World Television
From Global to Local

First Edition

Joseph D. Straubhaar - The University of Texas at Austin, USA

Other Titles in:
Culture and Media | Mass Communication (General) | Television and Radio

July 2007 | 312 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

This new assessment of the interdependence of television across cultures and nations brings together the most current research and theories on the subject. By examining recent devlopments in the world system of television as well as some of the theories of culture, industry, genre, and audience, the author brings new insights to the topic. The author argues that television is being simultaneously globalized, regionalized, nationalized, and even localized the book therefore looks at all these levels of operation. Drawing on both quantative and cultural studies perspectives, the author provides a new model which attempts to move beyond the current controversies about dependency and globalization.

1. A Multilayered World of Television: An Overview

Central Issues

Globalization and Culture

Complexity, Structuration, and Cultural Agents

Structural and Cultural Process Frameworks for World Television

Roles and Impacts of Technology

Asymmetrical Interdependence and Asymmetrical Cultural Interpenetration: A Proposed Model

Imported TV Versus Local and National: Producers Localize, Glocalize, and Hybridize

Cultural Identification and Proximity

Cultural Hybridization

2. Hybridization and the Roots of Transnational, Geocultural and Cultural-Linguistic Markets

Precolonial Cultural History and Television

Hybridization

Emergent Change Versus Hybridization

Hybridity and Television

The Roots of Transnational, Geocultural, and Cultural-Linguistic Regions and Markets

Broadcasting Models: From Colonial to Postcolonial

Hybridity and National Development

3. Creating National and Regional Television and Cultural Industries

Dependency, the Cold War, and Television Industry Production

Cultural Imperialism and Media Imperialism

Local Cultural Production

Cultural Imports

The Nation-State and Television

Import Substitution in Cultural Industries

Adaptation and Glocalization of Foreign Models

The Cultural Role of States: National Security and National Identity

Cultural Industries

Achieving National Coverage via Satellite

Television Above and Below the National Level

Glocal Processes and National Identities

4. Creating Global, U.S., and Transnational Television Spaces

Globalization, Broadly Defined

Economic Globalization

Globalization as the Spread of Capitalist Modernity

Economic Neoliberalism and American Empire

Globalization, Changing National Policy, and the State

Global Spread of Market Capitalism

Migration as Globalization

Transnational Television

Asymmetrical Interdependence and World Television

5. Increasing Complexity: The Technology of Creating Global and National Television Spaces

Television Technology as a Structuring Force

Cycles of Technology

Technology and Production

Technology and Media Distribution and Flows

Satellites

TV Technology, Access, and Choice

Cable and Satellite TV Relative to Broadcast TV

6. Producing National Television, Glocal and Local

Structuring the Producers' World

Television Genre and Structure

Cultural Industry Producers

Economic Boundaries on Television Genre and Program Development

Complexity, Patterns, and Genres

Cultural Boundaries: Feedback to Producers

Complexity, Prefiguration, and Cultural Hybridity

Glocalization

Localization as Japanization or Brazilianization

Structuration and Television Production in Brazil

The Hybrid History of the Telenovela

National Television Flows and Production

TV and Genre Flow Conclusions

7. TV Exporters: From American Empire to Cultural-Linguistic Markets

Genre Imperialism?

Genres Flowed Before Programs

Delocalization

Trends Toward Regionalization of Television

Overall Trends in Broadcast Television Flows

From Program Genre and Idea Flows to Licensed Format Flows

Localization of Global and Transnational Television Channels

Broadcast Television Genre Flows Versus Satellite, Cable, and Internet Flows

8. Multiple Proximities Between Television Genres and Audiences: Choosing Between National, Transnational, and Global Television

Culture-Bound Reception and Multiple Proximities

Cultural Capital, Cultural Proximity, and the Audience

Layers of Reception Within Brazil and Italy

Cultural Proximity Within Culturally Bound Reception Practices

9. Making Sense of World Television: Hybridization or Multilayered Cultural Identities?

From Local to Global

Multiple Levels of Audience Identity and Cultural Choices

The Process of Hybridization

Hybridization Versus Multiple Layers of Identity and Culture

Multiple Identifications

Researching Audiences and Their Identities

Cultural Geography: Cultural Distance, Global, National, and Local Identities

Language/Culture-Defined Spaces and Markets

Multilevel Identities and Social Class

Hybridization and Social Class

Hybridization: Race and Ethnic Identity

Gender Identity and Television

Layers of Identity as Boundaries for Choices and Understandings

Layers of Identities as Mediators of Media Meaning

Reconfiguration and Synthesis of Identities

"The strength of the book resides in data from which the author makes plausible connections to many of the theories that have driven the global/international media studies over the past three decades... the book is a major achievement in the field of global media studies."

Emile McAnany

Communication Research Trends

I adopted the book because it seemed to fit my course goals. I would not adopt it again. Hard to follow, a lot information which seemed disorganized and often repetitive. Had to drop it in the middle of the semester and work with more practical sources. World Television is this exciting, colorful subject with a lot of players and invested interests where culture and money clash. I was hoping this book will be about it. It was not! And the students agreed too.

Dr Bistra Nikiforova

Business Admin Dept, University of New England

July 15, 2012

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