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Impact of assimilation in australia
How can culture affect identity
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Americanization of the Australian Media
The Australian television and media have become americanised through the influence of American media and television programs in Australia.
This research will only concentrate on the extent of Americanisation in Australia through the influence on television and the film industry as the aspect of Americanisation covers a wide range from fashion to language. To fully understand the topic of the hypothesis, proper exploration of the definitions of ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ are of relevance. ‘Identity’ and ‘culture’ play an integral role in what an Australian represents as well as how the world views Australians. The meaning of ‘identity’ can be summarized as; ‘The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known’ as well as ‘the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group’ (Meriam-Webster 2003).
Culture one the other hand, can be simply coined as ‘the way of life’, language and traditions that are common amongst a group of people (Meriam-Webster 2003). The Australian identity and culture is something that is unique and exclusive to its people, word like ‘barby’, ‘g’day mate’ and ‘tinnies’ immediately refers to Australia.
Australians pride themselves as hard-working, humourous and jovial people, who love the outdoors and good food. But in recent times we notice that Australians, are not being ‘Australian’ enough. Gone are the days where men wore rabbit-fur and trusty leather work-shoes. New York Yankees caps worn backwards and polished white Adidas Superstar sneakers coupled with denims worn below the hips instead have replaced these. Ten years ago, the mentioned situation could only exist in the United States of America. Today we see it happening in almost all major cities and suburbs in Australia (Mengel 2001, pers. comm., 11 Aug)
Throughout the years, we have heard the term Americanisation frequently invoked but seldom defined. Originally, ‘Americanisation’ was the label used to define the assimilation of immigrants and other minorities seeking citizenship in the United States of. In most cases, ‘Americanisation’ was defined broadly as ‘The process by which an alien acquires our language, citizenship, customs and ideas’. (Bell & Bell, 1998:2)
The overall term ‘Americanisation’ is most of t...
... middle of paper ...
...sed, as cultural absorbtion not necessarily means that America is exerting dominance over Australia. A somewhat fairer comment on Americanisation would be,“What’s new about American culture invading Australia? Nothing. Australia might look, absorb, then move on to its own beat”
(Mengel 2001, pers. comm. 11 Aug.)
According to Mengel, this may be exactly what Australia along with the rest of the world is experiencing. There is no doubt that USA has managed to spread just about everything from fashion to fast food to hip-hop music throughout the world creating a popular culture. Australians may enjoy and appreciate this popular culture, but this by no means making them any less Australian (people still prefer watching cricket to professional wrestling e.g. WWE Smackdown) (Bennett 1999, p.208). An interesting fact is that the USA has its own cultural dilemma, it should be recognized that the US has likewise absorbed diverse cultures and traditions leading to many people to question who or what is a ‘real American’ (Bumbrey S. 1999). The idea of Americanisation should not be ignored but rather regarded as part of the cultural assimilation of the world leading towards globalization.
Television has always been an industry whose profit has always been gained through ads. But in chapter 2 of Jason Mittell’s book, Television and American Culture, Mittell argues that the rise of the profit-driven advertising television model can be traced back through American television history, and that the rise of the profit-driven advertising model of television actually helped to mold American culture both from a historical standpoint and from a social standpoint.
stage for the development of Australian cultural identity and the values, attitudes and beliefs of
The Americanization of Australian Television is a sad and terrible thing. It is a process whereby ordinary Australians are bombarded every day with images of American lifestyle, so much that it merges almost unnoticed into their own lifestyle. It is a process whereby our home-grown entertainment industry is overwhelmed by the enormous powerhouse of the American economy, with drastic effects upon the modern Australian nation. Not only is Australian free to air TV being dominated by American produced shows, but a lot of the content on the Australian TV shows is sourced from America. American culture is part of Australian mass consumer culture, It dominates our television.
Following the 1890’s, the world began to undergo the first stages of globalization. Countries and peoples, who, until now, were barely connected, now found themselves neighbors in a planet vastly resembling a global village. Despite the idealized image of camaraderie and brotherhood this may seem to suggest, the reality was only discrimination and distrust. Immigration to new lands became a far more difficult affair, as emigrants from different nations came to be viewed as increasingly foreign. In the white-dominated society of the United States during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the only way to truly count oneself as American was to become “white”. For this reason, the idea of race, a socially constructed issue with no real physical basis, has become one of the most defining factors which shape immigration and assimilation in the United States.
Americanization is happening all around us, not just to our children who are emptying into the streets speaking with their best James Dean. American thought has crept into our very lives with everything we do; our day to day routine is now being controlled by American ideals.
“Cultural identity is not something that is easy to manipulate by acting on the mass media, nor does it seem to be much influenced by media culture. It survives and flourishes in many a form, and the general expansion of television, music and other media have added some widely (internationally) shared cultural elements without evidently diminishing the uniqueness of cultural experience in different nations, regional and localities of Europe” (McQuail, 2000, p. 237) Cultural imperialism thesis has also lead to many cultural protectionism policies, designed “to defend indigenous cultures against their corruption, pollution or destruction by foreign elements” (Morley,2006, p.36). Problems arise when trying to understand what is meant by foreign (and to who) and also when trying to examine and define the purity, originality and indigenousness of one’s culture that needs to be defended. Cultural imperialism tends to assume that the most countries from the global South had indigenous, pure and authentic cultures before the Western influence came along via transnational corporations. One could argue that this view tends to be a romanticized perspective of the Third World which disregards the complex relations between countries and their former colonial powers while also ignoring the fact that most cultures are hybrids. There is a problem with the inaccurate presumption that the phenomenon of cultural mixing is recent, when actually all cultures have, to certain extent, absorbed elements from another cultures through history. Therefore, the complexity of intercultural flows must be acknowledged, along with the ambivalence of their meaning when being brought into new
The third and probably most well known quality of the American culture is the influence that the population derives from the media. The USA has the most extensive and diverse set of outlets that supply the people with a sheer number of different kinds of entertainment. This creation of melodramatic amusement has created a sort of illusion within some of those who spend more time in front of the television than others. Although to be fair, even though this trend might have started in the USA, any country with decent and above satellite and Internet coverage has that separated pool of individuals that are extremely influenced by entertainment and played-out fiction stories that has them detached from reality and alienated from the rest of the community.
The distance between the new arrivals and the natives fosters a sense of distrust on both ends. However, the concern that the growing population of immigrants will compromise America’s national identity undermines our national reality. Historically, those who have willingly immigrated to the United States have had a desire to become part of American society, crossing borders and seas t...
their culture. Television over the years has molded the minds of its viewers – young and
Many people might have a diverse opinion on the extend of the American cultural influence on Canada, but the truth is, these two countries share a long common border, they use frequently the same language, they watch the same movies, listen to the same music and collaborate on other numerous levels, including economic and political activity. In this paper, I would like to show the extent of the influence on Canadian popular culture that comes from the United States. For my analysis I have chosen four segments of popular culture: television, printed media, music and films. In these are the main sectors where we can see the biggest evidence of this phenomenon. In the first part I would like to shortly introduce the history of this issue. The second part is the analysis of the four sectors.
Pop culture in the 1950s and 1960s began to spread and infest the nation from front to back through radio shows, books and magazines, television programs, and even motion pictures. Whether it is culture in terms of political affairs, clothing or the latest musical sensations, the United States has always played the dominant role when it came to who knows what is best, first. Some cases of Americanizati...
There are several themes throughout the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. One theme being self-hatred. Throughout this novel, self-hatred has made itself prevalent through different characters, like Claudia and Pecola. Claudia’s self-hatred can be seen when she dismembers and destroys her doll with blue eyes and blond hair because she viewed herself as ugly and that she didn’t have the things that the doll had. Another example of self-hatred in this novel is with how Pecola feels guilty about her appearance. Pecola honestly believed that the reason her brother ran away was not because of her parents fighting, but due to her ugly appearance. Claudia even mentioned how everyone felt better about themselves because of Pecola. “All of our waste we dumped on her and she absorbed. And all of our beauty, which was hers first and which she gave to us” (205). This is a major impact on why Pecola felt the way she did about herself.
... when they read about racism. The characters deal with an internal polarization that forms with racism and the idea of beauty that has been deeply rooted into the character’s psyche. The seed of the distorted view of beauty and race grows throughout the novel and challenges the characters values in terms of how they view society and how they view themselves. Even the simple comparison of Maureen’s light skin, which is considered to be attractive, and Pecola’s dark skin, which is ‘ugly’ is the perfect example of how race affect people on a deeper and personal level. “The Bluest Eye” isn’t meant to be a novel that is supposed to overlook the physical effects of racism, it’s meant to offer a deeper look into the issues of the pressure African American people had to deal with during the Great Depression and how it devastates even the most basic human principles.
The definition of hacking has undergone some changes in the past few years. At first it identified people “who enjoys modifying and subverting system, whether technological bureaucratic or sociological.” (Lemos, 2002) In the last decade hacking has evolved to describe “those people with a hands-on interest in computer security and circumventing such security. (lemos 2002) As you explore deeper into the digital landscape it becomes clearer that these hackers are sub divided into three groups of intermingling individuals classified by a system of hats.
What is a hacker? This term has been used a lot lately, especially due to the cyber attacks that have escalated to a whole new level in the recent years. According to Sjoholm and Rosencrance, a hacker is “an individual who uses computer, networking or other skills to overcome a technical problem”. It also refers to a person that gains unauthorized access to systems or networks for the purpose of committing acts of malicious intent. There are three different types of hackers: White hat, black hat and grey hat hackers. White hat hackers or ethical hackers are the hackers that seek to remain in the best interest of the pubic. Black hat hackers are criminals that seek to violate laws and regulations and cause chaos by illegally