Michael (Quang Minh) Luu

Question: Critics of the global media giants claim that global media is increasingly homogenised.
Others, in contrast, argue that global media is thoroughly hybridised. Discuss the evidence for each of these positions with reference to an example, such as global news, hip hop, transnational film, television et

Answer:
Globalisation is the essential key to the ways in which the modern-day media world is operated and structured. Therefore, the two products of media globalisation, hybridity and homogeneity are some of the most commonly encountered terms exercised in the studies of communications and media studies in relation to globalisation. Hybridity can be defined as the diversification or conglomeration of different media contents and material. As opposed to hybridity, homogenisation in the media context is a representation of the assimilation or unification of the media culture. Globalisation is also the ultimate inducer as well as the prime enforcer of the embracement of multiculturalism and culture-mixing in the media community, allowing the media to become hybridised. However, globalisation also allows or creates the conditions for hegemonies to prevail in the media market, leading to the homogenisation of the media world. As a result of these opposing existences, the question over whether the media world has become more homogenised or thoroughly hybridised has been a major debate for scholars and researchers of media study. The hybridisation of global media represents the front line of resistance against the domination of western media hegemonies as it is essential that competition has to maintain and the global media giants be challenged in order for better quality and balance in the international media domain. Contra-flows, otherwise known as counter-flows, are the representative feature of hybridity. As defined by Daya Kishan Thussu (2010), Contra-flows are the fluctuations of cultural,social and ethnic notions reverberating from one place to near and far corners of the world under the negotiation through 'contestations of locality, nationality and global citizenship'.The hybridity of the global media environment employs 'glocalisation' as one of the primary instruments highlighting its characteristics. The concept of glocalisation is formed of the two terms 'localisation' and 'globalisation'. Glocalisation can be interpreted as the compromise or combination between global values and local qualities of certain products to make them adaptable to the local environment. As a typical of example of glocalisation in media practice, Hollywood film producers have in recent decades been casting actors of eastern backgrounds in their movies to make their cinematic products more relatable and engaging for eastern audiences. The deployment of this marketing/ film-making tactics has brought them great success, rallying great revenues, such as the 128 million dollars in the case of Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tigers, Hidden Dragons' (Karan, K 2010). Ang's movie has proven to be not only an example of the adaptation of eastern cultural elements into a western composition but also an eastern movie made familiar for western audience (Lagerkvist, 2009: 37). One of the main advantages to the impacts of glocalisation is that it has established 'affective links between their commodities and local communities' as Kraidy (2005:148) argues that 'traces of other cultures exist in every culture'. Furthermore, in light of the fact that glocalisation reconciles and resolve the problems of cultural clash by compromising the differences, it is also the promoter of multiculturalism. This is evident where some Hollywood-produced movies are released in DVDs with foreign subtitles to make them more comprehensible for foreign subscribers, with the language difference compromised. Another possible outcome of the process of hybridisation of culture is the

introduction of a new cultural form, also causing changes for the parties to the culture-mixing. Evidence of this could be found in Bollywood movies, where English is adopted and spoken alongside Hindi and brings birth to a new English-Hindi language. The 'Asianisation' of Hollywood as discussed by Rampal (2005:1) has proven it clear that Hollywood does not only influence but is also influenced by eastern media industries. For example, 'Slumdog Millionaire' and 'Bend It Like Beckham' are such products from Hollywood but have incorporated a great deal of materials existing in Bollywood or Indian culture. The relationship between globalisation and media hybridity is also a cause-effect one. The media world has become hybridised due to the overwhelming demand to understand and integrate intellectually among cultures across the the globe. Another major reason for the hybridisation of the media associated with globalisation is demand from various diaspora. Diaspora is the term referring to cultural branches originated from a certain cultural root but are not physically in contact with or reside within that culture (eg, the Vietnamese community in Australia). Diaspora audiences emerge the need to relate back to their native or original heritage but as the product of glocalisation themselves, Diaspora factions are influenced heavily by the physical environment in which they reside and hence may find it too overwhelming to confront such great cultural shocks. Globalmixing or hybridisation eases this great challenge and also make things more adaptable and friendly to these target audiences. Culture-mixing despite being portrayed above as the positive tool to achieve greater acknowledgement of multiculturalism, could however cause great confusion and the stereotyping of different cultures. This is one of the few disadvantages of hybridisation if not practised properly. Homogeneity in the media sense pertains to the process of conforming to the dominant media figures and the codification or uniformity under these global media hegemonies. Globalisation has allowed for popular cultures to prevail by facilitating the spread or commercialisation of these contents. As discussed by Rampal (2005), what makes Hollywood so dominant and influential as well as what encourages other media industries to subject themselves to the principles of 'hollywoodisation' is the popular features the Hollywood culture possesses such as the promotion of sex, violencebased films, course language and most significantly consumerism. Consumerism reflects the dominant or stereotypically popular lifestyle to which most subscribers to consumerism aspire. Consumerism has recently been heavily portrayed in global media and is the primary mechanism to enforce the course of homogeneity. This has been noticed in recent Bollywood practice as some Bollywood elements have been perceived as being absorbed into the multicultural marketing toolkit such that the soft power of Bollywood benefits Western corporate interests rather than the Indian industries(Schaefer and Karan 2010, Thusu 2010). Further evidence for the expansion of the popular culture in the media world involves marketing strategies in films such as product placement, the utilisation of popular music including rap and hip hop or the whitening of Bollywood faces. Osuri (2008) has described whitening as the act of conforming to the dominant and aspired-to western features. Bollywood here is utilised as the marketing instrument for 'economic and political interests abroad' from India (Schaefer and Karan 2010: 310). 'Glocalisation' is considered to be a very interesting concept because not only is it a feature of the opposing concept of hybridity but it also links this with homogeneity, the idea seemingly inverse to but actually significantly associated with the other. Glocalisation consists of taking into account different cultures and incorporate that into the global culture to create a new culture. This however in a way simultaneously promotes the idea of a dominating popular image or reigning hegemony. For example, the British TV Shows about teenage popular lifestyle is remade into an American version due to the popular character it has which leads to great reception in its home country.

Homogenisation is spotted to exist within hybridisation also in Bollywood itself as Bollywood is meant to be the symbol of resistance to western domination of the film industries, yet it is characterised by the dominant language of India, Hindi, which is not the only language in India. Here, the tendency to promote one dominant culture is again manifested. It can then be argued by some that Bollywood is slowing becoming a hegemony or a homogeniser itself. Homogenisation is often perceived from critical points of view as being destructive towards traditional values of local heritages and obstructive towards the progress of globalisation in the media, increasing greater inequality of media distribution. Homogenisation also reflects the old media system with a one-way direction of content distribution, which is very limited. Globalisation has opened up conditions and opportunities for the new media model to be introduced with media contents flowing multi-directionally, establishing the new concept of 'produsers'. Hybridisation characterises this new propensity of media distribution as it re-balances media powers. In conclusion, despite the fact that hybridity and homogeneity have numerous differences and opposing characteristics, these two concepts however both exist and constitute the character of the global media world. Moreover, they actually are also inter-connected especially through glocalisation and cultural-mixing and sometimes endorse one another. It is difficult to speculate on what directions the development of the global media landscape is undertaking but it is inarguable that these two elements will be following the international media into the future of a more globalised media environment.

Reference List:
Karan, K. & Schaefer, D.J. 2010, "Problematizing Chindia: Hybridity and Bollywoodization of popular Indian cinema in global film flows", Global Media and Communication, vol. 6, no. 3, pp. 309-316 Lagerkvist, J. (2009) Global Media for Global Citizenship in India and China, Peace Review 23: 3677 .Rampal, K. 2005, "Implications of North's Information 'Soft Power'",'Razn y palabra', no. 32 Osuri, G, 2008, beauty and the bollywood star: stories of skin colour and transnational circulations of whiteness, in Cultural Theory in Everyday Practice . eds. Nicole Anderson & Katrina Schlunke, , Melbourne, Vic, Oxford University Press. pp. 196-20 . Thussu, D. 2007, Media on the Move: Global flow and contra-flow ,New York: Routledge, p.5 Thussu, D.K. (2006) International Communication: Continuity and Change, 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press. Thussu, D.K. (2008) The Globalization of Bollywood: The Hype and the Hope, in A. Kavoori and A. Punathambekar (eds) Global Bollywood, pp. 97113. New York: New York University Press. Volkmer, I. (2003) The Global Network Society and the Global Public Sphere, Development 46(1): 916. Weber, R.P. (1990) Basic Content Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.