Americanization

Electronic Colonialism

Internet has the power to bring down borders which can lead to a blurring of national identities. It can enable large powerful economies to dominate smaller cultures and define the emerging "global culture" by sheer economic force. The US is the largest economy in the world so there is no argument that the Internet is dominated by English and predominantly by the US. It is full of US companies, being led by US political decisions, and being driven by US software and technical expertise. They are the leaders in the many uses of these media. Colonialism has been a charge that has been laid on the Internet's door. It is seen to be forcing people to speak English, to visit thousands of American sites, and to become more American.

Exportation of Culture

US - the world's largest and most powerful cultural exporter:

• Cultural products make up the second largest export behind aircraft.
• In 1992, the US purchased only $288 million in cultural products from the European Community, while the EC nations bought $3.7 billion in American cultural products including film and television.
• US programs account for about 70% of all viewing of English TV in Canada.
• Canada receives the bulk of US magazine exports: 78% of US magazine exports went to Canada in 1992-93.
• According to a 1992 survey by Group Secor for the Canadian Heritage Ministry, American feature films have 96% of the market for theatrical distribution in English Canada and 83% in Quebec.
• In Latin America, there is an increase in national production as well as the development of specific genres taken from US models and re-created with local flavour.

Core & Periphery Theory

An imbalance exists between "core" (i.e. US) and "periphery" nations (i.e. poorer, rural countries of the Third World) in both the flow of media products and information. In this view, information and its technology are controlled by the core nations, and its flow is seen as uni-directional from the core to the periphery with little opportunity for peripheral nations to participate in the process.

Facts

• The peripheral countries of the world own only 4% of the world's computer hardware.
• 75% of the world's telephones (700 million) can be found in the 9 richest countries while the poorest countries own less than 10%.
• In 39 peripheral countries, there were no newspapers and in 30 others there was only 1. There are more than 1600 daily papers in 1995 in the US alone.
• Only one server in the entire African continent outside South Africa. In countries such as Nigeria, communication infrastructure is weak or non-existent, local calls are expensive and telephone systems are often out of action for long periods. Computers are very expensive and beyond the means of individuals and small businesses.

Dominance

• The rise of English to preeminence in the academic world began in the post world WWII period when the sheer number of American universities and the large amount of funding poured into them resulted in a large output of research and publications. Thus documents written in English dominated and saturated the market.
• The dominance of the US market economy saw English rise to preeminence in the area of business and communications. The Web combines the characteristics of both scientific publishing and business & communications thus reinforcing the dominance of American English.

Resistance

There is a great concern that as globalization progresses, many cultures & languages will be polluted with Americanism.

Examples of Resistance

• Quebec and France's stand on not allowing the use of English words in their language.
• 1993 GATT negotiations
  The European film industry and French intellectuals in particular rebelled against Hollywood's monopoly of the mass media. Anti-Americanism was on the rise, and the French state radio was directed to increase the content of French popular music in its programs to 40%.
• The controversy over the building of the Disney World theme park north of Paris.
• There is much opposition in Europe to American cultural imports. Many people feel threatened by these imports and that their cultural identities are getting "swamped" by "cheap" and "vulgar" American mass entertainment culture such as Hollywood-style sitcoms and talk shows. There is a fear that people everywhere will happily consume McDonald's cheeseburgers, wear Levi jeans and Dallas Cowboys T-shirts, and speak a native slang that is heavily laced with American English terms.



• Conflict also exists in the same culture where different generations have different values. In Japan especially, the younger generation is attracted by American cultural imports and sees them as a way of undermining the traditional life styles and codes of their elders who often harbor deep reservations about the United States.