Indigenous Cultures In The Era Of Globalisation: A Case Against Cultural Imperialism Theory (original) (raw)

Advocates of cultural imperialism theory have continued to argue that indigenous cultures, especially of African societies, are daily eroded in the age of globalisation. Their argument is based on Schiller’s debatable notion that a society is brought into a modern world system when its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, cajoled and sometimes bribed into accepting its traditional system and values as inferior, outdated and mundane; and shaping such system and values to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the system. This paper submits that this argument is no longer tenable in the age of globalisation. This is because the major arguments of the cultural imperialism theory now strike a discordant note with global-village and media-convergence tunes. Second, the theory - as suggested - builds on mass- society and magic-bullet perspectives that have long been discredited both in media practice and in scholarship because they do not acknowledge audiences’ ability to process information and interpret cultural messages differently based on their cultural environment. The paper therefore concludes that cultural imperialism theory needs a re-examination in line with the contemporary realities of today’s world as a global village made possible by the advances in information and communication technologies (ICTs).

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact