According to
Kraidy (2002)'s “Globalisation of Culture Through the Media”, the mass media’s
influence on the globalisation of culture has been constantly debated. Just
like a “magic bullet”, mass media is widely believed to impact audiences.
However, scholars doubt how heavily international media can influence
globalisation. Garcia-Candini (1995) argues that interaction between local and
global cultures resulted in hybridisation. Kraidy (2002) eventually concludes
that hybridisation has existed long ago. It is further driven by the media and
eventually led to the shift from cultural imperialism to globalisation.
Kraidy
(2002) states that the mass media simply intensify the hybridity of local and
global cultures, but did not result in a complete homogenisation. I agree with
his views. Media such as satellite television,
the Internet, computers, mobile phones are often thought to be among the
primary forces at work. According to Kaul (2011), electronic media enabled increased
interconnectedness across vast distances and a temporal flexibility in social
interaction. Social media
platform like Facebook and Twitter allows cultures from different parts of the
world to be exchanged. Through interaction, cultures could be hybridised yet
retain their original identities. One such example is music. It has been
criticised that music is a result of cultural homogenisation due to the power
of American music in the world. However, Dick Lee, a Singapore songwriter, has
proven this wrong. Music can be a hybridisation of local and global cultures. His
music was described as blending pop funk beats with Asian instruments (Los
Angeles Times 1992). In his song, “Life in the Lion City”, Lee also mixed
traditional instruments with synthesisers. By using mass media, more people are
aware of the different cultures of music. Global music can thus incorporate
into local productions, allowing hybridisation of music.
I also agree with Kraidy (2002) that
hybridisation has existed since a long time through warfare, trade, migration,
slavery. Hybridisation of cultures is evident in the use of language in
Singapore. Since migration has been very common since early times of Singapore,
it resulted in Singapore having many types of dialect groups and languages. The
mixture of language formed is known as “Singlish”. It is a hybrid of several languages
and is unique to Singaporeans. Therefore, I agree that hybridisation has
existed since a long time ago but the effect has become more obvious only with
the prevalence of the mass media.
Hello Jocelyn!
ReplyDeleteThis is our humble comment on your reader response!
Firstly, your summary definitely captured the main ideas of the article. You have also adequately made references to various writers. However, I believe the "magic bullet" is a theory, so you should make reference to it as a theory, not just "magic bullet". In addition, you could make a brief description on cultural imperialism as I see that you have not mention it only until your last sentence in your summary.
Anyway, good job!
-Yx, KeYun, Russell
Hi Jocelyn!
ReplyDeleteThis comment post is on your reader response. :)
Firstly, correct me if I am wrong, I feel that computers, mobile phones are not mass media, they are the devices that propagates media.
I feel that your stand in the second paragraph is clear and it is good that you use local example to illustrate your viewpoint. My understanding of this paragraph is that you are trying to use social networking websites to show that our world became more interconnected through these websites; and interconnection does not cause homogeneity but hybridisation, through the example of Singapore's music. The local music example is interesting but I feel that perhaps you can use example that is more linked to Facebook to show the cause (social networking websites causes interconnected world) and effect (world is not homogenised).
For the last part, I feel that it is interesting to use the example on Singlish! But I would like to refer to the last sentence, " I agree that hybridisation has existed since a long time ago but the effect has become more obvious only with the prevalence of the mass media". I cannot see the link between Singlish and prevalence of mass media, perhaps you can work on the link :)
In general, I feel that your stands are clear and your examples are interesting and are mostly linked to Singapore context!
Hope that my comments is useful! And pardon me if I misunderstand any parts!