M8A1 Assignment Paper: Final Exam on Media Globalization
This activity will enable you to
•Understand the process of globalization and its consequences for societies, cultures, groups, and individuals.
•Provide a variety of perspectives on the different dimensions and complexity of globalization.
•Analyze significant economic questions according to the standards of the discipline in at least three broad subfields of economics, such as applied microeconomics, global and macroeconomics, econometrics and finance. (Economics Outcome #3).
•Analyze a social science question or issue using appropriate theory and method and recommend possible solutions to the problem. (Social Science Outcome #1).
•Identify social arrangements interpreted as unjust and articulate the implications for social policy and action. (Sociology Outcome #4).
•Analyze international and global issues and problems and articulate how politics, cultural differences, economics, and religions may shape various perspectives and proposed solutions these problems. (General Education Outcome #5).
Read the relevant chapters and lecture notes in Modules 5–8. Answer any five (5) questions.
1. Discuss ways in which media globalization contributes to both homogenization and diversity in the countries of the world. Give examples.
2. How does Hollywood symbolize the "Americanization" of the globalization process? Using Tyrell's reading, explain how Hollywood's domination is likely to increase despite the emergence of non-western film industries.
3. What makes "fundamentalism" a distinctly global phenomenon? How does Lechner assess its likely impact?
4. What makes a social problem global? Discuss features of the contemporary world that make national, regional, or local problems global.
5. According to Pleyers, Evans and Keck and Sikkink, countering the neoliberal belief and policy practice in deregulation, particularly related to the environment, is possible. How is this the case for them? In effect, how do social advocacy groups working on the environment successfully affect change? Do you believe that this type of advocacy network can stop climate change?
6. How does the reading "Another World is Possible" indict the current form of globalization? What principles should guide institutions to govern the world economy? How do you think these principles can be put in practice by the U.S., for example?
Evaluation Criteria
Keep the following points in mind:
•The answers should demonstrate understanding of assigned reading materials..
•The analysis is appropriate, and relevant examples have been cited..
The final exam consists of five (5) essay questions taken from Modules 5 – 8. Each essay should be between 250–500 words. The final exam will be completed during Module 8 and is worth 15% of your overall course grade.
M8A1: Final Exam
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1. Media globalization
The media has been a huge influence on culture globalization. It is feared that it will overpower local cultures and supplant them with boring and colorless homogenous world. American and European media content broadcasted all over the world has been the driving force for homogeneity in the world. The content broadcasted is powerful and influences unprepared people. In the colonial times, the debate on media controversy over homogeneity portrayed that the media as being selfish on increasing their product market. The rise of CNN and Fox News had a global reach and this led to the spread of media globalization. Global international news like CNN and BBC are worldwide news channels that have spread propaganda during war as a neutral press and they are the dull providers of journalism information (Tomlinson, 1991).
Globalization in the media sector has created a new form of dependences. Globalized media integrates with localized content and the result is either a consolidation of power relation or a new form of dependency. Reverse flow of globalization has enhanced diversity in the media. This is seen in the exportation of Brazilian telenovela to Portugal and even the emergence of media regional market and distribution centres in developing countries like Bollywood in India. Other countries have overpowered the American media through exporting their own media content on different cultural borders. These are countries are like Japan, India, Korea, Brazil, and Mexico. Diversity is created when film productions like Bollywood still instils its own culture, integration, indigenous values and practices in their media contents and this has not been influenced by Hollywood media content. After the media globalization in the entertainment sector by Warner bros, and Walt Disney, all American owned, there were regional and localized productions in other countries like the Indian film Bollywood, and Mexican telenovelas (Tomlinson, 1991).
2. Hollywood’s domination
Hollywood is seen as the world class cinema industry as it penetrates the regional boundaries and disintegrates the cultural boundaries in the non-western film industries. There are limits to their domination, as Tyrell (1999) explains that, in India, Bollywood is booming because it is locally supported. Hollywood has not been allowed to penetrate this industry due to their indigenous values, omnibus and “masala†form aspects of their films. However, Hollywood has still risen up beyond the non-western film industries and there are instances where their domination is seen through the penetration of loop holes in the non-western film industries and countries.
Hollywood failed to integrate their western culture with Indian culture and so they opted to investing in Indian films and studios by putting money into Bollywood and not replacing it with their western content. This is culturally profitable to Indian film industry but economically the profits go back to Hollywood. This shows the domination of Hollywood in the non-western film industries despite no recorded shift of the culture of the locals (Tyrell, 1999).
The rise of video in 1970s in India did not diminish the Indian film industry but rather the industry had to invest in satellites and cable which is gotten from the west. There were attempts to sell the western programs in India but this only attracted few elite people in India and so, Hollywood was not doing so great. However, the setting up of satellite channel called Zee TV attracted a larger market. The Indian film industry, Zee TV and Star TV were at victory. The Star TV, of western affiliations, felt like they had a way of infiltrating the Indian market through using the Indian figurehead corporation. The move by multinational media company dominated the Indian market when there were Indian Oscars in 1977. This showed the dominance of Hollywood in non-western film industry (Tyrell, 1999).
3. Global Phenomenon: Fundamentalism
Religious fundamentalism resulted from the backlash realization in many countries due to the influence of the western culture and lifestyle. The Iranian revolution and Islamic republic started a cultural force which designated itself away from the western insights. The resistance of westernization made fundamentalism a global phenomenon. This lead to the Islamic culture coming up with militancy and movements against globalization and dominance of foreigners. The result of such movements were seen during 9/11 that was sponsored by the Taliban government in Afghanistan and other Middle East countries like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The rise of international terrorism became a global problem caused by religious fundamentalism, (The Globalization of Christianity and Islam, Module Notes). The same is also realized in Christianity which is easily penetrated by the western Protestants and Catholics due to their familiarity in religion.
Lechner (2012) focuses on an analytical derived question where fundamentalism is treated as a form of anti-modernism. This anti- modernism has shown various implications of fundamentalism due to the culture it opposes. He says that religious movements will be a vital fundamentalist force in societies in case there exists a tradition that can be interpreted and legitimized for dedifferentiation. In addition, implications will occur if the modernization change represents a problem for a religious group; if fundamentalist program is seen as a way to define and resolve disconnects and problems; if historical preference in the society tries a significant social change; if the main concern of a fundamentalist movement is not channelled by the existing religious institutions. These patterns show the emergence of fundamentalist movement and the severity of their influence.
Fundamentalism implications according to Lechner (2012), happens when the movement reorganizes the society and reasserts the validity of a tradition and belief. Additionally, when the movement reproduces the dilemmas that it wants to solve or when the movement cannot take a decisive control and it expresses lack of clarity in a crisis setting, implications will result.<...