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Chapter 13:

Contact Between Cultures

What will you learn?

What happens when people from diverse cultures interact with one another?

How does one culture learn and adopt practices from another culture, and what are some benefits and some problems resulting from this process?

What are cultural icons and cultural hegemony, and how are they theorized and exemplified?

Cultural Contact and Colonialism

For thousands of years, humans lived in isolated communities, cultures developed largely independently, and many were unaware of the others’ existence

The initiation of contact among previously separate cultures has been the major world event of past centuries

Contact zone: “space in which geographically and historically separated peoples come into contact with each other and establish ongoing relations, usually involving conditions of coercion, radical inequality, intractable conflict” (Pratt, 1992)

16th to 19th centuries: new contacts dominated Euro-American cultures; yet in the Euro-American cultures peoples and cultures from other lands were devalued and information from them ignored; the perception of difference lead to violence

Colonialism: Examples

Hawaii

Captain James Cook arrived on Hawai’i in 1778 and described the natives as savages

Edward Said (1978, 1981) describes the contact and subsequent linguistic construction of non-Western cultures as “Orientalism,” process of labeling peoples of “underdeveloped” cultures as insignificant “others”

The dehumanization of Hawaiians into “others” contributed to near destruction of Hawaiian culture

Australia

Captain Arthur Phillip arrived in Australia in 1788; his view of the colonists as “guests” of the Indigenous inhabitants and his edict prohibiting molesting or killing Aboriginals were not long-lasting

Aborigines were killed and children were forcibly removed from families for assimilation purposes

Cultural Exchanges

Throughout history, ideas and technology have spread from one culture to another; spontaneous and unplanned or carefully planned and managed; as a result of interaction, one culture may learn and adopt practices of other culture

Example of adopting new practices: Columbus’s voyages

The Old World brought horses, cows, sheep, chickens, honeybees, coffee, wheat, cabbage, lettuce, bananas, olives, tulips, daisies

The New World provided turkeys, sugarcane, corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, pineapples, petunias, poinsettias

Planned and managed spread from one culture to another: intent to help develop the country or marketing for purpose of economic gain

Cultural Imperialism

Some argue that the cultural imperialism of colonialism continues in many ways today

Military occupation: After years of contact with U.S. military, Iraqi youth have adopted what they saw and heard from soldiers on patrol

Corporate colonialism: The Niger delta has more oil spilled every year than was spilled by BP’s Deepwater Horizon, but little media coverage is devoted to this

Media colonialism: Cultures that dominate in media such as the U.S. export values through exported TV programs, films

Ecoimperialism: global governance that protects the existing power structure at the expense of poor countries by imposing a set of beliefs on poor countries (resource use, etc.)

Development Communication

Quebral (1975): art and science of human communication applied to speedy transformation of a country from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth; enables economic and social equality, fulfillment of human potential

Development communication has been focused on agricultural practices, family planning, infant health, nutrition, housing, health education, HIV/AIDS

Diffusion model (Everett Rogers, 1962): KAP = Knowledge, which leads to a change in Attitudes, which in turn leads to Practice; media-based marketing projects

Diffusion Model

Rate of adoption = speed at which an innovation is adopted by members of a society

Important in adoption process

Opinion leaders: individuals who are able to influence informally other individuals’ attitudes or overt behavior in a desired way with relative frequency

Change agent: a person who influences innovation decisions in a direction deemed desirable by a change agency

Adoption categories

Innovators (younger, better educated, more familiar with technologies)

Early adopters

Early majority

Late majority

Laggards

Diffusion Model

Case Study: Quality Circles

After World War II, Japan’s industry was destroyed; “Made in Japan” meant cheap and shoddy merchandise

Based on U.S. models of effectiveness (Deming, Juran, 1950s) Japan developed by 1962 the concept of the quality circle: a group of 3 to 10 employees who meet on the job to discuss and solve quality problems

The concept of working together in groups to benefit the organization matched with the Japanese cultural value placed on group affiliation

By the 1970s, this and other efforts resulted in top-quality cameras, radios, TV sets, motorcycles, cars

Other Models

Convergence Model

Rogers moved away from diffusion model to what he called convergence model

Treating communication as process of convergence among members of interpersonal networks; information is shared by more individuals who converge over time toward greater degree of mutual agreement (shift from individuals to groups)

Participatory Model

Emerged in response to criticism of diffusion model, its heavy identification with mass media channels, and its basic assumption that information flows from the knowledgeable to the less knowledgeable

Adapted from work of Paulo Freire (1970); stressed the dialogue as catalyst for individual and community empowerment; people should have control over decisions that affect them; groups should be involved in determining their needs and designing and implementing programs to address these needs

Cultural Icons

Products can carry cultural values, and many products that are seen to represent a culture have been both widely popular and resisted

Whetmore (1987): icons and artifacts as aspects of popular culture

icon = special symbol that tends to be idolized in a culture

artifact = object less widely recognized

A global brand carries the same brand name or logo worldwide; most global brands are of U.S. origin and to many they represent the U.S. lifestyle and culture

Cultural Hegemony

Some nations are major exporters of their own cultures

Some societies are excellent markets for U.S. icons, other societies may resist adopting these ideas because they fear the changes that may accompany the new ideas

Perception of cultural hegemony - fear of predominant influence that one culture can develop over another; it is believed that what is transmitted are the values of the culture, and that reception is unconscious and uncritical

Cultural dependency - belief that a receiving culture becomes accustomed to cars from Japan or movies and TV from Great Britain and the U.S., and that it’s natural that they come from there, thus discouraging local businesses

U.S. Cultural Icons

The most widely recognized U.S. icon worldwide is Coca-Cola; Coke sells 1.8 billion servings daily in nearly 200 countries

Disney: Disneyland in Tokyo, attempt to “Europeanize,” under construction in China

Restaurant chains have become cultural icons; most identified with the U.S.; most influential, by far, is McDonald’s; KFC is also well known

Other U.S. brands worldwide: Spam, Nike

Cultural Critique

Ritzer (1993) identified the principles of the fast-food restaurant that are coming to dominate more and more sectors worldwide (the “McDonaldization of society”):

Efficiency: The McDonald’s fast-food model offers an efficient method of satisfying many needs

Quantification: Time is quantified in terms of how quickly one is served, and quantity (“bigger is better”) becomes more important than quality

Predictability: The food McDonald’s serves in Baltimore is essentially identical to the food it serves in Houston; it offers no surprises

Control: Employees are trained to do a very limited number of things, and customers as well are controlled through limited options

Adapting the Message

Key to diffusion and convergence processes across cultures is adaptation of message to receiving culture

Key is to adapt to the local culture, localize thinking, localize the product, and localize the marketing strategy

De Mooij (1998): relation of advertising styles to Hofstede’s dimensions: U.S. advertising reflects individualistic values, Japanese advertising reflects collectivistic values

Initially, marketing of U.S. icons required that they be the same as in the U.S. because what was being sold was the U.S. culture; over time the focus has shifted to value of icon to local taste and customs

Let’s Discuss!

In what ways can it be said that colonialism is a continuing world theme today?

Can there be a balance between cultural imperialism and diffusion of cultural icons?

What are the arguments for and against anyone or any government introducing new ideas or technology into a culture?

Describe examples of advertising from countries that reflect those countries’ cultural dimensions