Reconceptualizing “Cultural Imperialism” in the Current Era of Globalization

This chapter focuses on cultural imperialism in relation to media and communication. Cultural imperialism theory focuses on broader issues of transnational media and flows of culture and political economy, while uses and gratifications theory, for example, focuses on individual audience members. Cultural imperialism thinking emerged at a time of comparative mass media scarcity and recently established broadcasting systems in the global South. Cultural globalization emerged as an increasingly influential perspective in the 1980s, in response to what many critics charged were the overly deterministic assumptions of cultural imperialism. The nature of the relationship between globalization and Americanization remains a critical issue. The thesis of cultural imperialism must be reconceptualized and made to focus not only on the ideological, but also on the simulation of ways of life, as a more subtle form of cultural influence.