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>.