The Death of Cultural Imperialism — and Power Too

A Critical Analysis of American Prestige Press Representations of the Hegemony of English

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12898516
AutoresChristof Demont‐heinrich (0000-0003-0374-8252, University of Denver, autor de correspondencia)
Año2008
Volumen70
Número5
Páginas378-394
Fecha de publicación2008-08-22
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaInternational Communication Gazette (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1748-0485 • E-ISSN: 1748-0493
EditorialSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1748048508094289
OpenAlexW2005104564
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas4
Referencias citadas20

A condensed chapter from a recently completed dissertation, this article critically examines selected texts taken from a pool of 275 accounts of the global rise of English published from 1991 to 2003 in five American-owned prestige press publications — the Los Angeles Times, the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post. In particular, it interrogates representations that declare the death of cultural imperialism. The article deconstructs and problematizes these representations along a number of theoretical and analytical lines. The author notes, and challenges, a powerful propensity toward conceiving globalization through the lens of cultural consumption, contending that to focus on cultural consumption and creative appropriation, and to loosely use the catchphrase `cultural flow', is to lose sight of the specific, and considerable, cultural production and distribution inequities that characterize the contemporary global social order. The author also challenges a valorization of individual agency in the texts, as well as a bottom-up view of globalization that implies the disintegration of global power differentials

Agency (philosophy · Appropriation · Consumption (sociology · Cultural appropriation · Cultural homogenization · Cultural imperialism · Epistemology · Globalization · Media studies · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Prestige · Social science · Sociology · Anthropology · Cultural Identity and Representation · Cultural Studies · Globalization and Cultural Identity · Law · Philippine History and Culture