This site list offers links that raise questions about American popular
culture in a global context. It includes links discussing “cultural
imperialism,” the domination of other cultures by products
of the US culture industry. And it contains links to sources of
resistance to this process, including popular culture(s) produced
in various countries around the world.
GENERAL SITES
- Cultural
Imperialism on the Internet. An article analyzing France’s
attempts to resist US culture.
- Nationalities,
Sexualities, and Global TV. Course and web project from the
University of Maryland.
- Icons,
Saints, and FBI Agents: Dana Scully as a Global TV Commodity.
A site by Cory Smith.
- Comparison
of Female Images in Cartoons and Japanimation. An article by Joy Swafford.
- Cyborg
Diaspora and Virtual Imagined Community: Studying SAWNET.
by Radhika Gajjala. Raises questions about the use of cyberspace
to link communities of ethnic nationalities dispersed around the
world.
- An
Agenda of Disdain: Cultural Imperialism and the Western Media
View of Afghanistan.
- Global
Cyberculture Reconsidered: Cyberspace, Identity, and the Global
Informational City. An analysis of globalization and culture,
containing some interesting specific examples.
- Information
Inequality. A brief interview with Herbert I. Schiller,
touching on cyberculture, Marshall McLuhan, and the “massification”
of the Internet.
- The
United States vs. the World: A Theoretical Look at Cultural Imperialism.
An article with a good mix of theory, statistics, and comments
from Internet users.
- Mediachannel.
A global network of media issues affiliates. Includes a searchable
database of articles from various sites on the web.
- The
World of the 'World of Coca-Cola.' Ted Friedman article
analyzing Coca-Cola's theme park/museum exhibit in Atlanta.
- What
Is Culture? One of Washington State University, Vancouver’s “Fundamental
Topics.”
See especially the two discussions:
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
[Few topics
on popular culture can be adequately researched on the web alone.
These reading suggestions are designed as beginning points for further
offline study.]
Appadurai, Arjun.
"Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy." Theory,
Culture and Society, 7. 295-310 (1990).
Rich article inventing a whole new vocabulary to talk about the
interrelations among various levels of global culture: technoscapes
(technology distribution), ethnoscapes (race/ethnicity, local vs.
transnational), finanscapes (capital availability versus debt), mediascapes
(local/global mass media), ideoscapes (circulation of ideas and
ideologies).
Barker, Chris J.
Global Television: An Introduction. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
Lucid introduction to various elements and various forms of global
television, including issues of cultural imperialism versus local
production.
Boddy, William. "U.S.
Television Abroad: Market Power and National Introspection." Quarterly
Review of Film and Video, 15(2). 44-45 (1994).
Christian, W. T.
Cultural Transfer or Electronic Imperialism?: The Impact of American
Television Programs on European Television. Heidelberg: C. Winter,
1989.
Dorfman, Ariel.
The Emperor's Old Clothes: What the Lone Ranger, Babar, and Other
Innocent Heroes Do to Our Mind. Boston: Penguin Press, 1996.
Classic study of impact of US popular culture abroad, especially
in Latin America.
Featherstone,
Mike. "Global Culture: An Introduction." Theory, Culture and Society,
7, 1-14 (1990).
Giussani, B.
"France Gets Along with Pre-web Technology." Cybertimes: New
York Times on the Web September 23, 1997.
May, Elaine Tyler, and Reinhold Wagnleitner, eds. Here, There,
and Everywhere : The Foreign Politics of American Popular Culture.
Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 2000.
Covers broad time period and many different examples of the impact
of US mass media and pop culture abroad.
Morley, David, and
K.Robins. Spaces of Identity: Global Media, Electronic Landscapes
and Cultural Boundaries. London: Routledge, 1995.
Morris, Merrill,
and Christine Ogan. "The Internet as Mass Medium." Journal of Communication,
46(1). 39-50 (1996).
Petras, James. "Cultural
Imperialism in the late 20th Century." Journal of Contemporary
Asia, 23(2). 139-148 (1993).
Salwen, Michael B.
"Cultural Imperialism: A Media Effects Approach." Critical Studies
in Mass Communication, 8(1). 29-38 (1991).
Schiller, Herbert.
Who Knows: Information in the Age of the Fortune 500. Norwood,
NJ: Ablex, 1981.
Strong, prophetic critique of the increasing monopolization of information
by multinational corporations.
Smith, Anthony D.
"Towards a Global Culture?" Theory, Culture and Society, 7.
171-191 (1990).
Tomlinson, John.
Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991.
Fine general overview of the cultural imperialism/global culture
debate.
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