtracks, movie, toys, and a trading card game. Japan’s influence on U.S. films has stirred controversy. When the U.S.- made 2012 film The Hunger Games was released, comparisons were made to the 2000

Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Chapter 11 Global media, global cultures 235

Japanese-made film Battle Royale. The plot of the Japanese film centered on a small group of teenagers selected by the government who must fight to the death until there is one win- ner. This closely resembles the plot of The Hunger Games novel (Collins, 2008) and film.

Telenovelas are Spanish- and Portuguese-language serials that focus on the personal lives and dramas of small casts of individuals. They emphasize themes of personal betrayal, rocky and dramatic human relationships and morality—themes with universal appeal. These pro- grams are deeply popular around the world, reaching a global audience of two billion people in every major region of the world. The biggest national producers are Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Each year, more than 12,000 hours of telenovelas are pro- duced. Though these shows originally were created for particular national audiences, cer- tain countries have made an effort to export the serials elsewhere. This has meant shedding markers of nationality, such as language. In other cases, producers have aimed for larger Latin American audiences by including characters of diverse national backgrounds. The exportation of telenovelas also shows that programs developed by countries outside of the industrialized global powers have widespread cultural appeal and also fit within the defini- tion of global media. One of the most famous cross-over examples, Yo Soy Betty, la Fea, aired from 1999 to 2001 on Radio Cadena Nacional (RCN) in Colombia. This telenovela about an unattractive economist working for a highly successful fashion design company was so pop- ular it led to international adaptations in 18 different countries, in several different lan- guages. In the United States, for example, it became Ugly Betty. The show had strong popularity with over four million viewers through 2009 (Seidman, 2009) and winning doz- ens of ALMA, GLAAD, Emmy, and other awards (IMDd.com, n.d.). It was finally canceled in 2010 after four seasons. In each country, the show maintained elements of the original plot, yet added its own cultural flavor.

Magazines are another format that has seen rapid globalization. Cosmopolitan magazine, for example, went from a family magazine published locally in the United States in 1886 to a global young women’s publication that has 59 national editions. The international audiences get the same recipe of news and tips on love, fashion, beauty, health, self-improvement, and entertainment, as well as a heavy assortment of advertisements for skin products, perfumes, make-up, and clothing lines. Although it was a feminist magazine for a brief time in the 1960s, its current form has been criticized by many for representing women stereotypically and advancing an unobtainable vision of beauty that adds to the social pressures already felt  by young women. Its popularity in many parts of the world, where it adapts to local tastes, attests to the power of global media to realize unique forms tailored toward specific audiences while at the same time pushing some universal standards.

Are there international programs in your media diet? Remember that some programs that clearly have origins within a single national culture were born in other cultures and then modified and remade for local audiences. For example, U.S. American shows American Idol and The Office were adapted from the British shows, Pop Idol and The Office, respectively. Find out the backgrounds of your favorite programs. If they did not originate outside of your country, are they shown in other parts of the world? What do the changes in the program tell you about cultural values and notions of identity in your country?

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Baldwin, John R., et al. Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2014. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/apus/detail.action?docID=1568419. Created from apus on 2022-04-26 00:04:28.

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Part four Contexts236

Instantaneous cultural exchange: When time becomes timeless The movement of goods, people, ideas, and messages across different lands is not new. History is full of large migrations, global trade, religious movements, and explorations. Just think about the global dimensions of religions. Buddha, for example, was born in  modern-day Nepal, died in India, and is currently revered by followers throughout the world. Proselytizing, or the active effort to spread religions, has been in many ways a global communicative activity.

Historical empires, such as the Kush kingdom in northeastern Africa, used global com- munication networks of messengers to administer their territory and subject peoples. During different historical times, different modes of communication allowed people to send and receive information along wide distances. From human messengers carrying let- ters or memorized messages, to smoke or mirror reflection signals, to messenger pigeons, to wire and wireless telegraphy, global communication has always occurred. So, why is glo- balization treated as something entirely new?

While global movement may not be a purely modern phenomenon, globalization makes sense as a term when one considers the fundamental changes to space and time, and our subjective conceptualizations of them in this new era. In the past, before the 19th century telegraph wire, which allowed the long-distance

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