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外国作业格式范文：Introduction引言
当今世界的特点就是以无与伦比的速度进行发展，它影响到我们生活的各个领域。传统上来说，经济的发展一直被认为是直接的动力，它刺激着我们生活的各个领域并决定发展方向。然而，时下的一些专家强调指出，文化的发展并不比经济发展缓慢，也是人类社会和谐发展的一个重要力量。
The contemporary world is characterised by unparalleled progress that affects all spheres of life. Traditionally, economic development is considered to be one of the moving forces that stimulates the development in other spheres of life. However, nowadays some specialists underline that the cultural development is not less significant than economic one and is also extremely important for harmonic development of human society.
与此同时，从当前全球化的过程来看，最初是一个纯粹的经济过程，而现在包括政治和文化在内都是威胁涉及人类生活的领域的一个过程。所以问题的关键在于，不光是经济的扩张问题，文化也在随着扩张成为一个问题，并且近年来已经成为现实。
At the same time, the current process of globalisation that was initially a purely economic process is threaten to involve all other spheres of human life, including politics and culture. As a result the problem of not only economic but also cultural expansion has become actual in recent years. Naturally, such a development leads to the situation when one culture, notably American culture, gets started to dominate all over the world influencing dramatically national cultures of other countries. In response to such a combination of economic, political and cultural expansion different states, national communities attempt to sustain their own culture and traditions regardless the impact of the US that often leads to the spread of nationalism and cultural imperialism from the part of different countries.
Nonetheless, nowadays the role of the US in the world seems to be too significant that makes the resistance of other nations and states weak, if not to say useless. This is why it is necessary to trace the recent trends in the world cultural development as well as economic one and to find out the extent, to which cultural imperialism is spread in the world, define this phenomenon and find out whether smaller nations and states can resist to the global hegemony of the US in all spheres of life, including politics, economy and culture.
The definition and essence of cultural imperialism文化帝国主义的定义和本质
Speaking about the recent trends in the socio-cultural and economic development of the world, it is primarily necessary to underline that nowadays the world has changed dramatically basically because of the development of new economic system which is the result of the economic globalisation. This process leads to the larger economic integration of different countries all over the world and development some universal rules of the ‘game’.
Traditionally this process was considered to be typical for economic relations. However, in recent years a growing number of specialists appeal to the increasingly more important role of cultural changes that take place in the contemporary world. Among them may be named John Tomlinson who develops the notion of cultural imperialism as one of the key concepts of the modern culture and as the main characteristics of the cultural development in global terms.
At the same time from the beginning, it is necessary to underline that there are a number of terms that defines practically similar phenomenon that has been just defined above as cultural imperialism. For instance, Boyd-Barrett (1977) speaks about ‘media imperialism’, Galtung (1979) employs the term ‘structural imperialism’, also there are such terms as ‘cultural dependency and domination’ (Link 1984, Mohammadi 1995), ‘cultural synchronization’ (Hamelink 1983), and many others that are closely related to one and the same notion of cultural imperialism.
On taking into consideration such a variety of terms it would be logical to find out what cultural imperialism is and define its essence. At this respect it is possible to say that one of the main implications of cultural imperialism is that this concept proposes that “a society is brought into the modern world system, when its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping its social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating center of the system” (Schiller 1976, p.103). To put it more precisely, in cultural terms it means that nowadays the cultural imperialism is expressed through the development and spread of the influence of certain cultures worldwide. It is noteworthy that nowadays, there is actually one hegemonic state, the US, which spread its cultural impact all over the world and the problem of Americanisation of the world culture is very important and in some countries it leads to internal conflict between local historical traditions and modern impact of the American culture on the local communities.
In this respect, it should be said that many specialists, including Tomlinson, underline the role of media in the development of cultural imperialism that nowadays practically results in cultural hegemony of the US. In fact, the role of media in the contemporary society should not be underestimated because the modern technologies, especially IT and computing, development of Internet, made media very influential ideological and cultural tool. The main reason of such increased role of media is the high level of informatization of human society when people are getting information twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and in the future this trend would be even stronger. As a result, people are dramatically influenced by the information they receive from the media, and very often they get acquainted with an absolutely new lifestyle that is brought to them via media. Eventually, it leads to the situation when new generations, especially in developing countries, are influenced by media, which are often internationalised, to the extent that the lifestyle they learn from media comes into clashes with their traditional culture.
Not surprisingly that in such a situation the local culture can also tend to cultural imperialism that is basically expressed in the development of nationalist ideas, which deliberately underline the difference of local culture from the culture, which is nowadays considered to be predominant in the whole world, i.e. American culture. In other words, cultural imperialism results in the enforcing of nationalism and extremism.
Furthermore, John Tomlinson characterises such a situation as a ‘cultural loss’ that is basically the result of ‘cultural weakness’ of capitalist modernity. He underlines that the spread of capitalism and modernity contributes to a significant cultural shift and it results in cultural imperialism, which aims at satisfaction cultural needs of people. For instance he estimates that “people need something modernity has not properly provided. This is the need not for material well-being, or political emancipation, but a specifically cultural need: to be able to decide how we will live collectively in the widest possible sense – what we will value, what we will believe in, what sense we will make of our everyday lives” (Tomlinson 1991, p.169).
Actually, Tomlinsons explains the cultural loss basically by the lack of cultural coherence and, moreover, the cultural loss is the result of globalisation that leads to the situation when a constantly growing number of people share the same ‘cultural fate’, i.e. they are influenced by the same cultural trends that are typical for capitalist modernity. Notably he concludes that “as global cultures fall into conditions of modernity through the spread of the institutions of modernity, they all face the same problem of the failure of a collective will to generate shared narratives of meaning and orientation” (1991, p.165).
Thus, it is possible to speak about cultural imperialism as a consequence of the impact of several factors, among which the most significant are the modernity, spread of global capitalist system, development of media and increasing role of information, and enforcement of cultural nationalism.
The inevitability of cultural imperialism文化帝国主义的必然性
Nowadays the development of cultural imperialism seems to be so rapid and overwhelming that often specialists speak about that this process is inevitable and the weak local cultures are simply unable to resist to the influence of the hegemonic culture of the US which is spread as fast as the globalisation involves more and more countries into the new economic formation and new relations.
Even now it is possible to observe a significant impact of American culture on national cultures in many developing countries of the world, as well as developed ones. This impact is particularly obvious in the sphere of television, cinema and music. In this respect, it is possible to refer to the experience of Asian countries which are also susceptible to the impact of American culture and where this impact is probably more obvious than anywhere else in the world because many Asian countries are characterised by very particular cultures and traditions that have made them unique in cultural sense and now they are gradually losing their uniqueness as the role of American culture grows in the local communities. |
