The Relationship, Tension and Interaction between Cultural Imperialism and Contra-Flow in Contemporary Media Culture

doi:10.4236/ajc.2013.14006

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Advances in Journalism and Communication

2013. Vol.1, No.4, 50-53

Published Online December 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ajc) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajc.2013.14006

Open Access

The Relationship, Tension and Interaction between Cultural

Imperialism and Contra-Flow in Contemporary Media Culture

Yue Lu

Institute of Communications Studies, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

Email: cs12yl@l eeds.ac.uk, [email protected]

Received November 2nd, 2013; revised December 4th, 2013; accepted December 13th, 2013

License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original

and by SCIRP as a guardian.

This study discusses the interaction between cultural imperialism and contra flow in the context of con-

temporary media culture, mainly looking at the perspective of visual media such as television and movie

other than print media. It talks about the relationship between cultural imperialism and dominant flow in

global cultural industries. It also explores the relationship between dominant flow and contra-flow and

how they influence and challenge each other. Although the wide use of satellite and cable television as

well as the increasing use of online communication has enabled the flows of international culture in a

multi-national, multi-media and multi-directional movement instead of a one-way model—from the West

to the rest of the world, the market share of non-western media content products is still small compared to

that of the western media content products. And most globally popular cultural genres are still from the

West. Whilst contra-flow may somehow challenge the dominant position of the West in global cultural

industries, it is still short of the power to reverse such situation.

Keywords: Cultural Imperialism; Contra-Flow; Dominant Flow; Media

Introduction

In the 1970s and early 1980s, when the term “cultural impe-

realism” was at its most popular stage, many scholars started to

study the relationship between cultural imperialism and the

flows of global culture. Debates have been very fierce since

that time, as some contend that cultural imperialism has played

a role in terms of the Western domination in international cul-

tural flows, whereas others react against the cultural imperial-

ism thesis and prefer to the term “globalization” (Hesmond-

halgh, 2007). Advocates for the term “globalization” like Gid-

dens and Robertson argue that Western society’s domination in

global cultural flows is more of a byproduct of globalization

rather than an outcome generated by cultural imperialism.

However, the proliferation of Western culture, with the USA at

its core, is more than mere accident (Galeota, 2004). There

must be a hand behind the popularization of Western products

across the world. It is likely that cultural imperialism is that

hidden hand.

As time goes on, another force called “contra-flow” comes

into play. The advent of it challenges the predominate position

of the West concerning the flows of international culture. The

flows of global culture are no longer merely from the West to

the rest, but a two way movement. As what the UNESCO

World Culture Report presented in the late 1990s, “media glob-

alization has triggered possibilities of other models based on

different cultural, institutional, and historical backgrounds…

such alternatives are likely to multiply in the era of globaliza-

tion, in spite of appearances, which may paradoxically witness

greater diversity than uniformity” (UNESCO, 1998: p. 23). My

aim in this essay is to outline a frame of global cultural flows so

as to examine the relationship, tension and interaction between

cultural imperialism and contra-flow at a phenomenal level

other than a theoretical one.

My concentration is on the dominant flow and contra-flow of

international culture by looking at the perspective of media,

mainly television and movie instead of print media such as

newspaper and magazine. The essay will discuss the term

“dominant flow” on the basis of cultural imperialism in the first

place. It then goes on to explore the term “contra-flow” and the

relationship between it and dominant flow. While contra-flow

may, in a way, challenge the dominant position of the West in

global cultural industries, it is still short of the power to reverse

such domination.

Background

Since the end of the Second World War, the flow of global

culture has become a focus in the studies of international com-

munication. Normally, two factors have played an important

role in current international cultural industries; they are domi-

nant flow and contra-flow. Generally speaking, dominant flow

refers to the domination of the West, led by the US, in global

cultural industries, whereas contra-flow represents the role of

the non-Western society concerning the circulation of interna-

tional culture. Since these two flows are of great significance in

the development of nowadays global cultural market, many

scholars start to study the relationship between them. What I

Y. LU

argue in this essay is that the relationship between dominant

flow and contra-flow is complicated. The spread of dominant

flow contributes to the development of contra-flow, and contra-

flow in turns, challenges the power of dominant flow. However,

contra-flow is still lack of the ability to reverse such power. By

studying the relationship between dominant flow and contra-

flow, we can somehow understand the relationship between

cultural imperialism and contra-flow as well. Since dominant

flow is an outcome generated by the spread of cultural imperi-

alism, it would be fair to say that the relationship between cul-

tural imperialism and contra-flow is similar to the relationship

between dominant flow and contra-flow. That is to say, cultural

imperialism, in a sense, triggers the development of contra-

flow, and when contra-flow becomes stronger, it becomes

threatening the status of cultural imperialism. But this threat is

not powerful enough to have a significant influence on stopping

cultural imperialism to occur around the world.

Because the dissemination of culture is largely based on the

development of media, this essay will explore the relationship

between dominant flow and contra-flow from the perspective of

media, principally visual media such as television and movie,

since they attach great significance to the circulation of interna-

tional cultural products, and since they have a much larger au-

dience base than print media such as newspaper and magazine.

Let us first start with the term “dominant flow” and its connec-

tion with cultural imperialism in a more specific way.

Dominant Flow

The US-led Western media which are global in their reach

and influence (Boyd-Barrett, 2006; Thussu, 2006) are what

people always termed as “dominant media flow”. Owing to the

economic and political power of the United States, its media

“are now available across the globe, if not in English then in

dubbed or indigenized versions” (Thussu, 2007: p. 12). The

only media genre with a global popularity that is not emanated

from the US-led West is Japanese animation. “From news and

current affairs (CNN, Discovery) through youth programming

(MTV), children’s television (Disney), feature film (Holly-

wood), sport (ESPN) to the Internet (Google), the United States

is the global behemoth” (Thussu, 2007: p. 12). Of such great

power in terms of disseminating international culture , dominant

flow has become a focus among scholars in communication

studies. People begin to wonder: how did dominant flow come

into being? This question triggers many issues such as the

power of capitalist economy, the role of political power and the

impact of symbolic form and content in deciding developments

in the cultural industries (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). I attribute the

answer for this question to the term “cultural imperialism”.

Cultural Imperialism and Its Connection with

Dominant Flow in Global Culture Industries

The term “cultural imperialism” does not have a particularly

long history (Tomlinsom, 2002: p. 2). It emerged just in the

1960s but thereafter, it has been a focus of research among

scholars, largely communication studies. Definitions of cultural

imperialism are of various versions. It may refer to the way that

“the cultures of less developed countries have been affected by

flows of cultural texts, forms and technologies associated with

the West” (Hesmondhalgh, 2007: p. 214). It may also refer to

the conquest of one country by a more powerful one without

the involvement of economic exploitation and military force. In

his book Communication and Cultural Domination, Schiller

defines cultural imperialism as “the sum of the processes by

which a society is brought into the modern world system and

how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and

sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond

to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating

center of the system” (Schiller, 1976: p. 9). Therefore, cultural

imperialism is much more complicated than a mere consump-

tion of Western commodities; it involves in “the imposition of

Western cultural products on the non-West, the potentially

homogenizing effects of Western culture as it spread across the

world and the destruction of indigenous traditions by such cul-

tural flows” (Sreberny, 1997: p. 49).

According to UNESCO’s 2005 report on International Flows

of Selected Goods and Services, the value of the cultural Indus-

tries in the world was 1.3 trillion dollars and was expanding at a

rapid rate. Merely in the duration of 1994 to 2002, global trade

in cultural products grew from 38 billion to 60 billion dollars.

(UNESCO, 2005a) Being aware of the power of culture and the

profit behind it, many nations have quickly embraced the thesis

of cultural imperialism and continued to utilize it as an instru-

ment to control the global cultural industries. Among these

nations, the USA is the most eminent one. Desire for access to

foreign markets (Galeota, 2004) and ambition to enlarge the

influence of the America across the globe have become the

motivation behind American cultural imperialism. Indeed, the

active role of the USA government is a very important factor

concerning its domination in global cultural industries and the

promotion of American culture abroad. In international forums,

for instance, such as UNESCO since the end of the Second

World War, delegates from the America spare no effort under-

lining the importance of a free flow of information and enter-

tainment across the world, which to a large degree, facilitates

the spread of American culture across the world (Schiller,

1998). In addition, the US government has been very active in

establishing its media market since the end of the Second

World War. Its mature media market has benefited the USA’s

control in global cultural industries in a long term, allowing it

to reduce costs at home and seek foreign markets as sources of

further profit (Hesmondhalgh, 2007). Meanwhile, it also spends

considerable amount of funds on the construction of communi-

cation infrastructures such as satellites. These are all evidences

that prove the “cultural imperialism” thesis; they consolidate

the notion that the dominant flow in global cultural industries is

more of a result of cultural imperialism which pushed by the

USA rather than merely a byproduct of globalization. In short,

the spread of cultural imperialism leads to the emergence of

dominant flow.

Contra-Flow and Its Relationship with

Dominant Flow

“In parallel with the globalization of the Western culture,

new transnational networks have emerged. These new net-

works, emanating from such Southern urban creative hubs as

Cairo, Hong Kong and Mumbai, represent what could be called

contra-flow” (Thussu, 2007: p. 23). In Thussu’s book Media on

the Move: Global Flow and Contra-flow (2007), Kavoori de-

fines “contra-flow” as: “the semantic and imaginative referents

for the institutional, cultural and political matrix of a world

framed by processes of global cultural power and local negotia-

tion: a world experienced through the identity politics of na-

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Y. LU

tions, individuals and cultures and negotiated through contesta-

tions of locality, nationality and global citizenship” (49). Thus,

“contra-flow” is about the movement of cultures from one place

to another, like a two way traffic-lane, where individuals are

said to live “between cultures” (Thussu, 2007). Differs from

“dominant flow”, “contra-flow” derives from the less powerful

regions of the world, or to say, the peripheries of global media

industries. “Contra-flow” has emerged in that global mass me-

dia programming is reversing the dominant (Western) direction;

flows of global culture are no longer from the West to the rest

but a two-way movement. (Kavoori, 2007) The development of

Indian movie industry (popularly referred to as Bollywood), the

spread of Latin American telenovel (always referred to as soap

opera), the rise of East Asian “Wave” (often represented by

South Korean) and the expansion of CCTV-9 of China are all

examples of contra-flow. The following paragraphs will use

some of these contra-flows as examples to illustrate the rela-

tionship between contra-flow and dominant flow in specific.

There is often a misunderstanding in terms of the relationship

between dominant flow and contra-flow as some maintain that

the existence of dominant flow largely smother the possibility

for contra-flow to grow. Nevertheless, this notion is too simple

to depict the whole picture behind dominant flow and contra-

flow. The relationship between these two flows involves in a

much more complex way. The globalization of Western or

westernized media flows across the world, in a way, inspires

the development of contra-flow, and as contra-flow becomes

stronger, it begins to challenge the dominant position of the

West in global industries but so far it cannot reverse such domi-

nation as imbalance between the dominant and contra media

flow in the world is still manifest.

Whilst the globalization of Western media has increased

Western culture’s influence, it also contributes to the develop-

ment of contra-flow. The flow of western media products

across the globe, exemplified by the proliferation of the Amer-

ican movie and television exports, has inspired the development

of non-Western media organizations, opening up new opportu-

nity for the flow of media content across the world. As many

US-led Western media conglomerates have successfully local-

ized their content to make their media products globally popu-

lar, media organizations from the non-Western society have

benefited from this process. Some of these media organizations

have smartly learned from the successful experience of those

Western media conglomerates, and then skillfully applied to

their own media products so as to make them go globally.

Moreover, ‘the globalization of Western or Western inspired

media has also contributed to the creation of professional ca-

reers in media and cultural industries by stimulating the forma-

tion of important global hubs for creative industries (Thussu,

2007: p. 13). In a sense, dominant flow spurs the emergence of

contra-flow.

As contra-flow becomes stronger, it somehow challenges the

power of dominant flow. It is no doubt that the traffic of global

media nowadays is not just one way—from the West to the

rest—but a two way movement. Over the last decade, the world

has witnessed an increasing growth of non-Western media con-

tent originating from creative hubs like Hong Kong, Cairo and

Mumbai (Banerjee, 2002). The access of digital technology,

satellite and broadcasting networks and the physical movement

of people around the world have contributed to the growing

flow of media content from the non-Western society to the

Western society (Thussu, 2007). Non-Western nations such as

India, Japan, South Korean and Brazil have become more and

more crucial in terms of the circulation of international culture.

From Latin America telenovela and Indian movie industry to

regional broadcasting like the mandarin language Phoenix

channel and the 24/7 news network Al-Jazeera, contra-flow has

become an indispensable factor in distributing global culture.

One key instance of contra-flow is the Latin America teleno-

vela. Since the late 1970s, Latin American telenovelas have

been exported to the America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the

Middle East. “Their worldwide success suggests that they are

no longer a uniquely Latin American phenomenon but a major

global commercial force with extraordinary social and cultural

importance” (Rego & Pastina, 2007: p. 100). Leading by Brazil

and Mexico, this transnational telenovelas has been produced

by many Latin American nations such as Venezuelan and Co-

lombian, and has been widely exported to the rest of the world.

By 2005, as Thussu quoted Martinez (2005) in his book Media

on the Move, “the telenovela had developed into a 2 billion

dollars industry, of which 341 million dollars was earned out-

side the region, being broadcasted in 50 languages and reaching

over 100 countries from Latin America to Europe, Asia, Africa

and the Arab world” (2007: p. 25). Merely Brazilian teleno-

velas have been exported to more than 130 countries across the

world. In 2005 alone, over 30 Brazilian telenovelas were aired

in more than 20 nations around the world, programming more

than 10,000 hours. The same year, the number of subscribers of

the Brazilian TV Globo reached almost 2 million internation-

ally. The presence of Latin American telenovela, challenges the

conventional West-to-non-West cultural and media flow. It also

challenges the hegemony of Hollywood’s cultural exports since

Latin American telenovela has a strong local cultural root

(Rego & Pastina, 2007).

Another key example of contra-flow is the Indian movie in-

dustry as always referred to Bollywood. “Given its size and

diverse social and cultural antecedents, India is among the few

non-Western countries to have made their presence felt in the

global cultural market” (Thussu, 2007: p. 26). The increasing

international visibility of India is largely dependent on its

movie industry—the Bollywood. Benefited from the develop-

ment of digital technology and expansion of television, the

movie industry of India has witnessed a leap since the early

2000s, with numerous Indian movies are now shown regular

across the world. Each year, more than one billion more people

buy tickets for Indian movies than for Hollywood movies, and

the quantity of movie produced by India every year has also

transcended the Hollywood’s. Currently, Indian movies are

shown in more than 70 nations across the world. In spite of

their popularity in the Arab world and central Southeast Asia,

Indian movies have also reached to the Western society, for

example, Dil Se (1998) was among the top ten box offices in

Britain in 1998 and Taal (1999) was among the top twenty in

the United States (Govil, 2007). From 1989 to 1999, Indian

movie exports saw a five-fold growth: the exports of Indian

movies increased from 20 million dollars in the early 1990s to

100 million dollars by the end of the 1990s. “In 2000, Bolly-

wood held a celebration of its own at International Indian Film

Awards ceremony at London’s Millennium Dome with the

show broadcasted lively to over 120 countries” (Govil, 2007: p.

85). The same year, Missin Karshmir (2000), became the first

Indian movie to release in New York’s Times Square after

Sony obtained the overseas rights of it. In 2002, Lagaan (2001)

was nominated among the Best Non-English movies in 2002

Open Access

Y. LU

Open Access 53

Academy Awards in the America. In 2003, the word “Bolly-

wood” was officially listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.

All of these are proofs that Bollywood has risen as an interna-

tional cultural force.

Nevertheless, neither Latin American telenovela nor Bolly-

wood is a clear example of a non-Western cultural product

becoming a global commodity, and the growing trend of con-

tra-flow in recent years may give “a false impression that the

world communication has become more diverse and democ-

ratic” (Thussu, 2007: p. 27). The revenues of non-Western me-

dia corporations are still small compared to those from the West.

According to the US government’s Bureau of Economic Ana-

lysis, US revenues of film and television have kept a stable

growth from 2.5 billion to 10.4 billion dollars from 1992 to

2004. In film industry, US domination is the most manifest.

Hollywood movies are shown in over 150 nations across the

world and are predominant in terms of market share. Take the

2004 European market as an example. In Europe, “nearly 72

percent of movies shown in 2004 were from Hollywood, over

25 percent were European, and just over 2 percent of market

share belonged to the rest of the world” (Thussu, 2007: p. 19).

None of the Latin American telenovelas and the Bollywood

movies can reach the same impact of US television series and

movies. In addition, dominant flow itself is becoming stronger

as well. The top entertainment companies are still from the

United States, for instance, Walt Disney, Time Warner and

News Corporation. The world’s most influential television net-

work is still America based such as CNN and Discovery Chan-

nel. Therefore, contra-flows from non-Western nations are still

unlikely to have a significant influence on the US-led West

hegemony of global cultural industries, or to say, cultural impe-

rialism.

Conclusion

Flows have been increasingly significant in current global

society as Manuel Castells has argued in his book The Rise of

the Network Society that our contemporary life is dominated

and constructed by flows. “They are not just one element of the

social organization but the expression of processes dominating

our economic, political and symbolic life” (Castells, 2000: p.

442). Two flows play a significant role in nowadays global

cultural industries. One is the dominant flow, emanating mainly

from the West; the other is the contra-flow, originating from the

Third World. Decades ago, with the rise of cultural imperial-

ism, dominant flow almost controlled the whole global cultural

industries. The only non-Western cultural product with a global

popularity was the Japanese animation. As times go on, con-

tra-flow has gradually become a force that changes the land-

scape in terms of the circulation of contemporary global culture.

The advent of contra-flow, with the help of the popularization

of satellite and cable television and the increasing use of online

communication, has enabled the flows of international culture

in a multi-national, multi-media and multi-directional move-

ment instead of a one-way model—from the West to the rest of

the world. Non-western media content like the Latin American

telenovela and Bollywood movie is now spreading across dif-

ferent continents, bestowing audiences with opportunities to

taste different cultures and challenging the dominant position of

the West in global cultural industries. However, the growing

trend of contra-flow in recent years is not an indication that the

world communication has become more diversified. Compared

with the West-oriented media organizations, market share of

non-Western media ones is still small and most globally popu-

lar cultural genres are still from the West. Dominant flow is still

prevailing in its relationship with contra-flow and this trend is

very likely to be going on in the fut u re .

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