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Imperialism Inevitable |
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Contents
1. Introduction
2. The definition and essence of cultural imperialism
3. The inevitability of cultural imperialism
4. The resistance of cultural imperialism
5. Conclusion
6. Bibliography
Introduction
The contemporary world is characterised by unparalleled progress
that affects all spheres of life. Traditionally, economic
development is considered to be one of the moving forces that
stimulates the development in other spheres of life. However,
nowadays some specialists underline that the cultural development
is not less significant than economic one and is also extremely
important for harmonic development of human society.
At the same time, the current process of globalisation that
was initially a purely economic process is threaten to involve
all other spheres of human life, including politics and culture.
As a result the problem of not only economic but also cultural
expansion has become actual in recent years. Naturally, such
a development leads to the situation when one culture, notably
American culture, gets started to dominate all over the world
influencing dramatically national cultures of other countries.
In response to such a combination of economic, political and
cultural expansion different states, national communities
attempt to sustain their own culture and traditions regardless
the impact of the US that often leads to the spread of nationalism
and cultural imperialism from the part of different countries.
Nonetheless, nowadays the role of the US in the world seems
to be too significant that makes the resistance of other nations
and states weak, if not to say useless. This is why it is
necessary to trace the recent trends in the world cultural
development as well as economic one and to find out the extent,
to which cultural imperialism is spread in the world, define
this phenomenon and find out whether smaller nations and states
can resist to the global hegemony of the US in all spheres
of life, including politics, economy and culture.
The definition and essence of cultural imperialism
Speaking about the recent trends in the socio-cultural and
economic development of the world, it is primarily necessary
to underline that nowadays the world has changed dramatically
basically because of the development of new economic system
which is the result of the economic globalisation. This process
leads to the larger economic integration of different countries
all over the world and development some universal rules of
the ‘game’.
Traditionally this process was considered to be typical for
economic relations. However, in recent years a growing number
of specialists appeal to the increasingly more important role
of cultural changes that take place in the contemporary world.
Among them may be named John Tomlinson who develops the notion
of cultural imperialism as one of the key concepts of the
modern culture and as the main characteristics of the cultural
development in global terms.
At the same time from the beginning, it is necessary to underline
that there are a number of terms that defines practically
similar phenomenon that has been just defined above as cultural
imperialism. For instance, Boyd-Barrett (1977) speaks about
‘media imperialism’, Galtung (1979) employs the
term ‘structural imperialism’, also there are
such terms as ‘cultural dependency and domination’
(Link 1984, Mohammadi 1995), ‘cultural synchronization’
(Hamelink 1983), and many others that are closely related
to one and the same notion of cultural imperialism.
On taking into consideration such a variety of terms it would
be logical to find out what cultural imperialism is and define
its essence. At this respect it is possible to say that one
of the main implications of cultural imperialism is that this
concept proposes that “a society is brought into the
modern world system, when its dominating stratum is attracted,
pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping its social
institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values
and structures of the dominating center of the system”
(Schiller 1976, p.103). To put it more precisely, in cultural
terms it means that nowadays the cultural imperialism is expressed
through the development and spread of the influence of certain
cultures worldwide. It is noteworthy that nowadays, there
is actually one hegemonic state, the US, which spread its
cultural impact all over the world and the problem of Americanisation
of the world culture is very important and in some countries
it leads to internal conflict between local historical traditions
and modern impact of the American culture on the local communities.
In this respect, it should be said that many specialists,
including Tomlinson, underline the role of media in the development
of cultural imperialism that nowadays practically results
in cultural hegemony of the US. In fact, the role of media
in the contemporary society should not be underestimated because
the modern technologies, especially IT and computing, development
of Internet, made media very influential ideological and cultural
tool. The main reason of such increased role of media is the
high level of informatization of human society when people
are getting information twenty-four hours a day, seven days
a week, and in the future this trend would be even stronger.
As a result, people are dramatically influenced by the information
they receive from the media, and very often they get acquainted
with an absolutely new lifestyle that is brought to them via
media. Eventually, it leads to the situation when new generations,
especially in developing countries, are influenced by media,
which are often internationalised, to the extent that the
lifestyle they learn from media comes into clashes with their
traditional culture.
Not surprisingly that in such a situation the local culture
can also tend to cultural imperialism that is basically expressed
in the development of nationalist ideas, which deliberately
underline the difference of local culture from the culture,
which is nowadays considered to be predominant in the whole
world, i.e. American culture. In other words, cultural imperialism
results in the enforcing of nationalism and extremism.
Furthermore, John Tomlinson characterises such a situation
as a ‘cultural loss’ that is basically the result
of ‘cultural weakness’ of capitalist modernity.
He underlines that the spread of capitalism and modernity
contributes to a significant cultural shift and it results
in cultural imperialism, which aims at satisfaction cultural
needs of people. For instance he estimates that “people
need something modernity has not properly provided. This is
the need not for material well-being, or political emancipation,
but a specifically cultural need: to be able to decide how
we will live collectively in the widest possible sense –
what we will value, what we will believe in, what sense we
will make of our everyday lives” (Tomlinson 1991, p.169).
Actually, Tomlinsons explains the cultural loss basically
by the lack of cultural coherence and, moreover, the cultural
loss is the result of globalisation that leads to the situation
when a constantly growing number of people share the same
‘cultural fate’, i.e. they are influenced by the
same cultural trends that are typical for capitalist modernity.
Notably he concludes that “as global cultures fall into
conditions of modernity through the spread of the institutions
of modernity, they all face the same problem of the failure
of a collective will to generate shared narratives of meaning
and orientation” (1991, p.165).
Thus, it is possible to speak about cultural imperialism as
a consequence of the impact of several factors, among which
the most significant are the modernity, spread of global capitalist
system, development of media and increasing role of information,
and enforcement of cultural nationalism.
The inevitability of cultural imperialism
Nowadays the development of cultural imperialism seems to
be so rapid and overwhelming that often specialists speak
about that this process is inevitable and the weak local cultures
are simply unable to resist to the influence of the hegemonic
culture of the US which is spread as fast as the globalisation
involves more and more countries into the new economic formation
and new relations.
Even now it is possible to observe a significant impact of
American culture on national cultures in many developing countries
of the world, as well as developed ones. This impact is particularly
obvious in the sphere of television, cinema and music. In
this respect, it is possible to refer to the experience of
Asian countries which are also susceptible to the impact of
American culture and where this impact is probably more obvious
than anywhere else in the world because many Asian countries
are characterised by very particular cultures and traditions
that have made them unique in cultural sense and now they
are gradually losing their uniqueness as the role of American
culture grows in the local communities.
For instance, Chen underlines that the impact of foreign culture,
which may be generally characterised as Western culture, but
in fact it is basically the impact of American culture, is
extremely important and affects dramatically local traditions.
Notably he is rather concerned about Korean culture and he
states that “Korea’s newly enriched and the middle
class could repeat the same prejudice and discrimination demonstrated
toward the poor as observed among business managers and travellers
in South East Asia and China, and they would discriminate
against and treat the North Koreans as an inferior class of
people, thereby amplifying the hostility the internal conflict”
(Chen 1996, p.42). As a result he believes that the influence
of foreign culture can eventually lead to internal contradictions
between Koreans that can naturally prevent the possibility
to unite North and South Korea into one nation because of
such cultural differences enforced by economic and political
contradictions.
Despite the fact that in the above statement Chen appeals
to South Asian and Chinese impact, it is still obvious that
the impact of the world hegemonic culture of the US is very
strong in Asia. For instance, returning to the impact of American
cinematography, television and music on Asian cultures, it
is possible to remind that one of the largest entertainment
agent of American culture MTV “has spawned over twenty
networks specific to a certain geographical areas such as
Brazil and Japan” (Galeota 2004, p.23). The same processes
may be observed in other Asian countries, such as India. Naturally
such a spread of MTV networks contribute significantly to
the spread of America music culture and deprivation of local
music traditions as well as the local lifestyle in general
because it is not a secret that MTV is a very influential
cultural agent that produce a great impact, especially on
young people. It means that Asian youth is more influenced
by MTV, which naturally targets at younger audience, that
leads to the situation when local music and pop culture resembles
American one while local traditions are considered to be out
of date and obviously lose to modern and advanced culture
promoted by MTV.
Another interesting example of the impact of American culture
on Asian countries may be found in India. To put it more precisely,
the Indian Bollywood is traditionally perceived as an analogue
of the American Hollywood and this is a really powerful cinematography
producer but at the same time its products are extremely westernised
and adopted to the Western, or American culture, while national
traditions are extremely deprived. Not surprisingly that Bollywood
is viewed by many very critically as a ‘clone’
of Hollywood. By the way, even the lifestyle and professional
work of the local Indian stars resembles those of the US.
For instance, commercials in India in 2000 “featured
Bollywood stars Hrithik Roshan promoting Coke and Shahrukh
Khan promoting Pepsi” (Galeota 2004, p.23).
In such a way, Asian cultures tend to be Americanised and
it is very important that music and cinema have become major
means of cultural impact because they primarily affects the
youth, which is more susceptible to cultural changes than
older generations.
The resistance of cultural imperialism
Naturally the process of the global spread of American culture
and its growing impact on other cultures results in the growing
resistance of local national cultures to such a kind of expansion.
As it has been already mentioned above the increased role
of American culture resulted in the development of nationalism
in local communities and spread of different extremist movements,
which attempt to resist to the overwhelming influence of American
culture and Americanisation at large.
In this respect it worth to note that some countries has started
to lead isolationist policy in order to prevent themselves
from the impact of the US. For instance, North Korea, or Iran
are the states which, at first glance, are absolutely different
and have nothing in common but both resist to the impact of
the US in all spheres of life. Actually, it means that this
states prefer isolation to their involvement in the process
of globalisation and cultural expansion.
Naturally, it should be pointed out that the real motives
of North Korean and Iranian governments are not only cultural,
but basically political and economic. Nonetheless, it is necessary
to admit that the preservation of local culture with its peculiarities
in both North Korea and Iran are basically the result of their
international policy of isolation. As a result, the US attempts
to economically influence these countries and as soon as economic
and politic influence over this country is established than
the cultural expansion as a part of cultural imperialism will
be inevitable.
Frankly speaking, such a perspective is highly probable because
the example of other country empirically supports this idea.
To put it more precisely, it is obvious that in the contemporary
world the role of the US as the only superpower is so significant
that there is practically not a single country that could
resist to American expansion either economic or cultural.
In this respect, it is important to emphasise that economic
reasons are even more significant than cultural ones. In other
words, other countries are too weak economically and consequently
politically to resist to the impact of the US and as soon
as the economic control of the US is established the cultural
expansion naturally begins.
Actually, there are a lot of historical examples of such a
scenario that may be found in history and recent events. For
instance, Japan, on losing the World War II, this country
turned to be under economic and political influence of the
US and soon the local culture has started to change under
the influence of the dominating US culture. Not surprisingly
that nowadays there is MTV network in Japan, and gradually
traditional Japanese culture gives in American culture that
may be observed in lifestyle, fashion, music, etc.
As for more recent examples, it is possible to remind the
increasing role of the US and American culture in the Arab
world when traditional Islamic countries are gradually changing
their traditional culture that becomes more Westernised, more
Americanised. For instance, the spread of cinema and television
in Islamic countries is considered to be absolutely unacceptable
for local cultures, especially in perception of Islamic extremists.
And this influence may be observed in other cultural domains.
In such a situation, attempts to respond to such cultural
and economic expansion are getting to be more often that results
in the spread of extremist movements which often aims at the
resistance to the influence of the US.
However, such attempts to resist to the American cultural
expansion as well as economic one seems to be doomed to fail
because, as it has been mentioned above the US is currently
the only superpower and, in actuality, all other countries,
especially developing ones, where local culture and traditions
are still quite strong, cannot really resist because of their
economic weakness compared with the US. As a result, they
cannot really oppose to the growing impact of the US and the
American cultural imperialism.
Conclusion
Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible
to conclude that nowadays, cultural imperialism is a part
of the process of globalisation. Naturally, it may be viewed
as the integral part of economic globalisation or as an independent
or even more important process but in all probability it is
a complex of socio-economic, political, and cultural processes
that are closely interlinked and results in the spread of
the US influence worldwide in different spheres of life, including
cultural one. Obviously, the cultural imperialism has become
possible because of the recent achievements in science, technological
development, spread of media and the lack of countries really
able to resist to the world economic and cultural hegemony
of the US. As a result, nowadays many countries are influenced
by the US culture while national cultures tend to be oppressed
and naturally it engenders certain resistance, which often
has nationalistic and extremist character but, unfortunately
for national cultures, they are unable to resist to the influence
from abroad because of economic weakness of countries.
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