The Impact of Global Communication on the Dominican Republic - Research Paper Example

An Analysis of the Impact of Global Communication on Dominican Republic: ElectronicColonialism Theory and World Systems Theory Introduction After the 9/11 attack the complacency of numerous countries that started after the Cold War and the collapse of communism abruptly ended, foretelling the emergence of a new adversary—global terrorism. Alongside this emerging adversary surfaced new conflicts and a considerable growth in global media and communication. The scale and role of global media changed radically. Every major global multimedia corporation is based in Japan, Europe, and the United States. Many of the cultural issues involved stem from countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America (McPhail 19-22). Throughout this essay, world-system and electronic colonialism theories are used to analyze the impact of global media and communication on contemporary Dominican Republic. Electronic colonialism theory explores the cultural factors shaping people’s behaviors and outlooks, while world systems theory tries to analyze and classify the various regions or countries into three categories—core, semi-periphery, and periphery. There is a major and significant connection between world system theory and electronic colonialism. Electronic colonialism theory asserts that when transmitted the media bring with them an array of norms and ideals. These norms are cultural, social, economic, and at times religious and political. They bring with them the English language in the form of the Internet, movies, or music (McPhail 18). World system theory expands electronic colonialism theory by classifying the countries of the world into three groups; it afterward elaborates how the core group tries to control the two inferior groups. Several core countries are interested in the effect and assimilation of electronic colonialism theory as well (Grosfoguel & Cervantes-Rodriguez 172). Australia, Israel, Great Britain, France, and Canada are major core countries that persistently express anxiety over the Americanization of their local consumption pattern and cultural industries. They understood that with every added commercial media channel, there will be greater resources used for incorporated program or lost royalties reducing even more resources for local media productions (McPhail 23). Countries in the lower groups, primarily the semi-periphery and periphery, have numerous reasons to be interested in the repercussions of electronic colonialism theory. Dependency theory, when talking about changes in attitudes caused by recurrent contacts with core industries, is an illustration of electronic colonialism theory. Ever since the 1980s, for instance, there has been a continuous flow of studies from Latin America on the fundamental effect, largely detrimental, of interactions with core countries, especially the U.S. (Dunn 41). Even though many studies were unable to use or recognize either world systems or electronic colonialism theories as being applicable, with hindsight both theories have much to give with regard to the organization and explanation of Latin American theory and practice. Using relevant features of both theories will considerably improve future studies in global communication. According to McPhail (2011), electronic colonialism theory, with is cultural point of view, and world systems theory, with an economic perspective, are greatly appropriate for exploring together the international operations of global cultural industries. Electronic Colonialism Theory Electronic colonialism refers to the dependency of less developed societies on highly industrialized countries brought about and instituted by the introduction of communication equipment and foreign-manufactured equipment, alongside specialists and associated information procedures, which determine a collection of foreign expectations, standards, and ideals that, to differing extents, modify local cultures, beliefs, practices, languages, and the process of socialization itself (Hills 62). The question of how much introduced information or ideas the recipient remember is crucial. The apprehension is that this newly introduced idea, often supporting the English language, will bring about the modification, rejection, dislocation, or disregard for indigenous traditions, heritage, or local wisdom. Nowadays less developed societies are concerned about electronic colonialism in so far as they worried about mercantile colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries. While mercantile colonialism tried to seize power over laborers and cheap labor, electronic colonialism aims to command and manipulate the psyche. It seeks to influence consumer behavior, ways of life, values, preferences, aspirations, and attitudes (McPhail 19). As the people of peripheral countries, like the Dominican Republic, are ever more seen through the lens of consumption, determining and orienting their consumption patterns, habits, and preferences becomes more and more crucial to multinational companies. Electronic colonialism theory identifies the potential permanent impact of exposure to foreign media information and images, and how these media messages expand and strengthen the power and influence of transnational media. Not unexpectedly, the current growth of nationalism in numerous regions of the globe tries to resist these neo-colonialist outcomes (Perera 85). Numerous of these newer societies are previous colonies of European colonizers. Their objective is to sustain cultural, economic, and political ownership of their own national heritage and history. It is within such cultural concerns that practitioners of telecommunications, communication, cultural research, and journalism find theoretical and research areas (Perera 85-87). For instance, matters that involve both industrialized and poorer countries are the conduct and purpose of the Internet, advertising firms, and global television networks. Through the different mass media, a culture identified, governed, and largely owned by powerful Western nations and, particularly, Americans penetrated every facet of the lives of the people of Dominican Republic. Literary works and politics were no longer distributed mainly among Afro-Caribbean themselves, but were more and more established by the culture industries (Dunn 29). Without a doubt, the Dominican Republic have been assimilated into global capitalism, as well as global media groups, and are ever more saturated by Western media and communication culture. According to Atkins (1998), this form of colonialism is embedded into the Dominican Republic more profoundly and more evidently partly due to the American involvement and ‘interest’ in this periphery, and partly because of the small population of the country. Culture is a representation of a society or a group and an outcome of outside forces through time. The culture of the Dominican Republic has been largely influenced by the United States, Africa, and Spain (Alarcon 57). Culture is a dialectical and permanent system, established by customs as well as by the persistent changes within a particular society. In the past the interaction of communities, groups, and individuals was the primary means of cultural dissemination; nevertheless, in modern society the electronic media also serves a major function in this mechanism. Through electronic media, preferences, social representations, and messages are transmitted locally and globally; hence it is a producer of culture and the carrier of a specific worldview (Alarcon 57-59). Electronic media is an important site of communication and transmission of values and information. The ideological and cultural messages of electronic media could be relatively powerful, depending on a variety of psychological and social aspects, but it is constantly present and it must be examined in terms of its effect on the public in general. In the Dominican Republic, electronic media has become an important component of the social processes by which the culture preserves itself in a continuous mechanism of creation and reproduction. Electronic media, due to its technological capacities, serves a major purpose in the collective consciousness and, thus, in the development of a national culture (Rockwell & Janus 118). Because some electronic media, like the television, do not need literate users or viewers it becomes the most popular form of local and global communication in the Dominican Republic, where almost half of the total population is uneducated (Alarcon 57). However, the established mass culture perpetuated and disseminated through electronic media is not an accurate manifestation of the masses’ culture, but it has become increasingly its embodiment, its vision. Cultural messages are present in every media program: in the advertisements, entertainment shows, and news (Atkins 88). Apparently, the cultural content differs depending on whether the programs are American movies and series, entertainment shows made in the Dominican Republic, or telenovelas created in Latin America. For business purposes the American media industry seeks to introduce images that appeal to long-established customs of majority of the population, mainly in the U.S. but also elsewhere. This is made possible because the cinematic power of American movies has held the attention of and fascinated audiences in Latin America for a long period of time (Dunn 60). Consequently, a preference of American media programs has arisen. Moreover, within the framework of the Dominican market, American media, in comparison to most rivals from Europe, offer a lighter, more visionary, and idealist form of content that the Dominican masses like better. American movies and series portray a world associated with the dominant American culture (Alarcon 64). For instance, Miami Vice is a cultural image of a hedonistic, consumerist society, with lots of music, entertainment, and sex. Such programs are very popular in the Dominican Republic for they embody power, money, and sexuality (Alarcon 64). Nevertheless, according to Rockwell and Janus (2003), ideals like sharing, unity, integrity, equality, justice, and community life are less highlighted in the American media. Some programs are more complicated, urbane, and refined than others, but generally what is perceived as the prevailing American ideology is still perpetuated in American TV shows and movies, through heroes or protagonists. Gitlin’s interpretation of this is informative (Alarcon 66): Television’s world is relentlessly upbeat, clean, and materialistic. Even more sweepingly, with few exceptions prime time gives us people preoccupied with personal ambition. If not utterly consumed by ambition and the fear of ending up as losers, these characters take both the ambition and the fear for granted. If not surrounded by middle-class arrays of consumer goods, they themselves are glamorous incarnations of desire. The happiness they long for is private, not public; they make few demands on society as a whole, and even when troubled they seem content with the existing institutional order. Personal ambition and consumerism are the driving forces in their lives. The yearning for material wealth, which is very entrenched in most Dominicans, is not an outcome entirely of the American media, but the content or messages transmitted by electronic media do diffuses these thoughts and visions and contribute much to their strength. The content of American media is unavoidably ethnocentric. This is because American media has been formed in a system which demands drawing the attention of a huge number of audiences in the United States. Hence, the way of life they endorse in a variety of ways unfamiliar to the foundation and growth of a Dominican national culture (Alarcon 67). These forms of media and communication serve a major function in the strengthening and propagation of the business philosophy that dominates the U.S. They depict the practices and traditions of a covetous, competitive social order that heightens cravings for material comfort and consumer products, and where in success is attained through forceful and at times fierce behavior. Social problems like challenges of urban living, violence, criminal activities, and social instability are portrayed, but they are seldom tied with the structure of the society (Dunn 94). There is almost no analytical view of the business ideology. Violence and criminal activities are interpreted as an outcome of individual disorders. As argued by Gallo, “In the kingdom of the hamburger the vegetarian does not speak out. He or she will perhaps discuss the style of cooking the meat, but no more than that” (Alarcon 67). In such forms of global communication even the democratization process is associated with consumerism and capitalism. Individuals who possess power over the media in the Dominican Republic contribute tremendously to the diffusion of these cultural aspects and hence also to the domination of the profit- or business-directed society, where in only wealth matters. The introduction of American media began at the advent of the 1950s, with the launching of the earliest Dominican network, Radio-Television Dominicana (Dunn 59). Most American shows were placed in prime time, and hence their impact on the culture and society of the Dominican Republic has been consequently even greater if it is estimated in the form of audience impact. Moreover, numerous programs that are indirectly imported are based on an imported framework that has been converted into local languages or contents (Dunn 59-62). World Systems Theory World systems theory presents the language and concepts for organizing global communication. Electronic colonialism theory is related to the behavior and responses in the semi-periphery and periphery societies. These subordinate societies comprise major export markets for multimedia companies. World systems theory argues that global economic growth occurs from a few core countries out to the semi-periphery and periphery zones. These three categories of nation-states have differing levels of interaction on social, capital, labor, media, cultural, political, and economic arenas (Grosfoguel & Cervantes-Rodriguez 171). The current world system adheres to the premise of economic determinism where in market processes dominate in order to establish the losers and winners whether they are nation-states, companies, or individuals. It is argued that the zones display disproportionate and imbalanced economic relations, with the core societies being the overriding and governing economic unit. The core countries have the control and power and are fundamentally the leading Western developed countries (Grosfoguel & Cervantes-Rodriguez 171-172). The semi-periphery and periphery countries are in an inferior status when transacting with core countries. Core countries wield power and influence to fulfill their interests and determine the level and nature of relationship with the two subordinate zones. Fundamental to these interactions is the acquisition of economic principles that assist modernization. Several of these principles are communicated through advertising and the content of the mass media exports created by Western core nations. Also fundamental to the interactions among the zones is a system of mass communication that enables the transmission of media contents to form either a widely rooted popular culture for a mass audience (McPhail 24-25). Periphery countries, like the Dominican Republic, take part on core-oriented media and economic practices. They seek to imitate core ideals in order to become a core society in time. If the cultural, social, and economic ideals of core countries are not embraced and assimilated by the inferior zones, then the needed outlooks and perception to buy core-manufactured books, DVDs, movies, and CDs will not emerge. Consumer spending is absolutely needed in all zones (McPhail 25). In general, advertising in the Dominican Republic seems to influence the purchasing behavior of individuals with a low educational attainment more strongly. This seems to be a common trend in periphery societies, and at times it has considerable impacts. Advertising endorses consumer principle as a component of the collective consciousness. In the Dominican Republic, advertising extols the products owned by wealthy urbanites of core countries and praises the lifestyles of these core zones (Alarcon 71). A triple illusion in the process of advertising is continuously created so as to attract the imagination of the people for the benefit of the advertising firms and their customers. It portrays a romanticized urban lifestyle as the model to the dwellers in rural areas; the illusion of elite or core consumption is presented to the urban lower class and middle class; and the illusion of uniqueness and an illustration of core societies’ lifestyle is shown to everybody (Alarcon 71). In majority of advertisements, the same cultural patterns, with a certain extent of disparity, move from the metropolises of the U.S. to the mass media of the Dominican Republic (Dunn 44). The advertising agencies, global or Dominican, adhere to the same advertising pattern, which requires transforming cultural ideals into commodities and, thereby, dispossessing them of their true message. Every time the legends of the long-established Dominican traditions are used as a foundation by advertising agencies, they in fact work as a way toward a new acculturation (Rockwell & Janus 120). Evidence of this is advertisements derived from particular features of customary lifestyle in the Dominican Republic. These advertisements romanticize or sensationalize representations of popular culture, especially those associated with rural living, and rob these cultural representations of their actual importance by depicting a shallow, artificial, idealized representation of them (Dunn 105). The central message of advertising is that semi-periphery and periphery countries cannot prevent becoming a consumer society. Advertising not merely produces marketable goods but also plays a role in the creation of lifestyles. It forms specific culture of its own. Undoubtedly there is a powerful, persistent impact of electronic media on a degree more essential than that of everyday decisions, choices, and occurrences. The dominance of the business ideology is perpetuated through the everyday messages that function to justify and promote consumer society. This transformation does not take place overnight; instead, it is a complicated and extensive process, even though cultural transformations in the period of electronic media are faster than ever before (Alarcon 74). The obsession of Dominicans for the cultural ideals and lifestyles of core nations, as they are depicted by the electronic, may be viewed as common human ambition. This takes place in the core nations as well as in the semi-periphery and periphery zones. Nevertheless, there is a distinction. In semi-periphery and periphery nations, people imagine a scenic Third World. For the populace of periphery societies like the Dominican Republic, the vision of wealth or consumption is not only an easy break away from from their boredom. It is a break away from a way of life regarded greater or superior (Atkins 112). It embodies what they long to become. Unfortunately, only a few will be granted the comforts of consumption; most will gain only the comfort of recognition. Conclusions As shown in the discussion, the contemporary impact of global communication on nation-states, especially those classified as periphery, like the Dominican Republic, can be accurately understood through the perspective of world systems theory and electronic colonialism theory. Electronic colonialism theory demonstrates how imported or foreign-produced media or communication systems strengthen the dominant cultural and economic ideology, which is largely determined by core nation-states like the United States. This argument is demonstrated in the case of Dominican Republic where in imported American movies and TV shows effectively promote the business ideology of the core nation. This is substantiated by the world systems theory—imported media and communication are widely accepted in the Dominican Republic because of its aspiration to become one of the core countries in time, through emulation of the values of core nation-states shown in advertisements. Works Cited Alarcon, Antonio. Power and Television in Latin America: The Dominican Case. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1992. Print. Atkins, G. Pope. The Dominican Republic and the United States: From Imperialism to Transnationalism. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press, 1998. Print. Dunn, Hopeton. Globalization, Communications, and Caribbean Identity. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995. Print. Grosfoguel, Ramon & Ana Margarita Cervantes-Rodriguez. The Modern/Colonial Capitalist World-System in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Print. Hills, Jill. The Struggle for Control of Global Communication: The Formative Century. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Print. McPhail, Thomas. Global Communications : Theories, Stakeholders, and Trends. Oxford, UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2011. Print. Perera, Nihal. Society in Space: Colonialism, Nationalism and Post-Colonial Identity. Michigan: Westview Press, 1998. Print. Rockwell, Rick & Noreene Janus. Media Power in Central America. Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2003. Print. Read More