Reader response on Globalisation of Culture through the Media

In "Globalisation of Culture through the Media", Kraidy (2002) discusses the controversies on the effects mass media on globalisation of culture. According to him, international communication theorist believe that Cultural imperialism, a phenomenon where westerns propagate their culture through media, has massive effects on global culture. However, further research indicates that global culture can be affected by all parties with power to control media. This leads to another perspective called "Hybridisation", where various cultures and traditions from various parts of the world interacts and reconstructs. Kraidy also questions if media is the cause or acts only as a catalyst to boost such globalisation. Kraidy is supportive that the existing culture hybridity is intensified by mass media.

In this article, Kraidy mentions that “international communication flows, processes, and effects are permeated by power”. In another words, parties with power or authority will be able to control what media releases to the audience. I agree with this statement as the effect can be easily seen from daily life example. The analysis of the K-pop market allows us to learn that famous artist or groups like PSY and Girls Generation are actually supported by the Korea record companies that have strong market share and international operations, that can control media easily. This is also the reason why the artist and their production can get  worldwide attention.

The above example also supports Kraidy’s view that the concept of cultural imperialism is no longer applicable to the world. The world’s culture are no longer shaped by the Westerns but also the Asians as long as they have the capability to influence.

However, I feel that the ability to control media is not sufficient to change one’s culture, it also requires the audience to accept and adopt what the media conveys to them in order for media to be a platform of change in the culture. In this article, Kraidy assumes that the audience accepts what they get from the media, making media a strong platform for cultural influence.

Kraidy believes that transnational media is not a cause of hybridity but intensify this hybrid that already existed. True enough, I believe that this is a fair judgement of the impact of mass media on culture of individual nations. Since exchanging of culture caused by real life interaction between people exist before the development of transnational media, it is safe to conclude that hybridity of culture is definitely not caused by mass media.

However, I feel that he over generalise media’s effect on culture. I feel that media does not have the capability to intensify all aspect of culture in all countries. According to ICACP report (2012), culture includes all the change man add to the nature. It is true that media has great power to influencing the audience’s fashion or food preference and perception of beauty. However, media does not have any strong impact on the practice that is very deep rooted or governed by law.