Future gazing... cultural homogenisation

It is without doubt that globalisation has become a constant in our lives. I have Irish parents, relatives who are Iranian, Italian and French. I have friends who are Swiss, French, Chinese, Malasian, Italian, Greek, Russian, Spanish, English, German, Pakistani and American. In Australia we are so accepting of others differences (except for perhaps Muslims, but that's another story) that you hardly notice the fact that many people come from somewhere else. For many Australians it is difficult to treat cultural homogenisation as a threat.

Historically, there have been many cultural encounters which have occurred repeatedly throughout the world. Because of these previous cultural encounters, most forms of culture in todays world are, to varying extents, hybrid cultures. From a utopian perspective, I would like to think we can look forward to a world where we are free to live our lives and practice our own culture in whichever way we choose without fear, prejudice or sanction. Culture is certainly not a fixed entity. Culture is constantly adapting and changing relative to the translation of cultural industry goods. Burgeoning technology based diasporic communities are a prime example of how we can freely engage in cultural practices via technology. This demonstrates how improvements in technology have maintained, developed and expanded strong and healthy cultural practices.

Looking to the future, I envisage that as third world countries become 'connected' to the outside world via technology, the process of information exchange will be the key to their development and improvement. India and China are the first of these countries to 'emerge' from the desperation of third world poverty and deprivation. I argue that throughout this process of development and improvement the transmission of culture will not be homogeneous. Instead I argue that the translation of culture involves a certain degree of human agency.

Cultural translation is not the same from one person to the next. It cannot be predicted from one culture to the next. For example, a McDonalds Big Mac in Moscow is regarded as a luxury item. In fact, the wealthy diners are willing to pay surrogates a small fortune to wait in line and deliver the Big Mac to their car. In Australia MaDonalds is often referred to as Maccas, echoing the familiarity of many other colloqualisms such as Johnno, Bazza and Gabba (Duncum 2001). What one society translates will not be the same as another. This varying range of cultural translation will continue to provide diversity, color, richness and ultimately heterogeneity.

With the advancement of technology, I can imagine a future where online diasporic communities transcend the place of cultural engagement one step further. Virtual diasporic communities will develop giving people the ability to walk around their homelands and perhaps even their hometowns as they were at a given point in time. Imagine, a new immigrant, being able to log on to a site where they can create an avatar, or better still, jump into a virtual reality suit, and 'go back home' for a holiday, converse in their own language, discuss the local news and events and perhaps even talk to people they know, all in the street where they were raised.

CyberHomeland Travel Abroad - Your virtual homeland travel agency!

The reality of war, or the reality TV of war!!

This poor Lebanese woman below has come home (3 times and in 3 different locations) to find that her home has been bombed. Perhaps she's just an extremely wealthy woman who had 3 homes. A more likely scenario is that she is keen to pick up a few dollars from the cameraman in return for a bit of staged wailing. The Reuters Photo fraud site has some classic examples of photo misrepresentation. How 'real' are the war images we are viewing?

Photo 1 caption - A Lebanese woman wails after looking at the wreckage of her apartment, in a building that was demolished by the Israeli attacks in southern Beirut July 22, 2006

Photo 2 caption - A Lebanese woman reacts at the destruction after she came to inspect her house in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006

Photo 3 - Again the Wailing Woman comes home only to find her third Beirut apartment destroyed.

Another example of photo 'doctoring' is the following front page picture on U.S News.

Photo 1 caption - A Hezbollah gunman with his AK 47 at a fire caused by an explosion in Kfarshima, near Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, July 17, 2006. The story claims the fire is the result of an Israeli military aircraft crashing to he ground. The reality of the fire is nothing more than tyres burning in a garbage dump. The gunman holding his weapon was merely for dramatic effect.

The photographer who took this image was sleep-deprived and hungry, feeling the strain of weeks in a war zone. He'd already filed dozens of strong photographs, but under pressure to produce something that would stand out from the competition, he made a fateful choice: He digitally altered one of his pictures to make it more compelling.

Experts say the trend is fueled by a range of factors. Growing pressure in newsrooms to compete with a growing array of media outlets may tempt photographers to push ethical boundaries and editors to sacrifice scrutiny for speed. New and widely available Photoshop technology has also created something of a slippery slope. Nearly all news photographs undergo some form of digital alteration these days.

The Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media December 2005 has a story on war content analysis of ABC NBC CBS CNN. Embedded journalists were more favourable in overall tone and employed more episodic framing. Episodic framing depicts concrete events that illustrate issues, while thematic framing presents collective or general evidence with some general context. For a full and complete picture we really need some general context, especially when comprehending the complexities of war. The war in Iraq has an unprecedented number of embedded journalists. Approximately 600 reporters are embedded on the front line. The journalist is 'attached' to the Department of Defence and therefore becomes biased. This study found that journalists developed a feeling of camaraderie, developing close personal relationships with the military personnel and become fully integrated into military command structures. The report found that embedded journalists were more favourable towards the governments position on the war and twice as likely to represent the Iraqi people as welcoming the invasion than as suspicious or hostile of the war.

Original Photos

'Doctored' photo

There are four methods of photographic misrepresentation.

1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.

2. Photographing staged scenes and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.

4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

Unmanned cameras are responsible for a lot of misrepresentation as they provide images without context. What is happening outside the frame? Nobody will every know!

What we see today is a 'slice of the war'. This particularlised perspective is only a small piece and does not represent the complexities of what the war is really about. Perhaps today we are merely capable of absorbing slices not complete stories involving context. We are conditioned to accept a reality TV version of life and this is reflected in all aspects of our experiences... war included.

Diaspora: A scattering of 'human' seeds

The word 'diaspora' is derived from the Greek diaspeirein, which suggests the scattering of seeds. However, there is ongoing debate about what 'dispora' actually denotes. Dispora is commonly defined as human dispersals abroad... a human seed scattering.

Australia is the pre-eminent diaspaoric community with 40% of its population born outside Australia, or at least on parent born outside Australia. In 1947 the Australian population was 7.6 million of which only 9.8% were overseas-born. Of these, 90% were from Great Britain or Ireland. This large percentage is representative of the White Australia policy of this time. According to the 1991 Census, 24% of Australia's population were immigrants and 40% were born overseas or had one parent born overseas. This large increase reflects the abolition of the White Australia policy and the creation of a much wider immigration policy.

My adoptive parents immigrated from Northern Ireland in the 1950s (although my genetic lineage is 7th generation Australian). However, due to socialisation and indoctrination processes I still retain strong memories and images of Irish culture, Irish songs, Irish food, Irish religion (staunchly protestant), Irish sayings, Irish jokes, Irish ancestry, friendships with predominantly Irish people (although the occasional Scot or Brit was OK). As a child I had a very broad Irish accent and I remember when I first attended primary school, the other children had trouble understanding me. As far as anyone was concerned I was an Irish child. Even today, I still retain a strong Irish cultural identity and regard myself, at least partially, as the product of Irish decent. My early socialisation certainly makes for an interesting reflection on childhood socialisation and biological determinism.

As an 'Irish' child growing up in the 60's I recall a plethora of British shows which, I am sure, helped new immigrants feel 'at home' (We certainly watched all of them!) Today, however, technology has made communication easy and available to maintain links to homelands. There is television (particuarly the SBS which was created for immigrants and dedicated to promoting multiculturalism), movies, radio, video, email, online usenets, online religion, YouTube, blogs etc. The ability to remain culturally connected to the homeland is easier than ever.

We human beings are very tribal in nature. We feel comfortable in like minded groups. Perhaps this is why diasporic communities retain strong links with the cultural roots rather than trying to adopt and embrace the culture of their new country. Loneliness and isolation are no longer a problem when moving away from your homeland. We maintain ties via new technologies that enable members of disasporas to engage in their cultural heritage, albeit a hyperreal cyberspace version.

There are concerns that globalisation and disasporic dispersion throughout the world will bring about homogenisation and effectively dilute culture. This idea is discussed by Larry Strelitz in Where the Global Meets the Local: Media Studies and the Myth of Cultural Homogenization. The views of Douglas Kellner, known as 'media.cultural imperialism thesis' are discussed by Strelitz and and are defined as a "global culture, with the hallmarks of homogenisation and convergence is obliterating local cultures, creating in its wake the mirrors of American consumer society." Strelitz argues that globalisation has had a positive effect on other cultures and points to the fact that most forms of culture in the world today are the result of historic cultural encounters and are therefore hybrid cultures.

So, is globalisation good or bad? In our fast changing world this complex question is far too simplistic. However, I'm sure there will be much debate and research done in this interesting area of study.