So, my work very much tilts toward the cultural imperialism side of a continuum of cultural imperialism vs. cultural globalization in the field of global media and communication studies. That is, I do not see individuals as having all that much power in terms of the age-old structure-agency debate.
I believe that we are primarily structured by forces outside of ourselves — long-running historical forces such as politics, ideology, culture, religion, socially-proscribed gender roles, etc. — primarily shape us and largely direct what sorts of “choices” we do (not) have.
I am especially very much opposed to the claim made by libertarian theorists that we do things own our “own.” We NEVER do anything completely on our own. NEVER!
What do I mean by this?
What I mean is that the entire history of the universe, the earth, and most importantly, the entire history of humanity — meaning the history of all human beings who have ever lived — precedes us. All of those human beings collectively, across time, through their also historically and socially situated being and actions created the social conditions and structures in which we today live as “individuals.”
That entire historical context “creates” who we are and what our (im)possibilities are. It also means that NONE of us every does anything completely on our own, as the extreme libertarians would have us falsely believe.
For example — and this is just one example: I am typing this blog entry in a condo that I live in in Littleton, Colo. I did not build this structure. I did not extract the raw materials used to make it. I did not invent the building structures that enable current building processes that resulted in my condo being constructed in 1995.
I did not help invent the wheels used on the vehicles that delivered lumber and other raw materials to build my condo. I did not invent the architectural processes, nor writing itself, both of which were used to design the structure I now live in.
I did not invent, nor create the Latin alphabet with which I am now typing. Nor did I, by myself, develop language, nor the English language, nor the printing press. Nor did I have anything to do with the development of the computer on which I typing this entry, the QWERTY keyboard, the raw materials used to make those things, their transportation, the invention of these devices and the globalization processes that enable me to use this Mac laptop.
I did not invent, nor build, nor extract the raw materials used for the chair upon which I sit. NONE of these things, I did “myself.” I am able to do them all because historical social processes have created the conditions under which I can do these things and APPEAR to do these things “by myself.”
I am just BEGINNING to scratch the surface of all the SOCIAL and historical actions and human beings that led me to being able to do this thing I am allegedly “doing ALL by myself” at this point in time, sitting here in “my” condo, on a chair in front of a table with my laptop computer on it, typing this blog entry.
Why am I being so “extreme” in pointing to the endless number of things that I did not do myself?
The ideology of individualism
I do so because so much in our individualistic (American) society motivates us to completely ERASE the thousands of things — really hundreds of thousands of things — that we have NOT done ourselves just to be able to be in the position to be able to create the ILLUSION that we are doing something ourselves.
What does the erasure of human history by way of individualistic ideology have to do with the ongoing debate between cultural imperialists — actually, I consider myself to be a cultural hegemonist, or someone who sees some limited room for agency in the relationship between cultural media producers and consumers — and cultural globalization theorists, whose work, and ideological perspective (all perspectives are inherently ideological inasmuch as they always already involves particular sets of human values) dominates the field of global media and communication studies?
Pretty much EVERYTHING: One’s views about the relationship between the individual and society and vis-a-vis the so-called structure/agency debate, or what one believes in terms of how much power individuals do (not) have in determining their “own” lives and the trajectory of their lives and their experiences in life relates to the long-running debate about who holds more power in the relationship between the individual and society: The individual, or society. Cultural imperialists lean much more toward society/structure mattering more. Cultural globalization theorists lean much more toward the individual and agency.
Every single individual works within the bounds of these historical social forces and constraints. Yes, even the greatest geniuses of all time, whether we are talking about Albert Einstein or Marie Curie, etc. They could not have done what they did “on their own” without so MANY other socio-historical and contemporary forces that precede them and which were around them that were completely beyond their control.
If I believe this — as I strongly do — it is VERY difficult for me to, as cultural globalization theorists so often do, celebrate the “agency” of individuals around the world to “resist”, for example, American media culture and for these individuals to project their “own” unique meanings onto Hollywood films, etc. Yes, of course, media consumers have SOME agency to do this, and they do do this.
HOWEVER, what matters much more in the power equation, as far as I am concerned, is who produced the cultural media content these consumers are consuming and projecting their “own” meaning — really, their “own” meaning is always already a social meaning, not truly “individual” meaning — onto.
Cultural producers have more power than consumers
The story tellers and producers of cultural media content that is consumed by millions around the globe clearly have much more power than the individuals who consume it to determine larger social meaning. Yes, these days, media consumers have some more agency to project back onto those stories in more agentive ways than in the past, for instance, by way of (video) memes distributed on social media, etc.
However, these “agentive” consumers creating meaning vis-a-vis Hollywood films “on their own” STILL do not have nearly as much power as the original producers. This is true even when counter-readings of dominant cultural media products are projected onto social media and the internet — assuming these individuals even have internet access and the tools and means to create counter stories — are NOT equal to the original product. Counter-stories will not reach the same, wide, millions of people audience that the original does.
Furthermore, where these “agentive” individuals are situated, geographically, politically, economically, nationally, racially, linguistically, culturally, etc. makes ALL the difference in the world in terms of how much counter-story power they do (not) have. So, while an upper-middle class white German heterosexual male with lots of technological know-how, education, money, access to high-speed internet, social media, etc. MIGHT be able to project back a counter-story to an American Hollywood film and its dominant ideology to perhaps thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people, someone living in rural Bolivia with none of those privileges is almost certainly not going to be able to do any such thing.
Structural forces matter a lot — in fact, they matter MORE than individuals and individual agency. This much is very clear to me and the evidence for this position appears to me to be overwhelming.
Nonetheless, the cultural globalization perspective, which celebrates and valorizes individual agency — in a way that, not coincidentally in my view, lies up with the dominant neoliberal economic ideology that predominates in the globalization era — continues to predominate within the field of global media and communication studies and within the fields of media studies and cultural studies.
I do not understand exactly why perspectives that celebrate individual agency have held sway for 20+ years in global media and communication. The agentive power of individuals clearly, when one takes a close look at things, simply does not stack up to the massive power of historical political economic forces. But, nonetheless, we have a long-running and seemingly intractable pull toward cultural globalization perspectives as allegedly being the “only” perspectives that are “correct” within global media and communication and we have the “death of cultural imperialism” having been declared for two decades now.
Say what?🙄
Yes, of course, individuals and individual media consumers have SOME agency. And there are different ways to, for instance, read an American film. However, that capacity to project counter-hegemonic meanings onto a Hollywood film, as Herbert Schiller and others so long ago pointed out, was not, STILL is not, and NEVER will be the same power as the power to create that film, distribute it, and inscribe it with dominant American ideologies. Indeed, there is a massive power inequality between major cultural media producer and individual media consumer.
When we valorize individual consumers and their abilities to create their “own” (totally idiosyncratic?) meaning we lose sight of this un-equal dynamic. In fact, we lose sight of power itself. I will ALWAYS keep power and power inequities squarely in view, regardless of whether this approach is popular within my fields — global communication and media studies, media studies and sociolinguistics — or not.
Currently, my cultural imperialist leaning view is NOT popular and, indeed, many within these fields have sought to, but not succeeded in, creating the illusion that cultural imperialist perspectives are somehow “dead”?
Say what? 🙄
American culture still predominates, comparatively speaking
Yes, the American cultural media empire does not have the same power it once had. Yes, forces of globalization are feeding back into, and changing Americanization in some ways. However, there still is NO other cultural media producer that has, COMPARATIVELY speaking, as much global power and global reach as the United States, and, more broadly, as much power as Anglo-American cultural products, primarily produced in English, have. That COMPARATIVE, and continuing disproportionate power, STILL matters. It matters a lot.
Image by Tumisu from Pixabay]
That power imbalance will ALWAYS matter and it ALWAYS should be, must be, foregrounded. A cultural imperialist-type or leaning perspective will always foreground these structural power differentials and it will never over-celebrate the “agency” of individuals to displace and radically alter that power. Indeed, over-celebrating and over-valorizing individual media consumers’ power achieves precisely the opposite of what many cultural globalizations proponents purport to wish for: An upending of the entire hierarchical structure such that those at the top are displaced, replaced or at least suffused by more cultural media production distributed to more people around the world from more differently situated cultural producers.
For this RADICAL change to happen — where the primary global cultural media producers, the USA chief among these are no longer so predominant, we MUST acknowledge the clear reality of the structural inequities. We must acknowledge the clear, objective and unequal power dynamics so that we might more effectively deconstruct them and change them.
You CANNOT change a hierarchical and inequitable system without FIRST acknowledging the massive inequities in power that continue to predominate, in this case in the global cultural system. In celebrating current agency and valorizing it, in badly OVER-stating this “agency” within the current hierarchical system, cultural globalization theorists FAIL to acknowledge the reality of structural inequity.
In addition to acknowledging the clear reality of comparative continuing American global cultural predominance, those actually situated in the comparative position of cultural power must be made to acknowledge the validity of — indeed, the existence of — cultural media and storytelling produced outside of the cultural and linguistic center.
Forcing this critical awareness on those in the center, especially white (upper) middle class Americans for whom English is typically their only language is one of the primary goals of a critical theory of American Cultural Insularity in the Center (ACIC). It will continue to be a primary goal for as long as the incredibly hierarchical and limiting global cultural system that we have currently continues to predominates.