Global Media Production MC411 Seminar Media and Globalisation Global Media Production Ray Wang, Uli Neumann

A little theory… Speed of production has increased Baudrillard: capitalism now predominately concerned with production of signs and images Images are now commodities Media play a pivotal role in how people view the world and organize the images and discourse (Murdock & Golding) Harvey

Trad. Schools of Thought Through 1970s and 1980s , studies concluded that the U.S and European allies control international flow of images and information, imposing media texts and industrial practices on unwilling nations and susceptible audiences around the world (Curtin)

Criticisms Cultural Imperialism theory made unwarranted leaps of inference from the simple presence of cultural goods to the attribution of deeper cultural or ideological effects’ (Tomlinson) Numerous studies have pointed out that Western or even US television programmes do not enjoy a position of unchallenged dominance in developing countries. (Morley and Robbins, 1989).

Hallyu – the Korean Wave Regional cultural products provide ‘sense of living in the shared time and common experience – one that is not represented well by American popular culture’ Ability to touch the right chord of Asian sentiments, such as family values

City of God Portugese film, little known director, no professional actors, no „Hollywood plot“  big hit, not a „niche film“! Profit-making yes, but successful with images and messages disjointed from the capitalistic consumer society Case of cultural hybridity Power relations between periphery and center reversed?

Product Ephemerality

Apple’s iPhone Rapid production and advertising of popular products + Apple‘s production of images Schizophrenic dimension of postmodernity? Overriding values of instaneity and disposability  Excessive ephemerality Baudrillard’s ‘warning‘ come true?

Literature Curtin, M. (2007). “Introduction: Media capital in Chinese film and television”, pp. 1-28. In: Playing to the World's Biggest Audience: The Globalization of Chinese Film and TV. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hafez, Kai (2007). “The Myth of Media Globalization”. Oxford: Polity Press. Harvey, D (1989). “Chapter 17, Time-space compression and the postmodern condition, pp. 284-307. In: The Condition of Postmodernity. London: Blackwell. Havens, T., Lotz, A.  and Tinic, S. (2009). Critical Media Industry Studies: A Research Approach. Communication, Culture & Critique, 2(2), 234-253. Kim, Youna (2006). ‘Rising East Asia ‘Wave’: Korean media go global’, in Thussu, Daya (ed.). Media on the Move: Global Flow and Contra Flow, London: Routledge, pp. 135-152. Legrain, Philippe (2003). „Cultural Globalisation is not Americanization“. In: The Chronicle of Higher. Education, Vol.49, Issue 35, Page B7. Shim, D. (2006). “Hybridity and the rise of Korean popular culture in Asia”. In: Media Culture Society January, Vol. 28 no. 1 25-44.

What images and symbols do you think are pervasive in today‘s postmodern media landscape? To what extent is it justified that states intervene in the market to protect their national cultural industry‘s production capabilities? Do you think that the globalisation of media plays in important role in revitalizing different cultures and cultural artifacts?