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Global Instantaneousness and Instant Globalism
--some observations on the significance of popular culture in developing countries--Publication Date:199203
Book title: MEDIA, CULTURE, AND EDUCATION IN JAPAN [A COLLECTION OF PAPERS]
Publisher : National Institute of Multimedia Education
This is the age of coating. Medical tablets are sugarcoated;book covers, wallpaper, and other durable paper products are plastic-coated; optical lenses are silicone-coated;many of the things around us--furniture, automobiles, and appliances--are paint-coated. Even the planet on which we live is coated! The earth at the start of the last quarter of the twentieth century took on a unique coating of its own--an "electronic coating." The earth's surface is now covered by innumerable, though invisible, electronic waves. To ascertain the existence of such waves just turn on the switch of a transistor radio. You will hear sounds originating from many parts of the world, twenty-four hours a day, without intermission.
Radio waves are active all the time, covering the earth, and the transistor radio could be viewed as a Geiger counter for such radio activity.
The electronic coating began when Marconi succeeded in his trans-Atlantic wireless communication in 1901; the invention of the vacuum tube followed, and then came the inauguration of broadcasting in 1920 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In the initial stage, the coating was local, covering only a small geographical segment; as the number of broadcasting stations increased, a wider coating, the "network" evolved, first in the United States. By the early 1930s, most of the countries in Europe and Japan had begun to have national radio broadcasting coverage. The coating had reached a national level, and the same coverage was achieved in most of the "developing" countries as well by the end of the 1950s. With the invention of the transistor, millions of people today own their own receivers. The electronic coating, however, was found to have a unique characteristic, in contrast to the older media of communication, such as the press, with its circulation primarily limited to national boundaries. If the power is strong enough, the territory which a single broadcasting station can "coat" can be expanded to such a considerable degree that the people in nearby countries can listen to the programs. The messages go beyond the national borders. Moreover, if a relay system is mobilized, a program originating at a particular spot on the earth can be broadcast around the world instantaneously. Global broadcasting was experimented with as early as 1932, when the tenth Olympic Games were held in Los Angeles. Though the area covered by international broadcasting of the 1930s was limited, for the first time in history, millions of people in different parts of the world were hearing one message simultaneously. In particular, the combination of television and communication satellites made reception of clear audiovisual messages possible in many areas. With the initiative of BBC in the summer of 1967, the first global television broadcasting was conducted with great success; needless to say, we are already used to watching programs various parts of the world via satellite. Incidents in Tokyo are seen in New York instantaneously and vice versa. Events in Saigon were watched by millions of families in Europe and vice versa. And with the introduction of jet transportation, we are often inclined to think that the world is indeed small. The sense of distance, both psychological and physical, is now becoming weaker, if not disappearing. John McHale suggests that as a result of global networks of communication and transportation, "global shrinkage" has been taking place. Global instantaneousness, generally speaking, has advantages in the sense that the human population on the planet can be informed of major happenings of the world without delay. Global communication technology also has great potential for better understanding among peoples.
However, certain aspects of global communication are problematic; among other things, in the field of popular culture, the emergence of a "world popular culture" has negative effects as well as positive ones, especially for developing countries.
One of the striking effects of global communication in developing countries is that the popular culture materials to which the people od these countries are exposed are too "equal" to those which entertain the peoples of more developed societies. Take, for example, television programs. As a recent UNESCO survey pointed out, most of the television stations in developing countries in Asia, Africa, and South America broadcast, to a considerable degree, programs produced in more developed countries. In an extreme case, in Guatemala imported programs occupy 84 percent of the total broadcasting time; in Zambia, the figure is 64 percent; in Malaysia, 71 percent; in Singapore, 78 percent; and in Hong Kong, 40 percent. The people of these countries are now watching programs for which the original target audience was the urban middle-class families of the more developed countries, especially the United States and Japan. On the screen, regardless of the type of program, middle-class values are presented--the actors are surrounded by durable commodities, material conveniences, and many aspects of the "affluent society." Though there has not been any systematic research on the matter so far, the impact of programs produced in more industrial societies upon the minds of the people of developing countries must be profound.
The contents of America and Japanese programs are, generally speaking, consumer oriented, and it is not presumptuous infer that the viewers in developing countries are influenced by this consumer philosophy. Indeed, one of my friends in the Philippines reports that the children there are extremely fond of TV commercials. The danger is that the people of developing countries, not only children but also adults, may acquire more of a sense of consumership than producership. In the process of development, consumption must accompany production. However, in certain developing countries interest in consumption comes before interest in production. Does this trend suggest any possibility of a newer type of "development"? We do not know the answer yet. One optimistic interpretation may be that the interest in consumption can stimulate an interest in production ( a "We-want-a-refrigerator, let's-make-one" philosophy ). Because the developed countries of the world are now suffering from over-production of most industrial products, the importation of these products by less developed nations would be a more likely solution than the expansion of industrialization. One compromise would be for more developed countries to subsidize production in less developed countries where labor is less expensive, and to export the products to profitable markets. According to the classic formula of development, the first stage is the accumulation of capital followed by industrial production. After a few centuries, there comes the age of consumption. It seems that the developing countries today do not fit into this scheme. Instead, a consumer culture is approaching maturity while substantial production is still lacking.
There is an irony in this trend, because the broadcasting system itself often has been a part of "foreign aid" programs that aimed at the promotion of development.
In a broader context, there seems to be a contradiction between evenness in the flow of information and the unevenness of material wealth. Exposure to information, or popular culture materials in the context of this paper, is evenly distributed. The people of the world, regardless of area, are exposed to the same values as transmitted by Tv, radio, and movies; yet the economic conditions of nations vary from the extremely rich to the extremely poor. Isn't it a tragedy to see a people watching the theme of affluence on a TV screen while all around them people are starving to death?
The area of popular culture presents us with a different kind of potential tragedy: With the diffusion of popular culture through mass media in developing countries, even their sense of national identity becomes endangered. In a recent study conducted in Thailand, it was discovered that the popular heroes are mostly Japanese TV stars, rather than "local" figures. The children and teenagers of the country can name the foreign stars with whom they are familiar through daily exposure on the TV screen, but because of the relative lack of programs produced in Thai, they do not see or hear about their "national"popular heroes. ( Some of their names do appear in school textbooks.) The sense of nationalism is, as many scholars have pointed out, essential for the social and economic future of developing countries. But what has been happening in the past several years discourages nationalism on the popular level. At the least, "foreign" popular culture does not serve to promote national identity and nationalism.
It is easy for us to talk about the "age of world popular culture," an age in which the Beatles, Elvis Presley, James Bond, and many other popular heroes are universal heroes, liked and appreciated by mullions of people across national boundaries, and this observation may be quite correct. However, the implication of the existence of these "universal" heroes is that there may be a danger of "instant globalism," where less emphasis is given to national identity.
Globalism today is only another name for internationalism, and internationalism presupposes solid national integrity and nationalism. The more developed countries already have experienced the age of nationalism for a century or so, and they have learned that nationalism must be counter-balanced by internationalism. In the case of developing countries, however, the situation is very complex. On the one hand, national unification and integrity are essential for development, while at the same time, popular culture materials present cosmopolitan values which are not necessarily compatible with the fundamental stages of nationalism. [After all, James Bond may be a secret agent whose mission is to confuse the efforts toward nationalism and independence in the developing countries which were colonies of the west until only a few decades ago!]
Another important aspect of popular culture in developing countries is the fact that the newer media of communication often have a profound impact upon the traditional media. For example, the traveling story tellers and singers are disappearing as the result of the wider diffusion of broadcasting. In the case of Japan in the early 1930s, when the radio and the phonograph were introduced, hundreds of street singers and traveling story tellers were replaced by the electronic transmitters of popular culture. The same trend is apparent in the developing countries of Asia today on a more drastic scale, because the electronic technology of the 1970s, especially television, are much more advanced than those of the 1930s. If the traditional values specific to a culture are translated to the newer media, then it won't cause too much of a problem; but usually, broadcasters prefer not to produce electronic versions of traditional communication. Instead, they are content to broadcast imported programs.
Even when conscious efforts are made to preserve traditional values, the newer technology places constraints on older modes of communication. A classic example, again from Japan, is the change which took place in Sumo wrestling. Originally, Sumo was a part of religious ritual performed in the yards of shrines to entertain the deities; as secularization went on, it became purely a spectator sport. Yet Sumo as an entertainment retained some of the symbolic significance of its original form. For instance, the four corner pillars supporting the roof of the arena represented a Chinese philosophy of the universe; the Sumo performers even kept the old ritualistic manners until broadcasters decided to transmit the game to the general public. In the first place, an artificial time element was introduced. In the ancient game, two wrestlers were given ample time facing each other before a match started. It was necessary to wait until the time became "mature," and two opponents could spend more than ten minutes before their match actually began.
Radio broadcasters, however, did not like this ritual, for obvious reasons. They succeeded in limiting the "waiting time" to three minutes so that the day's series of matches could end at 6:30 p.m. This change in the form of the game took place in late 1930s.
When the TV camera came into the Sumo stadium in the late 1950s, the producers found the supporting pillars obstructive to the camera. Another negotiation took place, and finally, the Sumo association agreed to take out the pillars to give a better view of the arena to TV camera. The form of this traditional sport had to adapt to the newer communication technologies.
In the countries of Asia, the traditional arts are the oldest and richest in the world. And to establish continuities between traditional media and newer electronic media will be a great task for the people of these countries.
The basic problem in designing such continuities and in promoting more "local" efforts is essentially an economic one. For example, the high ratio of imported programs broadcast in developing countries is simply a result of economic deliberation on the part of broadcasters. The importation of programs, especially TV programs, is much less expensive than local production of programs would be. A series of 13 one-hour programs can be purchased for several thousand U.S. dollars, while a local production of one 30-minute program would cost at least $3,000.00; it is doubtful if locally produced programs can be competitive with the imported programs. In short, the easiest way to attract a large audience for TV in developing countries is to broadcast American or Japanese programs that can be imported for a nominal fee ( which the producers in more developed countries think of as an "initial investment"). China is probably the only country in Asia which avoided the danger by restricting the importation of popular culture from abroad, especially any importation from the capitalistic bloc. As a matter of fact, a UNESCO survey shows that there is very little importation of TV programs in China, and the few imported are from Eastern Europe. By doing so, China seems to have succeeded in preserving traditional culture and in constructing nationalism, although the arrangement had certain apparent shortcomings, such as the isolation of the people from much of the intercultural communication which other people enjoy. Burma and some other countries are following this pattern of communication isolation. They prefer to establish solid nationalism rather than to become "instant globalists"; no one can criticize their decision at a time when the sophisticated electronic coating is often country to the success of national development.
I am not suggesting that developing countries must follow the Chinese pattern. Rather I would like to suggest that there may be alternatives, where peoples of developing countries can take on a global coating and at the same time can be assured of their national identities. For example, if developed countries can put more emphasis on the export of the software techniques of program production rather than on canned programs, then independent, "local" programs, which serve national development, could be produced. And, if such local programs are produced successfully, then they should be multi-color, multi-participatory, and even multi-coated. The present danger is that the electronic coating is being done by a few countries, who use the same color--a color which other countries may not value.
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