Question 10

10) Using a video or image you find online, apply three critical texts we read during the semester (each at least two weeks apart), and discuss how they relate to and build on one another, giving us different but related perspectives on critical media and cultural studies (250-300 words).



It is no surprise to anyone to hear that there are McDonalds restaurants all over the world. In fact, it has such an international presence that one could use “globalization” and “McDonaldization” interchangeably. McDonalds helps spread “America.” For example, in this Egyptian McDonalds commercial, the song lyrics are in English and the names of the McDonalds sandwiches are still in English. You couldn’t even fully understand the commercial unless you spoke English, because you wouldn’t understand how the song connected to the video if you didn’t.

Canada is one of the leaders in the struggle against Americanization, considering that they have only an “imagined community,” where the single unifying factor is the reliance on American media. Bodroghkozy states, “If, after a century of attempts to carve out a space of cultural sovereignty, the bulk of Canadian citizens still prefer to engage with high "jpm" American dreams rather than sedate northern greyness for their entertainment, is it possible to speak of a "Canadian popular culture?" Or is that term the ultimate oxymoron? Has American cultural imperialism so colonized Canadians’ collective imagination that we no longer have (if we ever had) the narrational tools to conceive of a uniquely Canadian community? In a postmodern landscape characterized by heterogeneity multiple and fluid identities, blurred boundaries, and the globalization of culture, is it useful even to ask such questions about specific national configurations?” (As Canadian As Possible by Aniko Bodroghkozy, Week 2) This is one example of Americanization and it having negative repercussions.

American media permeates to places all over the world, including commercials for American companies. Like the Cosby Show, McDonalds and its’ commercials have traveled to countries all over the world. In discussing the globalization of the Cosby Show Havens says, “Matters of race have figured prominently in discussions of international media flows and consumption practices. Race is seen as a transnational identity that can bind together audiences across national lines. Given ‘the dual tendency toward globalization and localization of image spaces’ (Robins, 1989: 156) in international television, homogeneous national identities are increasingly ineffective for drawing audiences. Instead, audiences coalesce around various transnational identities such as gender, ethnicity and race.” (‘The Biggest Show in the World’: Race and the Global Popularity of The Cosby Show by Timothy Havens, Week 8) The export of American television to other countries is a prime example of globalization, or in this case, what manly Europeans would call “Americanization.” Specifically the exportation of The Cosby Show shows the “American dream” is lived out in this “classic American family,” but they’re Black. This shows that minorities can equally partake in being stereotypical “American.” The exploration of these sitcoms imperializes other countries through the ideals that they present. The same can be said for McDonalds. Considering that McDonalds is an American company, people over seas can enjoy a small part of the “American Dream” by eating McDonalds.

Oppositional Politics and the Internet by Kahn and Kellner also discusses globalization, but in regards to the Internet and the spread of ideas through that medium. Americanism was better facilitated with the invention of the Internet, allowing American ideas to flow at a faster rate. McDonalds even has a website, though their product has nothing to do with the Internet. On their website there are obviously going to be promotions that are directly as such, but McDonalds also has a function in which you can find a McDonalds near you by imputing your zip code, further allowing McDonalds to manifest by making it possible to find a McDonalds where ever you are. The article says, “Like Hardt and Negri, we see globalization as a complex process that involves a multidimensional mixture of expansions of the global economy and capitalist market system, new technologies and media, expanded judicial and legal modes of governance, and emergent modes of power, sovereignty, and resistance.” (Kahn and Kellner – “Oppositional Politics and the Internet”, Week 12) From this we can see that globalization has many good points besides the hypodermic needle injection of American way of life.