The availability of television in the home radically changed media distribution around the world. While people previously consumed radio in the home, the addition of visual footage made stories seem even more real and impactful. Similarly to the Movie scene, America had a lot of desire to export its ideas and cultural products while accepting very little imported media in return. The United States worked hard to have various countries adopt their national television network system despite opposition from France, eventually creating ties with Germany to dominate the European Market (Fraser 123-125). However, like with cinema there appeared to be a lot more American programs going out, with very few being let in. Sometimes American programs would even take inspiration from foreign television shows and make their own version. While countries like Australia and Britain complained there wasn’t enough of their own culture reflected in the beginnings of the television market they seemingly continued to enjoy watching imported shows. The United States still plays very few foreign television shows on their national networks, but does import some from the United Kingdom. Despite efforts such as the European commission’s “television without frontier” directive to minimize American imports, people in European civil societies continued to watch American television with pleasure.

In the realm of what Huntington described as different civilizations with common cultural values, there are vastly different television markets for different cultures (5). This became extremely apparent in times of war and the need for reporting.  Fraser explains, while the British Broadcasting Network (BBC) was already established via radio since 1932, it was the Americans with Cable News Network (CNN) that really took off in the mid 1990s during the Gulf War and established itself as a neutral authority free from government control (137). In 2003, after 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, CNN was still established as a popular news source and could be viewed around the world in 150 countries via satellite. However, despite attempting neutrality it was still only one point of view. Thus, another new broadcaster, Al Jazeera, which was established in 1996 began to gain leverage as they were more easily able to communicate in Arabic, as well as English. This allowed them deeper insights and the presentation of different perspectives from a more culturally aware lens.

Overall, despite the United States’ efforts to globalize and export their television, they have also made some enemies along the way through negative representation. Such as in the series Homeland, which was said to promote negative stereotypes of Islamic peoples (Al­ Arian). Consequently this lead to artists who were hired to decorate the set writing that they do not endorse the series and in fact think it is not to be trusted (Phipps). The fact that television has made it so far as to allowed for this layered messaging to come up is an example of efforts against globalization or at least homogenization. Different civilizations clearly do have different values and belief systems as well as cultural blind spots and insensitivities. This is why the term glocalization has come into existence. As Fraser explains, more people are being exposed to different cultures and forms of media, but despite historical theories of mass communication and imperialism, audiences are not simply made up of passive listeners. While there are more competitors in the television market, it’s easy to see that the United States still has a lot of money going into the making of both movies and television. For this reason, it continues to have a high production value and influence in English speaking regions. However, as other countries catch up we may see a decline in the power of any one television exporter.

Works Cited

Al Arian, Laila. “TV’s most Islamophobic show”. Salon, San Fransisco, 2012.

Fraser, Matthew. “Television: Lotusland as Global Empire.” Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire, Toronto, Key Porter, 2003, pp. 112– 169.

Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations”. New York: Touchstone, 1997.

Phipps, Claire. “’Homeland is racist’ : artists sneak subversive graffiti on to TV show”. The Guardian, London, 2015.