deatailed outline :chapter 13

I. What is Culture?
a. Culture
i. Commonly used term
ii. What is means to be a human, all our culture summed up
iii. “one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language” Raymond Williams
iv. “pop culture”- culture as a way of life
v. Human culture
vi. national culture
1. Media play key role in national culture
2. media transmit stories, images, ideas
II. Cultural Industries
a. Cultural Industries- term coined in 1947 in Dialectic of Enlightenment by Adorno and Horkheimer of Frankfurt school
i. Based on their Critical Theory (Marxist approach)
ii. Defn- “products which are tailored for consumption by masses, and which to a great extent determine the nature of that consumption, are more or less manufactured according to plan.”
iii. Media play role in ideological justification of capitalists class divisions and social control
iv. Today, cultural industries does not have negative connotation- UNESCO describes cultural ind. as “important national economic resources that allow expressions of creativity to be copies and boosted by the industrial process and worldwide distribution.”
b. Other Cultural Groupings
i. All organizations have cultures (businesses etc.)
III. Transmission of Culture
a. Culture must be learned
i. “ an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed by symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” –Clifford Geertz
ii. Language is the primary medium to transmit cultureb. Benedict Anderson and Imagined Communitiesi. Through print capitalism (18th ct.) ppl. came to believe they share a culture with ppl. they may have never met
c. Families and news cultural transmitters
i. Families used to be primary means of cultural socialization pre-radio/TV aged. Languages and culture
i. Small linguistic communities (Ex- Quebec) vulnerable to dominant language cultural influence and loss
ii. English language media available globally
IV. How the West Dominates in Production of Culturea. U.S. produces more cultural exports, big influencei. Herbert Schiller and Mass Communication and the American Empire (1969)
1. U.S.’s military-industrial complex using TV and films to obtain world dominance in culture
ii. Nordenstreng and Varis study
iii. U.S. has one way flow to the world dominated by entertainment
iv. Based on history- U.S. industrialized and developed these industries first
v. However India makes more films (1000 per year) but exports less to int’l mkt.
vi. other studies have been done on U.S. “cultural imperialismb. Are ppl. personally affected by U.S. cultural exports?
i. Tomilson- no agent to blame, simply global capitalismii. Difficulty to measureiii. Tentative conclusion – audiences are more critical and assertive than critical theory believes. People retain many local cultural values.
1. Marian Bredin- “power or media to bring cultural change to an ethnic group is quite limited”
V. What do Cultures do to Defend Their Autonomy?
a. Countries with large home mkts have advantage because they can cover costs at home and make profits abroad. Small countries could not afford to do so
.b. Protectionsi. Quotas
1. EU policy, 1989, “Television without Frontiers”
a. TV stations in EU countries should devote more than 50% of their schedule to European programs
b. France’s protectionism
i. No more than 40% of films can come from outside Europe
ii. Has even blocked PBS
c. U.S. thinks cultural exports should be treated like any other good, free market
ii. Subsidies
1. U.S. opposes
2. EU trying to subsidize but EU films still not very popular in EU mkt.
3. Italy- first foreign film to win an Oscar for best pic. was Life is Beautiful in 1998, film industry has since decline
4. EU’s MEDIA (Measures for Economic Development of the Audiovisual Industry) to stimulate EU film ind.
iii. Regional Alliances including Coproductions
1. MEDIA is regional alliance
2. countries share resources- actors, production, etc
3. reach larger market and have larger cultural appeal
4. India and Canada have an agreement
5. UNESCO- 100 European, Latin American, Asian, African nations agreed to allow state subsidies and taxes an imported cultural ind.
a. U.S., Japan, India, and Mexico opposed
iv. Adaptations- buying rights to a show/film and changing language an/or setting to fit local culture
1. Ex- Superstar (British)àAmerican Idol (U.S.) à Superstar (Lebanon)
àIndian Idol (India)
v. Resistance
1. producing and exporting products about one’s culturea. Ex- Brazil and TV Globo
b. Ex- Kayapo Indians in Amazon, documenting their culture and traditions on film
2. also showing original language/cultural media in home
a. Punjabi families in London
3. BBC recognized this market
a. BBC One- black audience
b. Caters to South Asian community also
4. Canada
a. Bill C-55 (1999) makes it illegal for Canadian businesses to advertise in magazines intended for U.S. mkt.
b. Many U.S. films (91% of box office), magazines (4 out of 5), TV in Canada due to shared language and 2000 mile border
VI. Not all Pop Culture is American
a. Audiences prefer local cultures
i. India, Japan, Brazil, Russia- local TV production is 70-96% of market
b. Music
i. Germany is world’s third largest mkt after U.S. and Japan
ii. Latin American artists popular in U.S. and globally
iii. Musical Comedy
1. British musicals
a. Phantom of the Opera, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, Les Miserables, Jesus Christ Superstar, Spamalot
iv. Publishing in U.S.1. Random House owned by German co. Bertelsmann
2. Harper-Collins owned by Rupert Murdoch (Australian)
VII. Role of Journalists in Production of Culture
a. Goal of objectivity unrealistic
b. Herbert Gans, study of CBS, NBC, Newsweek, Timei. “enduring value are built into news judgments, as a result most values and opinions enter unconsciously”
1. eight value clusters- ethnocentrism, altruistic democracy, responsible capitalism, small-town pastoralism, individualism, moderation, social order, national leadership
c. News formats transmitted across cultures to other news organizations- CNN influences news formats globally