Salonga, Karlo 3ca2

Globalization of media products has been considered a figure of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism takes place when a country dominates others through its media exports, including advertising messages, films, and television and radio programming. America's dominance in the entertainment industries made it difficult for other cultures to produce and distribute their own cultural products. Supporters of American popular culture argue that the universal reputation of American media products promotes a global media system that allows communication to cross national boundaries. American admired culture in addition challenges authority and outmoded traditions. Critics of American culture argue that cultural imperialism prevents the development of native cultures and has a negative impact on teenagers. Teenagers in other nations have rejected their own cultural music and dress. Instead, they want to wear American jeans and listen to American recording artists. Rock groups from other countries will even sing in English rather than use their native tongue. Media corporations are attempting to begin operations in nations around the world, some countries want to protect their domestic media and culture industries. Some nations, including Norway, Denmark, Spain, Mexico, and South Korea, have established government subsidies to preserve their own domestic film industries. The British government proposed a voluntary levy on the revenues from domestic film theaters, which show predominantly Hollywood movies. These theater revenues could then be used to sponsor the British commercial film industry. However, the proposal was not passed by Parliament. Culture ministers from a diversity of nations have been discussing how they can protect their own cultural identities in an increasingly American-influenced global media environment. Some nations, such as Singapore, edit and censor for broadcast media content produced in the United States. Language usage, for instance, in the Singapore version of the Sopranos is enormously different from the American version because curse words have been edited out of the sound track. In such ways, individual nations can establish barriers that make it more difficult for global companies to broadcast their American-produced content.
Standardization of media, first of all through the structure and content of programs in all types of media, may manipulate the particularity and sustainability of authentic characteristics of national cultures which surrender to the consumer spirit of the media industry conglomerate. But these processes may result, and are already resulting in a loss of public journalism and criticism of journalists, who often face the dilemma of whether to write honestly and truthfully, or not to allow themselves to be neutral in writing for the sake of superior interests of the media giants they work for. Instead of civil journalism, what is there is new journalism with products which constitute commodities, with journalists who balance among neutrality, hushing up truth and a media system insensitive to the local and the regional needs.
Globalization of media products has an impact on media content, politics, and culture. Like the Internet, global media are influenced by the culture and interests of the United States. In some ways, global media could be measured an extension of the American system. At present, the United States exports more entertainment products than any other nation. McChesney (1999) reports that American media companies "have aggressively established numerous global editions of their channels to accommodate the new market". Three of the most important transnational media corporations are Time Warner (now AOL Time Warner), Disney, and News Corporation. In terms of globalization, American cable companies have been called cable colonialists because they control the worldwide export of media content and attempt to establish digital satellite TV systems in regional and national markets around the world.
The media and communication industries are a chief sector in facilitating overall globalization. In the first place, the role of telecommunication is critical to globalize production strategies. It is inconceivable that the pace and vigor of globalization could have been sustained over the past decades in the absence of complicated telecommunications networking. Furthermore, content or copyright industries, such as television, music, video, film and the Internet, directly through advertising and indirectly through the promotion of consumerist and individualistic lifestyles, are at the head of cultural preparation for consumerism, an essential precondition and accompaniment to the opening up of new markets for a gigantic variety of products, and to the breaking down of cultural and other barriers. Another factor in the globalization of the media and communication sector is as a powerful agent in the transformation of social, cultural and political structures. This is, of course, partly the flip side of media and communications as a means of opening new markets and softening up cultures for consumerism, although there is more to it than that. It is this set of (often unintended) side effects of the globalization of media that have the most impact of all, namely the developing cumulative impact of the steady commercialization of media and communications on critical social functions, such as the formation of individual and community identity, cultural and language diversity, the capacity to participate in the political process and the truthfulness of the public sphere, the availability of information and knowledge in the public domain, and the use of media for development, educational and human rights purposes.

References:
Globalization and mass media. Retrieved August 31, 2011. Website: http://www.seawost.com
Globalization of media. Retrieved August 31, 2011. Website: http://www.zainbooks.com