Impact of cultural imperialism on global communication today

Andrew Arat^*
*Correspondence: Andrew Arat, Department of Sociology, Lancaster University, Lancaster, Lancashire, England, Email:

Received: 29-Nov-2022, Manuscript No. GJSA-22-82148; Editor assigned: 02-Dec-2022, Pre QC No. GJSA-22-82148 (PQ); Reviewed: 16-Dec-2022, QC No. GJSA-22-82148; Revised: 23-Dec-2022, Manuscript No. GJSA-22-82148 (R); Published: 30-Dec-2022

Description

Cultural imperialism (sometimes called cultural colonialism) includes the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word “imperialism” often describes the practice in which a social entity uses culture (including language, traditions, rituals, political and economic structures, and ways of life) to create and maintain unequal relations between social groups. Cultural imperialism often uses violence as a method of implementation, and the system is often part of the process of legitimizing conquest. Cultural imperialism can take many forms, such as attitudes, formal policies, or military actions to the extent that each reinforces cultural hegemony.

Cultural imperialism can refer either to the forced acculturation of a subject population or to the voluntary acceptance of a foreign culture by individuals who do so of their own free will. Since these are two very different referents, the validity of the term has been questioned.

Cultural influence can be seen by the “host” culture as a threat to or an enrichment of its cultural identity. It therefore seems useful to distinguish between cultural imperialism as an (active or passive) position of superiority and the position of a culture or group that seeks to supplement its own cultural production, which is considered partially deficient, with imported products. Cultural imperialism has both positive and negative consequences. The negative effects of cultural imperialism are loss of culture, loss of language, preference for Western brands, cultural appropriation and cultural protectionism. However, it should be noted that although cultural imperialism is mostly used in a pejorative sense, it has positive effects such as exporting the values of women’s rights and other values such as racial equality.

Issues in contemporary research in cultural imperialism

Among all types of modern imperialism, we will focus on cultural imperialism. In the broadest sense, it is the domination and power of one country over another through culture. Let’s focus on this in more detail not only to describe this phenomenon, but also to define the concept of “cultural imperialism”. The concept of cultural imperialism was introduced in the 1970s. The term was conceptualized in Edward Said’s Culture and Imperialism, which outlined a theoretical approach that he later used to analyze imperialism and its cultural manifestations.

He defined “cultural imperialism” as a variety of cultural oppression used by the dominant culture to suppress and subjugate all manifestations of the oppressed culture: from high culture to folk traditions, from personal to social phenomena, from value systems to consumer preferences, from symbols and rituals to its pop culture imitations. It is culture as a whole that creates imperial feelings and thoughts and gives birth to an imperial imagination.

However, to fully understand what cultural imperialism is, one must first define “culture” and “imperialism” separately. Culture is difficult to define, but if you look at the dictionary definition, it is defined as “the distinctive ideas, customs, social behaviour, or way of life of a particular nation, society, people, or period.” Basically, culture is something that is shared, learned or acquired, constantly evolving and not static. Imperialism comes from the word “empire” and means the expansion of a country’s power and influence through colonization, the use of military force, or other means. It is an unequal human and territorial relationship based on ideas of superiority and dominance.

Today, in global communication, cultural imperialism manifests itself mainly through mass media, especially mainstream media. Mass media is one of the most prominent and prominent forms of global communication. Although the theory of cultural imperialism also focuses on governmental and economic systems, it is more concerned with the appropriation of mass media such as literature, film, television, the Internet, and music. As mentioned earlier, this is one-sided, meaning that the media of the affected culture is not exported to the influencing culture. Most global media companies are owned by the same core developed countries that dominate global media production. Arguably, both cultural imperialism and global communication are closely related to globalization, the worldwide movement toward an interconnected world where corporations operate on an international scale. Globalization facilitates global communication and the spread of cultural perspectives through new media and technological advances, and some argue that globalization is thus a tool of cultural imperialism.