Cultural Imperialism
by In the 1980’s and early 1990’s there were many calls to reject US television shows due to the nature that they were monopolising television around the world. Many countries believed that the influx of American culture through television was a form of cultural imperialism and that their culture was being deteriorated by TV.
Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting, distinguishing, separating, or artificially injecting the culture or language of on nation to another. Usually cultural imperialism involves one larger more dominant nation and one smaller nation susceptible to the larger nation. Usually the term ‘cultural imperialism’ is used when a call for rejection of foreign influence is undertaken.
In the 1980’s and early 1990’s there were many calls to reject US television shows due to the nature that they were monopolising television around the world. Many countries believed that the influx of American culture through television was a form of cultural imperialism and that their culture was being deteriorated by TV.
This theory of cultural imperialism has lately been challenged and has been said to be a form of globalisation rather then cultural imperialism. (Chalaby, J. 2006). In the media, and not only in television, the American and European conglomerates, with English as their publication choice, dominate the market. This dominance could be seen as globalisation due to the exchange of information and the links that are created through the media. However most places in the world, you can turn on a TV and most likely you will be able to find an English speaking channel and if not on free to air you will on Pay TV or satellite.
These conglomerates not only dominate the TV market, but also the news and other media sources. Most places in the world you will be able to go to a news agency and find a newspaper or magazine that is in English, and run by either a US conglomerate or a European conglomerate.
The dominance of the American conglomerates is even more obvious when discussing the top end of world media. European companies who are the second largest media producers worldwide don’t cover anywhere near as much of the global media outlets and networks.
“Seven media corporations alone have a reach that covers the globe and span all key media sectors from film production to television distribution. Five of them have headquarters in the US, among which four are based in New York. The one European conglomerate has registered, incidentally, the slowest growth over the past 10 years” (Chalaby, J. 2006, pp 35)
With this kind of dominance of the media, one would assume that the English language is being promoted, distinguished, separated, or artificially injected into the culture and language of other nations. The argument of globalisation can be assumed, but when taking into consideration how much saturation the English language has of the media market cultural imperialism needs to be considered as what is happening with the English language and how it has become the global language of communication.
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