Cultural Impacts of Globalized Media

Event summaries from Globalization Week Spring 2005

Date: Tuesday, April 5
Time: 1:00pm-2:30pm
Location: Thurston Hall Piano Lounge, First Floor, 1900 F Street, NW

Presenters:

• Jerome Barron, Harold H. Greene Professor of Law, George Washington University
• Harvey Feigenbaum, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs, George Washington University
• Peter Rollberg, Associate Professor of Slavic and Film Studies and International Affairs, George Washington University

Professor Barren opened the talk with comments about media markets and democracy, referring to Ed Baker's 2002 book Media Markets and Democracy. He discussed the challenge of striking a balance between locally-produced television programs and films and media content from other contries. Countries, such as France and Canada, try to limit foreign media content, while some smaller governments are forced to intervene by subsidizing local production setting time quotas in cinemas and on TV. Even the U.S. government has worked, more so in the past, to address what Professor Barron referred to as "information apartheid," a system wherein dominant broadcasters, with economy of scale advantages, are able to dominate smaller markets and shutout local producers and broadcasters through the "must-carry" rule, which sets aside a percentage of the airwaves for local broadcasts in smaller regional markets.

He concluded his opening statements by mentioning the pessimism of media scholar Robert McChesney and his characterisation of global media as an unattached shareholder entity that was becoming increasingly homogenized and less constrained by nation states. He added that Ed Baker would tend to agree; that at least on a national level, a government could make market adjustments to promote and protect local and regional cultural offerings, which have been eroded over the last ten to fifteen years by improvements in media delivery systems dominated by global broadcasters and producers, but that in the global context, no adjustment framework exists.

Professor Feigenbaum followed up Professor Barron's opening comments by emphasizing that, with regard to cultural preservation, markets don't work; instead, they facilitate the domination of local culture. He used U.S. domination as an example. The U.S. television industry can produce shows at higher costs and with higher production values on the cheap because it can amortize its films and programs over a vast market, while local broadcasts in foreign countries have limited resources. U.S. TV shows, for example, are sold and shown first to a massive local market, resold on the domestic syndication market, then sold a third time overseas.

Adding to Professor Feigenbaum's observations, Professor Rollberg continued the discussion of the influence of global media on local cultural expression with a specific account of the trajectory of the media in the Soviet Union. He talked about the demand in the 1990s, just after the Soviet Union collapse, for American films and television programs, partly due to a new cultural openness, but also related to the fact that leasing U.S. films was far cheaper than producing Soviet films. After nearly a decade of soaking up American narratives and styles, there was a reversal; people tired of U.S. films and wanted to see stories about Russians. In the first part of this reversal, Russian films were made in the American narrative style, with special effects and simplistic storylines. Later on, the reversal was complete, as Russians began to produce films that adhered more to Russian values, in both content and style.

He drew an interesting parallel to the current process of cultural globalization by mentioning the penetration of French film makers at the outset of the 20th century, when French producers dominated the Russian fim industry. The trajectory was the same: after a decade of French domination, Russians began to demand films with Russian themes, first supplied by French producers in French style. Later, they took control of their own film industry and made the complete shift to Russian production, content, and style. Professor Rollberg finished by mentioning that the perfect media model should aim for heterogeneneity, with government adjustments where necessary to protect local culture and foreign exposure to different ideas and artistic values.

The discussion was opened to the audience and several lively exchanges occurred over the degree to which American culture, as expressed through the visual media, is dumbed down, low brow, or overly simplistic. Professor Rollberg tended to agree that the quality of discourse on television was disappointing and that the extreme concentration of media ownership in the U.S. amounted to "a dictatorship of stupidity" characterized by sound bites and short attention spans, while Professor Barron countered with the comment that this trend toward deterioriating discourse has its European counterparts, citing the Italian market as an example, where market ownership is even more dangerously concentrated in the hands of and actual sitting prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi.

The discussion was concluded by Professor Feigenbaum by mentioning the double-edged sword of the current state of the U.S. film and television industry. When asked about the simplistic nature of American film narratives, he countered that maybe, instead of the U.S. film industry dumbing down the rest of the world, its effort to meet global demands on content and style, it is being dumbed down by pandering to global expectations. And he mentioned that even the success of the thriving indie film industry has its own drawbacks: it has shrunk the U.S. market for foreign films resulting in less exposure to foreign ideas and values. Feigenbaum ended by revisiting the concept of cultural diversity, saying that "cultural diversity is not only a desirable end, but a means to and end as well," citing past examples of artistic influences from abroad.

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