Public Relations
Assignment No 1 Film Studies BAMS 335
Question: Explain the notion of cultural imperialism in relation to film studies.
To best answer the question within the title, it is pivotal to begin by defining the concept of cultural imperialism so as to ascertain how it differs from traditional modes of imperialism.It is equally important to understand how cultural imperialism is a logical by product of the long and varied history of the west’s relationship with the rest of the world and how this, in turn, affects the global perception of western media within non‑western audiences. It is also of paramount importance to delineate film in the context of cultural imperialism by looking at films such as Jit, Sarafina, Neria, The Gods must be crazy, Slumdog Millionaire, Titanic among others. We then need to look at the most important concept in the study of cultural imperialism, the advent of globalisation as an economic and political reality. And finally we likewise need to define and examine the influence and limits of western media to discern its relative power within the broader pattern of westernisation which has been discernible across the globe.
Herbert Schiller defined the cultural imperialism phenomenon as the way in which major multinational corporations, including the media, of developed countries dominate developing countries. This imbalanced, one-way flow of the cultural trade has fuelled culturalerosion in virtually every corner of the globe. In other words cultural imperialism is more of pressure put on one society to adapt the culture, values, and lifestyles of another. As aptly put by another author, Petras, it is the systematic penetration and domination of the cultural life of the popular classes by the ruling classes of the West in order to reorder the values and behaviour, institutions and identity of the oppressed people to conform to the interest of the imperial classes. Within this scheme the mass media have become an integral part of the US
Question: Explain the notion of cultural imperialism in relation to film studies.
To best answer the question within the title, it is pivotal to begin by defining the concept of cultural imperialism so as to ascertain how it differs from traditional modes of imperialism.It is equally important to understand how cultural imperialism is a logical by product of the long and varied history of the west’s relationship with the rest of the world and how this, in turn, affects the global perception of western media within non‑western audiences. It is also of paramount importance to delineate film in the context of cultural imperialism by looking at films such as Jit, Sarafina, Neria, The Gods must be crazy, Slumdog Millionaire, Titanic among others. We then need to look at the most important concept in the study of cultural imperialism, the advent of globalisation as an economic and political reality. And finally we likewise need to define and examine the influence and limits of western media to discern its relative power within the broader pattern of westernisation which has been discernible across the globe.
Herbert Schiller defined the cultural imperialism phenomenon as the way in which major multinational corporations, including the media, of developed countries dominate developing countries. This imbalanced, one-way flow of the cultural trade has fuelled culturalerosion in virtually every corner of the globe. In other words cultural imperialism is more of pressure put on one society to adapt the culture, values, and lifestyles of another. As aptly put by another author, Petras, it is the systematic penetration and domination of the cultural life of the popular classes by the ruling classes of the West in order to reorder the values and behaviour, institutions and identity of the oppressed people to conform to the interest of the imperial classes. Within this scheme the mass media have become an integral part of the US