READER RESPONSE DRAFT 1

In this article on "Globalization of Culture Through the Media", Kraidy (2002) discusses the 2 theoretical views namely, globalization, where an integration process between countries and cultural imperialism, where one country imposed its culture onto others in the globalization of culture. Culture imperialism theory, was argued to be biased towards industrialized countries and Western Media. According to Kraidy (2002), globalization managed to capture the complexity in "transnational transaction" compared to cultural imperialism. Early theories of media influence believed that the mass media had powerful effects over the audiences and Kraidy argues that media only intensifies cultural hybridity rather than homogeneity.

There is no doubt that the mass media have helped in spreading the cultures of the countries. Kraidy (2002) mentions that the American culture had the most influence among other industrialized nations and reinforced this stand by saying that international communication is permeated by power which contributed to cultural imperialism.

However, other concepts of globalization had been conducted to replace cultural imperialism. Using end of the Cold War as a framework, Kraidy (2002) discusses about how the United States lost its dominant position due to transnational transactions which led to concept of globalization replacing cultural imperialism. Kraidy (2002) explains on the perspective on cultural hybridization which two different cultures create a mixture of traditional and cultural form. Today, we cannot deny the fact that a lot of countries are affected by Westernization. A lot of American cultures are adopted in most cultures today. Areas such as filmography, food, fashion and architecture which were integrated with local cultures, created a by-product in an international scale. According to Doran (2012), the global market is trending towards American goods. Is is because Americans had an head start back in the past but other developed countries are catching up.

In the article, Kraidy (2002) mentions that global media and information technologies have slowly increased interaction between cultures. Fast forwarding 12 years into 2014, Kraidy’s point is true. It is evident that media and information technologies have brought the world even closer together. Looking at the current entertainment industries, different countries were already hybridized by "consuming" their medias such dramas, cartoons and songs. Not forgetting technologies and architecture, countries are integrating each other’s idea and these are just tip of the iceberg,