The US Consumerism Effect on the Developing World - Research Paper Example

Does the consumption of US cultural products, such as Coca-Cola and Hollywood, drive cultural change in the developing world? The study aims to discuss the cultural alterations across the world and mainly in the developing nations. It talks about the increasingly adoption of the U.S. culture by the other Third World countries. The media has been applied both as a force of confrontation against cultural imperialism and as implements of cultural imperialism. Contemporary theorists think that there is presence of cultural imperialism in media and literature globally. Logos of products like fast food, TV shows, and icons of popular superstars serve to support commercial agendas. This study addresses the concepts of cultural imperialism and globalization which has economic roots and political impacts. This has brought into light the power of culture in the international environment. Introduction: Globalization has move like a tide across the earth’s varied cultures, destroying steady localities, displacing individuals, carrying a market-driven, ‘branded’ homogenization of edifying experience, thus wiping out the differences between locality-defined cultures which had been comprised of our identities. Globalization has been considered as the loss of cultural variety. However, it has positive as well as negative impacts on the culture. The western culture, particularly the American culture has been exported universally. The ‘weaker’ cultures of the developing nations have been threatened by the inflow of this Western culture into their economy. Thus the economic susceptibility of these non-western cultures is supposed to be matched by a cultural susceptibility. Cultural identity is at risk ubiquitously with the devastations of globalization; however the developing world is mainly at risk (Held and McGrew, 2003, p. 269-270). It is reasonable to say that the impact of globalization in the cultural globe has, most usually, been observed in a pessimistic light. Characteristically, it has been connected to the obliteration of cultural identities, casualties of the accelerating infringement of a homogenized, westernized, consumer culture (Held and McGrew, 2003, p. 269). It is indisputable that the globalization of culture has a long history. Individuals, objects and thoughts have been circulating around the globe for a considerable period of time. If we consider television programming, there are only few nations in the world who are producers and exporters of television programming. It is evident that most of the individuals are consumers or receivers of “well-recognized culture” instead of being producer or transmitter. However, the introduction of internet has started to erode this differentiation (Held, 1999, p. 331). We live in a world which is pervaded by consumerism. It depicts a society in which many individuals devise their goals partly through obtaining goods that they do not require for survival or for conventional display. In this society a host of organizations both support and serve consumerism. There is presence of keen shopkeepers who are attempting to lure the customers into purchasing more than they need, product designers who are hired to put new bends on established model and advertisers looking for creating new needs (Stearns, 2001, p. ix). Historians have narrated the term “producerism” to “producers of wealth” in contrast of “consumerist” culture of the existing times. Producerism encouraged the political interests of individuals engaged in fruitful effort over the interests of those who lived off the effort of others (Doukas, 2003, p. 64). Although there is some evidence (such as, Mcdonalds, Coca Cola) that Western or American consumer goods and the values they carry, are spreading rapidly to the developing world, transnational cultural flows are not one-way (such as, cheap Chinese products). The local cultures are adopting the inflow of foreign westernized culture and reinventing themselves with the aid of new resources. The inflow of the foreign culture into the developing nations has been partially driving out the indigenous culture of the developing nations. The western culture-ideology of consumerism: The breakthrough of significant consumerism in the 18th century Western contemporary Europe was a main historical finding. It has considerably reshaped the way we imagine about contemporary social history and about consumerism- mainly its causes and preliminary meanings (Stearns, 2001, p. 15). By the 18th century, individuals were investing more of their earnings into the consumer goods. During that era, the list of items that individuals considered as necessities was beginning to develop. This is a key side of consumerist expansion (Stearns, 2001, p. 20). Consumerism progressively has drawn more and more groups of individuals into an increasing range of consumer courses. Differences remained, partially, of course as resources diversified greatly. Dissimilarities in styles based on preceding cultures also formed group choices. In United States, it has been observed that different migrant groups continued to support special food or fashion products that corroborated their group individuality, while they ever more became consumerist. Consumerism has been continuing for several decades. The young and the adolescents are more attracted to consumerism as they tend to have maximum disposable income provided by their parents and fancy tastes. However, consumerism even pertains to childhood and infancy. The propagation of toys temporarily worried some spectators. However, some experts believed that toys could give poignant support to the young kids. Apprehension about toys and reading material that were simply entertaining, with no enlightening value. There has been an increment in the purchase of superior quality toys for the kids. The idea of soothing a young kid by buying something became a customary. Particularly, in United States, the nurturing middle-class practice of providing allowances, which began in 1890s, helped to form a child consumer market (Stearns, 2001, p. 50-51). Consumerism around the turn of 20th century persisted to occupy a number of motivating issues. Increasingly, individuals now opted for more comfort (Stearns, 2001, p. 57-58). Commodity fetishism is much admired in a capitalistic economy like United States. The packing of the products are given much importance apart from the effort which has been put in to manufacture that product (Cohen, 2000, p. 119). Consumer revolution has brought the chance and the need to reconsider values, but this reconsideration has unprecedented development of goods and time has obvious blessings; it has also brought a mass of sorrow, guilt, craving, jealousy, apprehension and above all, uneasy principles. We rail against our own tendency to evaluate ourselves and others according to unimportant differentiations in consumption habits. The mass consumption has changed the patterns of individual and social awareness. The change in the attitudes of the people has caused people to be more materialistic. The population explosion, the hunger emergency, the energy scarcity, the environmental calamity, chronic price rises – all these fundamental concerns of the present create in our principles and habits as consumers (Williams, 1991, p. 4). Although the idea of consumer revolution is more or less similar to industrial revolution, they are two surfaces of single disturbance that decisively changed the material base of human life. Mass consumption unavoidably accompanied mass manufacture (Williams, 1991, p. 9). Consumers are naive in face of onslaught of producers, advertisers and market managers. The advertising industry plays a key role by producing a never-ending stream of new meanings –representations of nostalgia, attractiveness, romance, exotica, or good quality life. These meanings were implanted in everyday products such as soaps, cleaners or soft drinks. Consumers were seduced by the fake requirements since these products were incapable of realizing their promises. A brand of shampoo cannot modify one’s love life. Thus, the implications employed in mass consumer culture required to be trouble-free and instantly easy to get to so that they accelerate the turnover of massive volume of goods. As a result, the difference between high culture and less urbane but instantly recognizable representations presented by popular culture is corroded. The outcome is to generate a homogenized world of homogeneous products and a weak, astounding culture, lacking substance (Cohen and Kennedy, 2000, p. 318-319). Under capitalism, the downbeat aspect of consumerism is shown to be the profit making motive of the capitalist class. The local goods seemed to be inferior in front of the foreign goods and thus it leads to exploitation of the developing nations. There are several counter disagreements to this view. The goods of the West are not only responsible for driving out the local culture from the developing nations. It can other way round also. The goods from China or other developing nations are produced at a low cost of production which hinders the market of the developed world. The companies try to promote idiosyncratic products. Consumers belong to diverse groups according to their category, religion, traditions and family responsibilities. People also belong to different phases of life- youth, adolescents, couples and middle-aged. Thus, fondness not only varies but each individual’s requirement changes over time. Hence, it can be seen that product demarcation and niche marketing are at the heart of modern-day capitalism (Cohen and Kennedy, 2000, p. 322). Cultural Imperialism and media Imperialism with a reference to Asia and Latin America: In the region of consumer culture, the Americanization viewpoint would seem to be less indefinite. The world is flooded with American products and brands that jointly comprise of a sort of cultural imperialism. Nike, Levi’s Coca Cola and McDonalds are identifiable symbols around the globe. Yet it has been spotted out that many countries have an ambivalent connection with American products. When products are recognized as American products, they are treated in a different way than they would be if they were merely seen as omnipresent. As Coca Cola became worldwide soft drink of choice, it lost the characteristic of being American product. It was mainly considered of a foreign import (Beck, Sznaider and Winter, 2003, p. 42-43). The ‘Coca-Cola’ brand is the best instance we have nowadays of worldwide marketing. Global marketing entails marketing a company’s products both for the domestic and global markets. By “cultural imperialism” we mean acclaiming and extending of principles and habits. This is a practice in which economic authority plays an active role (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 3). The great bulk of published arguments of cultural imperialism put the media – television, film, radio, print journalism, and advertising – at the crux of things (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 20). The term “media imperialism” is often applied by the pluralists. Media can be systematically separable from other facets of culture. They are thoroughly connected with the individual’s “lived experience”. Individuals’ experience for television for instance, is very often within the edifying background of the family and this background has a considerably mediating effect. Media imperialism is a particular way of conversing cultural imperialism (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 21-22). It is merely not a name for the study of the media in the developing nations or of the global market in communications. It entails all political matters and political commitments involved in the concept of cultural dominion. Opponents of the media imperialism often concern themselves with the structural and institutional features of the international media. By focusing on such matters of dumping contemptible television programs in the Third World or the market dominion of Western news organizations, they generate critiques of mostly political-economic types of domination. It is apparent that the mass media are continuously and rapidly developing in terms of methodological power and infiltration, exposure and representation of both public and private existence in the West. To this extent, it is enticing to observe the media as the innermost cultural reference spot of contemporary Western capitalism. And if this so, then cultural imperialism might be observed to centre on the media in two means- either as a domination of one’s culture media (that is, transcripts, practices) over another, or as a worldwide spread of “mass mediated culture”. Both the thoughts entail media as the root of contemporary culture (Tomlinson, 2001, p. 22-23). There are important confrontations to cultural imperialism. The depiction of information and cultural flow looked very diverse at the local level. One can analyze different streams of information and programming. For instance, Globo in Brazil (programming in Portuguese) generated not only a novel and popular kind of television but also exported programming to its neighboring states in Central and South America and even to Europe. The lingo and culture could act as boundaries to foreign cultural imperialism. It implies that local spectators would favor local media content over foreign price if the quality was equivalent. The linguistic and cultural propinquity of a program to an individual’s own lingo and culture is an issue in the recognition and explanation of foreign media. Cultural propinquity can be formed not only through universal languages and universal cultural ethnicity, but also through equivalent experiences of rejuvenation, globalization and cultural imperialism. For instance, the nations of Asia are culturally varied but they share a universal history of imperialism (Japanese and Western) and experienced a universal pressure to renovate and globalize. It is this universal experience that permits for recent regional courses of popular culture in Asia, mainly in the Eastern region (Grossberg, 2006, p. 435-436). In terms of music, Latin America has accepted the rock music of United States. They have recognized it with reflection. Rock music was accepted by the youth of Latin Americans, particularly by the nations like Mexico and Cuba. The Latin Americans were receptive to the transnational procedures. In short, Latin America had become increasingly developed with the beginning of cultural and media imperialism (Hernandez, LHoeste and Zolov, 2004, p. 6-7). We seem to have a natural instinct to learn about new things and develop innovative technologies. In the world of media, one of the most successful industries is said to be Hollywood. There is a standardization and Americanization in Hollywoods representations of the earth. The arrival of Hollywood films in the developing nations poses threat to some extent to the film industry of the developing nations. However the absolute talent that goes into making films (any kind of films, not necessarily Hollywood films) is so unbelievable and inspiring that it actually makes an individual realize how imperative the movie industry is to art, development and human attainment. Towards a homogeneous, Americanized global culture? It is argued that there is proof that within the West there has been some level of homogenization of group cultural consumption, mainly among the young, and that it is increasing to the better healed strata of the developing nations, particularly in East Asia and Latin America. However, the homogenization theory has other limitations. It fails to take into consideration the means by which cultural products are locally consumed, locally read and altered in the process. It is obvious that presenters and marketing strategists in the culture industries themselves are conscious of the cultural distinction and demarcation of the audiences to which they transmit. These broadcasters need to modify themselves to such an extent that the number of viewers at least remains the same or increase. For instance, MTV Europe was unable to maintain its number of audiences in the developing countries (Cohen and Kennedy, 2000, p. 309). A product brand like McDonalds influences not only the restaurant industry but also learning, work, criminal justice structure, health care, journey, leisure, dieting, political affairs, family, faith and almost every other facet of society. The initiation of Western culture has shown every symbol of being unalterable process, brushing through seemingly impermeable institutions and areas of the globe (Ritzer, 2004, p. 2). The products such as, McDonalds, Hollywood or Coca Cola has become an icon of American culture. Thousands of letters come into the head offices of these brands. The most important thing to note is that the Americans are not the only individuals who feel this way. The fame of these names has reached each and every corner of the world (Ritzer, 2004, p. 6). The brand name like McDonald has attained its acclaimed position because virtually American and many others have gone through its golden arches on countless occasions. Furthermore, most of us have been attacked by commercial exalting McDonald’s virtues. A poll of school age kids revealed that about 96 percent of them could spot McDonalds, second to Santa Claus in name identification. Over the years McDonalds has appealed to people in several ways. The restaurants themselves are portrayed as clean, food is said to be new and nutritious, the employees are observed to be young and keen and the managers seemed to be mild and caring. People are even laid to think that they contribute through their procurements, at least indirectly, to the charitable trusts such as Ronald McDonald Houses for sick children (Ritzer, 2004, p. 8). Contemporary cultural globalization and its political impact: One of the major arguments surrounding cultural globalization concerns whether we are observing the materialization of global culture. It is an issue that draws both academic and popular interest (Hopper, 2007, p. 87). A number of modern developments would similarly appear to run counter to the types of cultural homogenization. Especially, the conceptualization of international culture as Americanization or Westernization is grounded upon an exact type of worldwide order – one that is controlled by America and West respectively (Hopper, 2007, p. 100). The dissimilarities between Americanization and globalization viewpoint cut across the world economy, international culture and transnational politics. Americanization is considered to be one of the global forces. In addition, even if US action makes up a large segment of transnational activity, it creates less of threat to local and nationalized cultures. One of the major limitations of Americanization is that it fails to take into consideration the power of local representatives. It cannot influence the power of the developing nation so as to make them adopt the influences of America, besides retaining cultural, political and economic independence of the developing country (Beck, Sznaider and Winter, 2003, p.42). In the economic sphere, the query of Americanization would appear to be an empirical one. If a large number of nationalized economies are used by American corporate action to a greater extent than they are by companies from other nations, then Americanization of an economy becomes a simple phenomenon. In politics, the Americanization outlook is critical of intensified American worldwide influence. Globalization considers the leading trend as the wiping out of transnational supremacy and the fading out of the nation state (Beck, Sznaider and Winter, 2003, p. 42-43). The Western brand names such as, McDonald have been much in the news bulletin in the 21st century. Most of the time the news have been about intimidations and protests at restaurants abroad, lawsuits declaring that its food made people overweight, it mislabeled some food as vegetarian and waning stock prices leading to periodical loss. McDonalds has reacted by withdrawing from several countries. McDonalds is viewed to be performing better outside the United States. It is therefore we are expected to see a sustained expansion of it in the developing nations (Ritzer, 2004, p. 21-22). The world is more pluralistic than hegemonic. People have more power to adjust, innovative and plan within a globalized planet than top-down standpoints of modern social hypothesis has previously facilitated. Globalization hypothesis takes individuals into consideration as self creating representatives. Social procedures are relational and reliant. Cultural globalization incites a variety of responses – ranging from nationalist entrenchment to cosmopolitan clinch. The key cultural alterations of the late 20th century are the increasing commoditization of communal life and the increasing speed and the centrality of media (Beck, Sznaider and Winter, 2003, p. 33). Conclusion: The influx of consumerism into the Western world engaged truly revolutionary alteration in the ways goods are sold, in the range of goods available and treasured, and in the goals public defined in their daily lives. The questions remain that how many individuals were entailed in what stages of consumerism. Some of the items were still set aside for the affluent. The intensity of commitment of those involved in consumerism is hard to understand. Some individuals consider consumerism to be elegant and comfortable. However, others may take consumerism as an experiment. These individuals may be brand conscious up to a certain age, particularly in their youth. (Stearns, 2001, p. 23) In the study we have observed that industries and products like Hollywood and Coca Cola have been widely accepted by the nation states of the developing regions. These acceptance drives out the domestic products. However, this is not the one way round. Alternatively, products of the less developed nations seem to be less expensive as the cost of production is low. These low cost products also have a share in the global market. Therefore, throughout the study, we can find that the acceptance of the U.S. cultural products by the Third World developing nations have begun to wipe away the indigenous culture of these nation states to some extent. References: 1. Beck, U, Sznaider, N, Winter, R, 2003. Global America? The cultural consequences of globalization. Liverpool University Press (Oxford). 2. Cohen, G.A, 2000. Karl Marxs theory of history: a defense. Oxford University Press (Oxford). 3. Cohen, R, Kennedy, P, 2000. Global Sociology. New York University Press (New York). 4. Doukas, D, 2003. Worked over: the corporate sabotage of an American community. Cornell University Press (New Jersey). 5. Grossberg, L, 2006. Mediamaking: mass media in a popular culture. SAGE (New York). 6. Held, D, 1999. Global transformations: politics, economics and culture. Stanford University Press (Stanford). 7. Held, D, McGrew, A.G, 2003. The global transformations reader: an introduction to the globalization debate. Wiley-Blackwell (New Jersey). 8. Hernandez, D.P, LHoeste, H.P, Zolov, E, 2004. Rockin las Américas: the global politics of rock in Latin/o America. University of Pittsburgh Press (Pittsburgh). 9. Hopper, P, 2007. Understanding cultural globalization. Polity (Oxford). 10. Ritzer, G, 2004. The McDonaldization of society. Pine Forge Press (California). 11. Stearns, P.N, 2001. Consumerism in world history: the global transformation of desire. Themes in world history. Routledge (London). 12. Tomlinson, J, 2001. Cultural imperialism: a critical introduction. Continuum International Publishing Group (New York). 13. Williams, R.H, 1991. Dream worlds: mass consumption in late nineteenth-century France. University of California Press (California). Read More