First reader response

According to Kraidy in "Globalization of Culture Through the Media" (2002), there is a debate on the amount of impact of mass media on cultural imperialism and that on globalization. Mass media has played a huge role in globalization and he states that many believe globalization has took over cultural imperalism as the central idea today. He concludes at the end of his article that though mass media did not initiate the hybridization process, it did serve as a strong catalyst.

In my reader response I would like to pull out music culture as the focus of my discussion .Firstly, I think that the effects of cultural imperialism are still observable. Many pop songs around the world now, for example korean-pop, thai-pop or even mandopop incorporates western pop elements and the instruments used are mostly western instruments.

Having said that, I do agree with the majority that globalization is the main concept today because firstly, the other languages pop songs are not fully westernized as they still incorporate a lot of their own culture's style. Secondly, these different languages' pop songs managed to get out of their own country and not just within their "own people" because of globalization through the enormous help of media. One visible trend in the world now is Korean-pop (aka Kpop). We can see the effect of globalization here through the help of media clearly because even though korean is not a language that majority of the world understands, its music still managed to become a big hit worldwide. Some significant evidences would be Psy topping the "Most Viewed Video" in the Youtube chart even till today, Girls' Generation being the first korean artiste to win Youtube's "Video of the Year" 2013, and EXO being nominated in the EMA (European Music Awards) for Worldwide Act. Kpop is not the only form of music that is appreciated around the world. K-indies, K-rock and even traditional Korean music are being accepted and appreciated by non-Koreans.

Overall, though this article was quite difficult to read because of its vocabulary used and its use of different view points, I learnt more about the effects of mass media globalization and learnt about the idea of cultural imperalism which I never knew before. I think it is an article that is worth reading if one is interested in media and globalization as it portrays the different viewpoints in a non-biased manner.

400 words including summary

blogged @ 7:22 PM