Summarize of Globalization of Culture Through the Media

  In Kraidy article (2002), he mentions about the western culture has impacted the globalization of culture over the world. The author also point out various debates between cultural imperialism and globalization as well as how the western countries influence the media and the developing countries. After that, he also discusses about the hybridization and he agrees with that the transnational mass media increase the hybridity that is present in the cultures over the world. Therefore, Kraidy has concluded the media could affect the "cohesion and fragmentation coexists" for globalization of culture, but not the "process of complete homogenization".

  After finish reading the article written by Kraidy (2002), the key idea that I am going to evaluate is the hybridization. I agree with the point of view of Kraidy that the transnational mass media increase the hybridity that is present in the cultures over the world. According to the article, the cultures have been contacted through in different ways, like western colonialism, migration, or media for a period of time. In the past, majority of the developing countries were colonized by the western counties, which was induced the western and local cultures were hybrid to form a mixed civilizations and cultural forms. Simultaneously, the technologies of the global media have formed transnational images that connect throughout the world. As a result, it was help to speed up the hybridization around the world. Other than media, education system is also one of the factors that help to speed up the hybridization of cultures. For example, during the colonial period, the education system of Singapore has been influenced by the British, which majorities of the Singaporean have been educated by English. As a result, learning English and local languages together were formed the hybrid product of mixed language which known as “Singlish”. As majorities of the Singaporean have been learned English since their childhood, eventually they would also influenced by the western cultures throughout their life.

  In conclusion, the global media may not be the only factors that influenced the cultural hybridity, there might have other factors made cultures over the globe hybrid as the article had stated there is lacked of prove to support  relationship between the media and hybridity due to the complicated of the issue.

Last edited on 13 Feb 2014