Week 8

Looking Glass Self/Specular Economy

The theory that I think well embodies the topic of specular economy is that of the ‘looking glass self.’This psychological concept created by Charles Horton Cooley means the self-image an individual forms by imagining what others think of his or her behavior and appearance.

This directly ties in with the Specular world, in which we’re conscious of the public version of ourselves and how others look at us. We now live in a world that revolves around online culture, so celebrities need to adapt. What we see from this are different avenues for attention, we find ourselves looking at a plethora  of controversy from celebrities to help boost their fame, just look at this argument between 4 of the world biggest DJ’s taken place on twitter of all places.  

 

Look at Tiger Woods, he had constructed the perfect image of himself, a professional sportsman, consummate family man and humanitarian with his charity works. However, due to paparazzi companies like TMZ and RadarOnline, once there was a sniff of his real image they were able to uncover evidence and destroy his reputation via electronic media in a matter of days. (Marshall P 2008, p500)  

“There is now an expectation of social interaction through social media that dwarfs the fan letter interactions of old and pushes celebrity culture into a constant and accelerated game of recursive revelation of the private and the intimate.” (Marshall P 2008, p498)   

References

Marshall, P.D 2008, The Specular Economy, Society. Vol. 47

Week 7

Post-Modern Diaspora’s

When looking at Diasporic Media you have to first know about broadcasting and narrowcasting. Broadcasting is to transmit signals or programs from a radio/television station to make something widely known, whereas narrowcasting is aiming a program at a specific audience or sales market.

Most Middle-Eastern Diaspora’s are clear examples of narrowcasting as they are in the language of the homeland and not English, therefore in Australia and America, when we view such programs on television or online we cannot understand them, unless we are part of the small minority they are designed for.

“Contemporary Immigrants in the West have formed post modern Diaspora’s that have not neglected their indigenous cultures, instead using electronic media, they have worked actively to celebrate and sustain them.” (Nacify 2003, p59)

A study was recently conducted on Chinese students living in Iowa, USA. These students all had access to the internet, almost 8,000 volumes of Chinese books, 300 current popular journals and 500 movies from Mainland China. Not to mention on Television they could watch Channel Four news which aired twice a day from Mainland China Central. (Shi 2005, 67)  

 Referencing

Naficy, H 2003, ‘Narrowcasting in diaspora: Middle Eastern television in Los Angeles’, The media of diaspora 2003, Routledge, London , pp. 51-62

Shi Yu, Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, Vol. 19, No. 1, March 2005, pp. 55–72

 

Week 6

Censoring?

Looking At Aljazeera as a source of news, can we say that Western News Organizations censor the news we get? Aljazeera is known for their graphic news images and stories that presents the real facts behind international conflicts or other events. Because the Western News companies like Fox News don’t, does that mean they’re censoring us?

It’s really does raise a lot of questions on what media outlets should show, but many see the freeness of Al Jazeera as a good thing. “Traditionally, the Middle East has been accustomed to heavily censored offerings of state-controlled television…(however) by using the power and persuasion of television, this news channel provided the first exposure to opposing voices, and in so doing has managed to enrage all of the authoritarian Arab regimes at one time or another (M El-Nawawy, 2002).”  

Historically, not censoring violent images can have huge effects, for example the Vietnam War, also known as the televised war. The tactics and treatment from the American’s towards the Vietnamese soldiers and civilians were captures on camera for the first time in a war, because of the content that was being sent home (not propaganda for once) the general public became very much opposed against their troops, with Vietnam vets being spat on and only been allowed to march many years after.

References

M El-Nawawy, A Iskander – 2002, Al-Jazeera: How the free Arab news network scooped the world and changed the Middle East,  omec.uab.cat

Week 5

Making Culture

Culture is defined as “the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group. For me there are so many different cultures people are a part of and everyone has some sense of culture in their life whether it is a nationalistic one or not.

Personally, I feel as though I am part of an AFL culture as I live and breathe the sport, I feel as though I have a direct link between myself and others who are in  the same boat regarding the sport, even though we’re all different individuals.

“The sense of ‘home’ as a stable and coherent entity is an important part of…dispersed existence.”
(ALC215 Study Guide, p.8)

When it comes to patriotism or any concerns I have in my country of birth, I tend to agree with Sun’s point that “migrants may become more possessive on issues of national sovereignty than do their compatriots at home (Sun, 2002, p114).” I myself recently spent a bit of time in America (LA and New York) and only whilst I was out of Australia did I suddenly feel this sense of nationalism and eagerness to know what exactly was going on back at home.  

However, this is not to say that I didn’t adapt to the American culture I was thrown into, within a matter of days I was talking, eating, drinking and behaving like the quintessential American.  

References

ALC215 Study Guide, p.8. 

Sun, W 2002, ‘Fantasizing the homeland, the internet, memory and exilic longings’, Leaving China: media, migration, and transnational imagination, Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., p. 114.

Week 4

When arguing if the The Olympics are either a globalizing force/global event or are not, it really comes down to your view on what global means. We all know that The Olympics is an event that culminates with an enormous number of countries (10,500 athletes participating from 204 countries), huge numbers of volunteers, massive investments from sponsors all over the globe and millions and millions of spectators watching, however how much of this globe are actually involved.

You just need to look at the host nations of the past 20 years; United Kingdom, China, Greece, Australia, North America, Spain, South Korea and North America. What is the common denominator here? They’re all relatively wealthy nations that have either hosted before or done well over the years in the Olympics.  Look at Africa, not a single Olympic games has been hosted in an African nation.

Not just that, even the medals are dominated consistently by the same countries, with China, the US, the UK, Korea and Russia making up the top 5 for medals, hardly a globalizing force.

On a positive note, these Olympics have become known as the ‘social networking games,’ with the overall message being spread faster and further than ever before. A recent study of 1005 Americans found that 17% are watching the Olympics online or digitally and a further 12% have remained abreast of the games via social networking sites (Kurz 2012).    

References

Kurz P, Aug 2012, Americans augment Olympics TV vewing with social networks, online video, finds Pew, NP

  

Week 3

Americanisation, the new globalisation

Americanisation continues to grow, just look at the word ‘globalisation,’ even Microsoft word wants to change it to globalization. Has globalisation been replaced by americanisation?

Between 1980 and 1991 the world trade in goods with cultural content almost tripled, with the United States at the forefront of this with their growing dominance of products and trading. Globalisation now is seen by many as American culture being dumped on the rest of the world.

We clearly see aspects of this in the way that the majority drink coca-cola world-wide, watch American movies and Television shows, Eat food from American chains, enjoy American sports, listen to American music and we even adopt different American slang like ‘y’all’ and ‘holler.’

“Globalisation is in so many ways Americanisation: Globalisation wears Mickey Mouse ears, it drinks Pepsi and Coke, eats Big Macs, does its computing on an IBM laptop with Windows.” (Friedman T, 2006 NP)

To fully understand Americanisation as a concept and reasons as to why it’s evolving, I’ve broken it up into 3 categories; Economic, Political and Cultural.
Economy: Dominance of American industrial model and hegemony of corporate interests
Politics: Increasing unilateral political action by USA and its allies
Culture: Dominance of American consumer and media culture on the world stage (Ulrich B, 2003, p36) 
 
References

Friedman T, 2006, ‘Americanization or Globalization?’ Globalenvision.org, NP

Ulrich B, 2003, ‘Global America? The Cultural Consequences of Globalization, Liverpool University Press, p36

Week 2

Globalisation…huh?

Globalisation is a term that most struggle to define, with myself included. The deeper you dive into Globalisation, the more there is to know regarding it, whether it be economic, political or cultural. To illustrate how much globalisation as a theory has evolved, 20 years ago it was defined as this:

“Globalisation refers to all those processes by which the people’s of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society” (Albrow, 1990:45).

Now this definition is still a valid one, his view on the world becoming homogenized is one that is shared by most and is hard to argue against. However it is missing some key notions that I think are very important in a definition that covers all basis.

Mainly, the definition given by Albrow is missing the “distinction between the phenomenon itself and the consequences” (Rantanen T, 2005 p 6), there is no mention of how events that happen miles away shape local events. It lists that processes occur, but does not specify on what the processes are.   

There is no perfect definition out there; however by joining the main ideas of a number of experts and authors you can construct a decent summary. For Giddens it is the intensification of social relations, Thompson is the interaction and dependency and for Robertson and Waters they focus on the consciousness in which people are aware of their social and cultural arrangements receding.

References

Rantanen, T 2005, ‘Theorizing media globalization’, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1–18.

Week 1

Globalisation and State Sovereignty

One of the greatest aspects that needs to be considered when discussing globalisation is the erosion of state sovereignty with the reconfiguration of states. Globalisation is seen as the process in which the world becomes a global society, but this ultimately means a ‘border-less’ world.

Stephen Kobrin brings up the fact that “a critical issue raised by globalisation is the lack of meaning of geographical rooted jurisdictions when markets are constructed in electronic space. (Nederveen, p4 2004)”

This is not to argue that Microsoft or Goldman Sachs should be given seats at the UN General Assembly, but it does mean including representatives of such organizations in regional and global deliberations when they have the capacity to affect whether and how regional and global challenges are met. (Richard Haass)

However, crossing borders in the act of giving aid to countries that cannot help themselves is seen as both a good and bad thing. NATO’s Kosovo intervention saw a number of governments break the state sovereignty of Kosovo to prevent any further genocides and ethnic cleansings. This was controversial due to the bombings on state owned factories seen as a way for a free market-based reconstruction by wealthy foreign powers.

On the other hand during the Rwanda Genocide when the UN chose to stand idly by and not intervene, they were criticized over letting the slaughter of thousands happen under their watch.    

NATO bombing of Kosovo

References

Haass R, Feb 2006,  Taipeitimes: State sovereignty must be altered in globalized era, np

Nederveen Pieterse, J 2004, ‘Globalisation: consensus and contreversies’. Globalisation and culture: global mélange 2004, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Lanman, Md, p 4

Intro

My name is Michael Flynn and i’m in 2nd year Media and Comms at Deakin Uni. Writing a blog regarding globalisation, different concepts and my own view points on each matter. Hope you enjoy! In short i am the straw that broke the camels back, the curiousity that killed the cat, the big fish in a small pond and the bull in a china shop. So holler if you’re down for some awesomeness