Diaspora and the Media

Along with the globalization process, Diaspora has become a common term, which refers to the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from their ancestral homeland according to the definition provided by Merriam Webster (2012). As these people are living away from their homeland, cultural anxiety has become a common social phenomenon in many multi-cultural societies including Melbourne and Hong Kong.

As a multi-cultural society, it is not hard to see a group of Chinese, or any other races living in a certain suburb, such as Boxhill (Chinese) and Springvale (Vietnamese), and among the local media channels serviced, some of you may realise that there are certain amount of TV channels are not for the local Australians, as the programmes being aired in these channels may not be in English, but in Chinese or any other languages instead. 

For example, The TVB Australia (TVBA), TVBA airs programmes mainly in Cantonese, providing dramas produced in Hong Kong, Hong Kong news and entertainment, along with the Australian local news and information. This kind of media channels is regarded as 'Diasporic media', which refers to the broadcasting media targeting a certain group of audiences in a society.

Image credit to: TVBAustralia

Diasporic media such as the TVBA, does not only offers the migrants a kind of entertainment, but as well provides the Chinese living in Australia a way to understand their homeland and meanwhile keep track with their own culture, and eventually help to reduce the cultural anxiety being a resident living in another society, by negotiating with the new cultural identity (Cunningham, 2001).

Reference

Merriam Webster 2012, retrieved 28 Aug 2012, <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/diaspora>.

Cunningham, S 2001, 'Popular media as public 'sphericules' for diasporic communities', 
International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol. 4 No. 2 ,pp. 131- 147 .

Blogosphere and the Public sphere

Regarded as the most important technology developed in terms of communication, Internet offers people the greater freedom of speech and has introduced us a new concept, 'Blogosphere', which refers to the realm of Internet blogs where an individual, group, or corporation presents a record of activities, thoughts or beliefs (Dictionary, 2012). With the use of blogs, people can share their personal lives to the others while some users may utilise them for certain purposes, such as providing news and information. For example, RedmondPie has utilised the features of blogs to share technology-related news and information to the public, where the public can leave comments and share them to Facebook and Twitter.

Blogosphere, to a very large extent, can be regarded as a kind of public sphere, a metaphorical term that is used to describe the virtual space where people can interact (Mckee, 2005). To be specific, the virtual space defined by Mckee may refers to Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, or any kind of platforms where people can interact and communicate on certain topics. In fact, all these social networking platforms, or virtual space, are providing people the freedom to share and receive information, while different users may utilize them for certain purposes. For example, Deakin University is engaging with Facebook for education purpose, while the U.S. president Barrack Obama is using Twitter for political purpose with over 19,000,000 followers.

With the high interactivity and the flow of information, the public is having a faster recognition of reality and is granted the equal access to information and materials from the Internet. In other words, the internet is further promoting the globalization process, as the public can participate in the public sphere in a global scale.

Reference

Mckee, A 2005, The public sphere: An introduction, Cambridge University Press, Port Melbourne VIC.

Blogosphere. (n.d.). © Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.. Retrieved August 31, 2012, < http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/blogosphere>.

Making Culture with the Internet

With the improving technology, our ways of communication have been enhanced at a global scale, Internet allows us to communicate without any geographical restriction. Information being shared on the Internet provides people more knowledge and giving us a cultural swap between different people. In other words, technology does not only affect communication, but the culture as well. With the tremendous amount of immigration and information being exchanged, local culture is no longer something that will always keep constant but will change with the environment over time, different cultures have been penetrating to a society giving a hybridized culture (Moore, 2012), in every corners around the world.

Local culture, nowadays, is merely a way to identify ourselves where do we come from. However, people can as well show a foreign culture in a country (wikihow, 2012), It is common to see a hybridized culture in a society. For example, we could see a China Town in Melbourne and Australians use chopstick to eat in a Chinese restaurant while Chinese will drink beer during festivals. Such cultural swaps between people and countries are giving a hybridized culture to a society.

With the technology advancement nowadays, we have been contributing to our national culture further, try to search "Chinese Chess" in the iPhone app store, a chess game created long time ago in China, has been further  spread to the other countries. In fact, with the constantly changing environment, we have been contributing to our national or local culture in another society, and meanwhile adapting to the surrounding culture. 

Image credit to ChinaAncient.com

Reference

Wikihow 2012, How to Make a Culture, retrieved Aug 13 2012,

<http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Culture>.

Moore, C, 2012 'Topic 3: Making cultures: diasporas and the media', ALC215 Study Guide, Deakin University, Melbourne.

Week 4: The ownership of ideas – Apple in China

Apple has become the mass culture among us (Steven 2003, p. 53). We can easily see Apple products on the streets, at home or at work. As the technologies developed by apple have become a culture, many companies have been trying to develop products in the same or similar way.

When we talk about Apple’s patents, perhaps many of us may think of the patent war between Apple and its competitor – Samsung. With the globalization process, the value of intellectual property has been altered, becoming more valuable. As the two leading companies in the mobile technology industry, they have been trying to dominate the industry by suing each other on its design patents. On the other side, when these two companies are struggling in terms of its patents, tremendous amount of fake technology products appeared in China.

The entire Europe in fact has been the patent war zone for both companies, Apple and Samsung, to strike against each other. But why there is no patent war in China? Tom Doctoroff (cited in Rapoza, 2012) explained it in quite a clear way. He commented China as ‘the total flip side of the U.S.’ and argued the courts in China have never evolved to protect the intellectual property, as it is not a cultural value. In such sense, it seems that there are not much benefits Apple can get from suing China for its patent violations.

The Chinese undoubtedly have the capital and the technology to produce new innovative products to the global market, but why they never do? Perhaps lying deep inside the Chinese’s mind, Chinese culture is always conservative but not innovative.

Reference

Steven, P 2003, ‘Political economy: the howling, brawling, global market place’, The no-nonsense guide to the global media, New Internationalist, Oxford, pp. 37–59.

Rapoza, K 2012, ‘In China, Why Piracy Is Here To Stay’, Forbes Magazine, retrieved 4 August 2012, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2012/07/22/in-china-why-piracy-is-here-to-stay/ >.

Micgadget 2011, 'AirBook Review', Youtube (Video), retrieved 5 August 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/embed/xb1eDOesRpI>.

Week 3: The Media Empires – Americanisation

According to Schröter (2008), Americanisation is the (selected and adapted) transfer of values from the US to Europe. In my point of view, it seems that Schröter’s definition may need to modify for a little bit, as these values do not only transferred to Europe, but the whole world instead. The McDonald’s culture and the Hollywood are 2 good examples.

As Schröter (2008) suggested, the general feeling of American superiority by 1914 in terms of cultural, political, military and financial strengths provided the background for other states to follow the US standard. Such trend, or the European history, provided a general explanation for the progress of Americanization.

As a matter of fact, western cultures and the United State have been playing an important role in the world’s culture and economy for nearly a century. In terms of the media industry, it is easy to see that most of the media productions are distributed from few dominant western media empire, such as the News Corporation, and its most notable holdings such as Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, 20^th Century Fox and the Wall Street Journal. (Byrne, 2007)

When we watch a movie or TV program, most of the time we could see the advertisement of the 20^th century Fox or the logo of Warner Disney at the beginning. Simply speak in terms of the quantities of movie produced by those media empires; it is obvious that the United State has obtained the dominance in these media products. Such domination in the media industry doesn't only guarantee the revenue generated or the state economy, but as well the global culture and the world’s balance of political power.

Reference

Schröter, HG 2008, ‘Economic culture and its transfer: an overview of the Americanisation of the European economy, 1900-2005’, European Review of History – Revue européenne d’histoire, Routledge, Vol. 15, No.4 , pp. 331-344.

The Raw Story 2007, 'News Corporation becomes largest media empire in the world', retrieved 30 July 2012, <http://www.rawstory.com/news/2007/News_Corporation_becomes_largest_media_empire_1022.html>.