Untitled Flashcards Set

Module 7

What do you think is the important role of Media in Globalization?

• Globalization entails thee spread of various cultures

• Globalization also involves the spread of ideas

• Globalization relies on media as its main conduit for the spread of global culture and ideas

Media and its function

• Jack Lule describes media as “a means of conveying something such as a channel of communication”

• Technically speaking, a person’s voice is a medium. However, when commentators refer to media they mean the technologies of mass communication

Three types of media

1. Print media - books, magazines, and newspapers

2. Broadcast media - radio, film, and television

3. digital media - internet and mobile mass communication. In internet media, there are e-mail, internet sites, social media, and internet-based video and audio

The medium is the message by Marshall McLuhan

• The way that we send and receive information is more important than the information itself

• Marshall McLuhan once declared that the medium is the message. His statement was an attempt to draw attention to how media, as a form of technology, reshape societies

• Marshall McLuhan asked whether how media, as a form of communication, reshape the society

• Media has both positive and negative effects. On one hand, one of the positive effects of media is to expand the reach of communication

• On the other hand, one of the negative effects of media is to amputate and limit human senses

The global village and cultural imperialism

• McLuhan used his analysis of technology to examine the impact of electronic media. He analyzed the social changes brought about by television

• He declared that TV was turning the world into a global village, it means the perception of the world would be the same

• In the years after McLuhan, media scholars grappled with the challenges of a global media culture. They assumed that global media had a tendency to homogenize culture

• Commentators believed that media globalization coupled with american hegemony would create a form of cultural imperialism whereby american values and culture would overwhelm all other

• In 1976, media critic Herbert Schiller argues that not only was the world being americanized, but this process also led to the spread of american capitalist values like consumerism

• John Tomlinson – cultural globalization is really a cover for western cultural imperialism as it promotes homogenized, westernized consumer culture

• cultural imperialism is a process by which one country dominates other countries media consumption and consequently dominates their values and ideologies

• A political-economy perspective argues that the homogenization of culture and communication leads to shared values and ideologies

• A cultural imperialism perspective argues therefore that american values and ideologies are imposed upon the rest of the world, through media texts

Module 8

Critiques of Cultural Imperialism

• Proponents of the idea of cultural imperialism ignored the fact that media messages are not just made by producers, they are also consumed by audiences

• Media scholars began to pay attention to the ways in which audiences understood and interpreted media messages

• Media consumers are active participants in the meaning-making process, who view media texts (in media studies, a text simply refers to the content of any medium) through their own cultural lenses

• In 1985, Ien Ang, an indonesian cultural critic, researched on how various viewers in the netherlands reacted to the american soap opera-resonated joy

• While in 1990 Elijo Katz and Tamar Liebes pushed Ang’s analysis further. Ruassians think it contained american propaganda while the american viewers think that it was primarily about the lives of the rich

• Apart from the challenge of audience studies, the cultural imperialism thesis has been belief by the renewed strength of regional trends in the globalization process

• Japanese brands – hello kitty, mario brothers, pokemon are now indelible part of global popular culture

• Korean Pop - and korean telenovelas are widely successful regionally and globally

• Sushi - the most obvious case of globalized asian cuisine

• Mcdonalds - continued to spread across asia

• Philippine jollibee - the number choice for fast food in brunei

Social media and the creation of cyber ghettoes

• Social media is a digital platform where people connect, share information, and exchange ideas within virtual communities

• Some media experts argue that this globalization is leading to cultural homogenization, where diverse cultures become increasingly similar due to the widespread sharing of cultural symbols, customs, ideas, and values

• As with all new media, social media have both beneficial and negative effects. These form of communication have democratized access

• Anyone with an internet connection or a smart phone can use facebook and twitter for free. These media have enabled users to be consumers and producers of information simultaneously

• social media can also contribute to the splinternet or cyberbalkanization, where users are exposed to limited perspectives and information that aligns with their existing beliefs

What are some of the examples of splinternet or cyberbalkanization?

• Cyberghetto - is a term used to describe both a marginalized online community and a particular fashion style

• It combines the words cyber, referring to the internet and digital space, with ghetto, historically used to denote marginalized urban areas, often associated with black communities

• Essentially, a cyberghetto is an online space where a specific social group feels excluded or marginalized

• The dark side of social media shows that even a seemingly open and democratic media may be co-opted towards undemocratic means

• Global online propaganda will be the biggest threat to face the globalization of media deepens

• Though people must be critical of mainstream media  and traditional journalism that may also operate based on vested interests, we must also insist that some sources are more credible than others.

• As consumers of media, users must remain vigilant and learn how to distinguish facts from falsehood in a global media landscape that allows politicians to peddle what president trump’s senior advisers now call alternative facts

• Finally, the lack of global cybersecurity cooperation can create digital divides and vulnerabilities, comprising the security of the entire internet ecosystem

• Media literacy is our awareness regarding our mediated environment or consumption of mass communication

• Potter states that wwe should maintain cognitive, emotional, aesthetic, and moral awareness as we interact with media

• Baran suggests a number of skills we can develop in order to be media literate:

  • Understand and respect the power of mass communication messages

  • Understand content by paying attention and filtering out noise

  • Understand emotional versus reasoned reactions to mass communication content in order to accordingly

  • Develop heightened expectations of mass communication

  • Understand genre conventions and recognize when they are being mixed

  • Think critically about mass communication messages, no matter how credible their source

  • Understand the internal language of mass communication to understand its effects, no matter how complex