What is 'Cultural Imperialism'?

Introduction

Historically, imperialism referred to select powerful nations colonizing land not already controlled by other power rivals.  This frequently resulted in a conquering of natives cultures.  Likewise, cultural imperialism today shares identical concerns and consequences yet, in an increasingly globalized world, also raises a sincere debate on the exchange of cultures via expanding and developing media: “Does globalization assume cultural imperialism?”  The notions of resistance and opposition to outside cultures and their reception as a cultural threat seem counterintuitive to the very definition of globalization, a near inevitability amidst today’s technologically enhanced media systems.   Nevertheless, our chief debate appears to question what exactly qualifies as cultural complementation and cultural domination.

Finding a 'Line'

Internet suppression in Communist China provides one instance of cultural defensiveness and seclusion where globalization does not equate to purposeful cultural imperialism.  The new medium and the consequent forces of globalization that come with it have posed a significant threat to China’s ability to maintain their totalitarian state.  Indeed, Shirley Biagi quotes the Los Angeles Times in her text Media/Impact: “Just as censorship of the printed word could not continue with the emergence of democracy… so today suppression of the electronic media is thwarted by technology and rapidly growing economies around the world.”

Yu Zhang, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Center, describes the Internet’s capabilities in “Internet Usage and Suppression in China:” “The independent writers, especially the cyber dissidents, who have had little chance to get their undesirable opinions heard in China in traditional [ways] can easily find a lot of different opportunities to publish their writings on or though the Internet.”  China responded by building what is commonly called the “Great Firewall” of China by physically restricting citizens’ access to certain information on the Internet.  Effectively, China has withheld an element of American (and others’) culture, freedom of expression.  However, the very existence of dissident groups proves the demand to adopt this cultural element.

David Rothkop’s “In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?  Effects of Globalization on Culture,” published in a June 1997 issue of Foreign Policy, notes: “Culture is not static; it grows out of a systematically encouraged reverence for selected customs and habits.”  In other words, no present-day culture is a product of merely one historic or political source; rather, people continually re-establish their culture by what they choose to accept.  Brigitte Pellerin would agree, arguing in “Can pop-cultural imperialism be stopped?”–a September 2006 article for AWorldConnected.org–“people usually choose to consume American products” thereby choosing to consume American culture as well.

Historical examples of people’s voluntary adoption of American culture demonstrate effects of globalized culture, not a deliberate effort to impose American culture upon others.  Thaddeus Russell explores the parallels between modern American media’s impact on Islamic Fundamentalism and rock ‘n’ roll’s historic impact on Stalinism in an August 2006 feature for Salon.com entitled “Beyoncé Knowles, freedom fighter.”  Russell states, “[In the Muslim world] the proliferation of satellite television and online music has had much the same effect that tape recorders had in the Soviet bloc,” citing numerous examples of enormous popularity of Western media in the Arab community; “Iraqis who do not understand a word of English can sing an entire Lionel Richie song,” he writes.  Ruby, a recent pop-culture figure in Egypt condemned for opposing the “morals of Muslim society” remains “more popular than any political or religious figure in Egypt,” Russell cites from the pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Hayat.

China’s case is not all that different, just replace music with the Internet.  According to Zhang, China shows “the highest figure of writers in prison” in the world, “estimated to have been up to hundreds of them even since the pro-democratic movement in 1989.”  Russell quotes Stalin and his regime describing Western culture as “capitalist cultural imperialism” and “American primitivism,” but ended with “polls of Soviet youth [showing] that they had far greater knowledge of rock stars than of Marx, Lenin or Stalin.”   Henry Jenkins, in a 2001 edition of Technology Review reminds readers that “even in ancient times, war, trade and migration” prevented cultures from remaining “static or isolated.”  New forms of “rapid transportation,” “global communication,” and “commerce,” Jenkins suggests, simply “accelerate [that] change.”  Through the new medium of the Internet, dissident writers in China continue to call for an adoption of Western freedom of ideas, merely by the “migration” of these ideas via both growing and essential technology.  Truly, Globalization happens by people’s own reception to new media, not any forced conquering implied by colonial imperialism.

Criticisms of Globalization, Unrealized

However, criticisms of globalization point at disharmony between cultures.  Pellerin references a recent statement by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) warning globalization “fosters cultural conflict” and “new forms of inequality,” a statement aimed specifically at American media exports.  In response, numerous scholars point out the necessity for cultural integration with newer developing forms of communication media.  Rothkop considers “the decline of cultural distinctions” to be “a measure of the progress of civilization, a tangible sign of enhanced communications and understanding.”  Jenkins even suggests America is “no longer the world’s only powerful media-producing nation,” citing the influx of Japanese anime and manga in American youth as well as electronic entertainment and gaming labels such as Nintendo.  Jenkins concludes that “global popular culture” entering the American marketplace results from “audiences’ demand [for] new forms of diversity.”  Even in America, people form their own demands and shape their own culture at their choosing.

Still, Rothkop warns, “cultural differences” frequently trace to “mystical roots;” thus “a threat to one’s culture becomes a threat to one’s God or one’s ancestors and, therefore, to one’s core identity.”  As Harvey Feigenbaum points out in a 2004 edition of the International Journal of Cultural Policy, recent movements of anti-immigration laws “underline that nationalism and identity are social constructs, as is the… notion of race.”  “What many governments fear,” Feigenbaum writes, “is that the trends that currently register the demise of… indigenous languages do not bode well for even the more established cultures associated with advanced, industrial nations.”  Are nations really being forced to ask: “Is globalization threatening not only our culture but our national identity?”

Pellerin provides a much more apt question: “Does America’s cultural hegemony need to be curtailed for other cultures to survive and prosper?”   Indeed, Feigenbaum agrees the true argument is “more than [of] national pride or chauvinism… but rather a defense of cultural diversity.”  Perhaps the issue revolves around the individual and their perception of global culture.

Yet Another Matter of Perspective

In “Said’s Orientalism: A Vital Contribution Today,” Peter Marcuse compares globalization to the theorist, Edward Said’s, concern over Western ethnocentric ignorance towards Eastern cultures.  Central to the issue, Marcuse argues, lie personal perceptions; that is, globalization might best be defined by individual reception, hence Said’s “cultural lens.”  Globalization “is not an object,” he writes.  “There is no more a ‘force’ of globalization than there is a ‘place’ called the Orient.”  The parallels to Orientalism seem to suggest cultural imperialism, the concept, results from individual cultural ethnocentrism.  When approaching policies surrounding globalism, much of the issue, Marcuse claims, depends upon which “side of the lens” one views globalization from.

Furthermore, considering critiques of globalization, Marcuse concedes: the most “damning criticism of Globalism” comes from those “who are on the side of the victims of globalization;” “their sympathies lie on the other side of the lens of Globalism, even as their ‘real’ position is on the viewer side.”  Little evidence suggests that globalization actually carries the consequences of “cultural imperialism,” to which critics have labeled the movement, irrationally fearing, as the term suggests, a domination or conquering of cultures.  “While much ink has been spilled on the subject of cultural imperialism,” Feigenbaum concludes, “there is a scarcity of data… that such a phenomenon exists in any significant degree.”

Returning to China’s new globalization-created challenges, Zhang’s efforts hardly constitute a threat to China’s culture; rather, it’s the people’s own choice.  And the real culture of a nation is that of it’s people’s following, their choosing.  Pellerin agrees the U.S. should “support expanding cultural liberty but not at the price of limiting people’s choice to consume whatever cultural products they want.”

Globalization, fundamentally, is defined by people’s own choosing, and these choices certainly do not imply a cultural self-destruction.  Biagi offers an insight from The Economist: “As the universe behind the screen expands, it will be the people in front who shape the soul of the new machine.”  Indeed, the individual ultimately shapes their own cultural establishments.

“Does globalization assume cultural imperialism?”  No, people do.

Works Cited

Biagi, Shirley. Media/Impact. 8th Edition ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.

Feigenbaum, Harvey. "Is Technology the Enemy of Culture?" International Journal of Cultural Policy 10.3 (2004): 251-63.  Academic Search Premiere.  EBSCOhost.  20 October 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/>.

Jenkins, Henry. "Culture Goes Global." Technology review 104.6 (2001): 89.  Academic Search Premiere.  EBSCOhost.  20 October 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/>.

Marcuse, Peter. "Said's Orientalism: A Vital Contribution Today." Antipode 36.5 (2004): 809-17.  Academic Search Premiere.  EBSCOhost.  20 October 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/>.

Pellerin, Brigitte. "Can pop-cultural imperialism be stopped?" AWorldConnected.org. 09 Aug 2006 2006. Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University. 10 Oct 2007 <http://www.aworldconnected.org/Research/pubid.2844/research_detail.asp>.

Rothkopf, David. "In Praise of Cultural Imperialism?" Foreign Policy.107 (1997): 38.  Academic Search Premiere.  EBSCOhost.  18 October 2007 <http://web.ebscohost.com/>.

Russell, Thaddeus. "Beyonce Knowles, Freedom Fighter." Salon 31 Aug 2006 2007. Salon.com. 10 Oct 2007 <http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/08/31/beyonce/print.html>.

Zhang, Yu. "Internet Usage and Suppression in China." libertates.com. 30 Jan 2007 2007. 10 Oct 2007 <http://www.libertates.com/en/content/view/51/7/>.

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