Would you like some culture with that?

Electronic Colonial Theory is definitely interesting, but before I talk about the theory, I have to get something off my chest that really annoyed me in the reading. Maori tribes are from New Zealand, and New Zealand only. Aboriginals are from Australia. There is a BIG difference between them, and I think it was a pretty big oversight to print that the Maori are from both Australia AND New Zealand. Apart from that I liked the reading. I thought it was interesting and had some merit to it. Western media is definitely the ruling media world wide. Especially media from the U.S. The Western culture is being shown around the world and is influencing other cultures in their thinking and behavior. Even in other western nations, American media influences language, clothes and thinking. Many people complain about the 'Americanization' that is happening. They're usually the older generations who aren't as interested in some of the newer media products, and who are therefore not watching/listening/reading them and not being influenced. But it is taking over. People like what they see, they are convinced that it's 'cool', and they're influenced. It's like advertising for culture.

It's emphasized by the world system theory. The core nations have the means to produce media products that the semi-peripheral and especially the peripheral nations don't. The two peripheral groups of nations are in those groups because they lack the economic and social power that the core nations have, and therefore cannot rival the core nations with their own media products. Even other core nations cannot rival the bigger nations. Australia has a media industry, and produces some really good stuff. I mean, is 'The Castle' not the most Australian film ever? And 'Getting Square'- so funny!




But who outside of Australia has seen these films? Even one of the most successful television shows, 'Kath and Kim', is being remade as an American version for U.S. audiences. To be honest, these shows show stereotypical Australian characters, which is why Australians think they're funny. But the 'bogan' culture is probably not the kind of culture we want to encourage in other nations. However, the amount of Australian content shown and played in Australia is nothing compared to that of American content. Financially, it is sometimes more cost effective for television channels to buy a show from America they know will be a hit, than to spend a fortune producing their own show when it may fail. For our relatively small industry, it's not always worth the risk. Even our movie stars are only movie stars because they've been successful in Hollywood. They help to finance the American film industry, because that's where the money and success is. There are just not as many opportunities in Australia in the media as there are here, and there won't be as long as American media is so successful. So we buy more American media and are influenced further by American culture. Though looking at 'Kath and Kim', maybe this isn't such a bad thing.

Photo 1: The Castle (and yes, that is Eric Bana).
Photo 2: Kath and Kim