Wednesday 19 February 2014

Reader Response draft 2

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 was no doubt that the mass media have helped in spreading the cultures of the countries. Advancement of technology and telecommunications made free flow of idea possible. Kraidy (2002) explains on the perspective on cultural hybridization which two different cultures create a mixture of traditional and cultural form. Today, we could see that different cultures were adopted in many areas such as filmography, food, fashion, architecture and etc which were integrated with local cultures, created a by-product in an international scale. World Wide Web have also revolutionized the way we receive and share information. You do not need travel to America to know buy the iPhone, do not need to travel to India to show the locals your Youtube videos and so much more. The world became smaller to us, as our reach got longer with the help of global media.

Easier access to the other parts of the world had hastened hybridization of culture. People from different parts of the world started to migrate to different countries due to the advanced transportation such as planes and ships, coupled with the influence of global media, created the multiracial countries. Take Singapore for example, we had a number of variety of different cultures settled in here. People from India, China, Malaysia, America and etc. When people of different cultural backgrounds started interacting, they would share their ideas, taking what worked from the other cultures and creating a new way of communication thus creating a new culture.

The debate for between global media and globalization of culture that Kraidy(2002) talks about had became more apparent after 12 years since the article was published. There is no denial of how the media especially with the aid of internet have helped to bring people around the world closer together. However according to Korhan (2007), "No matter how biased the information that we face is, it is the individual who homogenized, hybridized or polarized." The only thing we can be certain of was that global media exposed people to something broader which changed them compared to the past. Just like a frog in a well was given a chance to see the world.








Kraidy, M. M. (2002). Globalization of Culture Through the Media. Retrieved from http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1333&context=asc_papers

KorhaN. D (2007). Globalization, Culture and Roles of Media. Retrieved from http://duygukorhan.com/articles/henrikfinal.pdf.


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