The final post!!!! Domination by Mr Macdonalds

What comes into your mind when you think about Macdonalds? My first guess would be the burgers, hashbrowns and hot cakes drowned in maple syrup? Well other than food lets take a step back and see how has America dominated our Asian cultures.
In the late 1960s , cultural imperialism was very apparent and the US dominated the main stream international media. The era where fast food and western dining was integrating itself rapidly into our asian diet. The macdonalism of many asian countries were soon obvious as many branches of macdonalds cafes started sprouting all over the south east asia penisular like weeds in a garden. The rapid rate of expansion of the M- cafe was alramingly fast and within a decade it completely assimilated into part of our asian culture despite the food being served is not even close in terms of taste to our asian delecacies. Why is this so?

Firstly, the US mass media industry has been a dominant figure in the global mass media industry and has been the biggest supplier of motion pictures and tv programmes. This too resulted in many asian countries depending on the US to meet programming needs. Unavoildably, many ideologies and believes get sent to such asian countries indirectly westernizing them too. Take for example of the picture above, isnt that the M-sign but with a foreinge language next to it? Macdonalds have been so integrated into most asian countries that we accept and embrace western culture as our own. Futher more with imported communication hardware from the west, electronic colonalism is bound to occur as such foreign technologies comes with its own set of foreign norms, values and expectations.

All in all, in this globalised world, many asian countries tend to lose their national and cultural autonomy and prefer to embrace the west. Whatever the case maybe, embracing other peoples culture is good but we have to ensure not to lose ours even for a delicious succulent cheese burger!

Media - the greatest influence on our minds or is it?

The media again. The media surrounds our everyday lives and we are so used to its presence that we often are oblivious to how influential the media can be. It can alter perceptions and sometimes make us do, say or even believe in things that we never need or heard off.
Whatever it is, the media basically works on three fundamental principles that have been applied in different context of time frames over history. In the early 1930s, the media had total control and that is where the powerful effects theory was applied as the media had total control over the ideologies, believes and perceptions over the general population. This was probably so as the communication was one way where only the receiver gets what the sender sends. Being that most households could only afford a radio or at most a television, the media was mainly through such sources and usually dictated from higher authorities.
However as time progress and the creation of the internet brought about a revolution where information can be easily retrieved through multiple channels and no more through just a few restricted source, this led on to the limited effects theory and the moderate effects theory where the media has no longer total control on its passive audience. With new technologies, censorship and regulation of media becomes very difficult and the audience are now equipped with such tools to help them be more discerning on whatever media they receive.
However this might not be the case for certain countries that have such state of the art communication tools like the internet. Take Singapore as an example where the media model is described to be a teacher giving a lecture to its students. Its still very one way in that aspect so does this means media influence boils down to just an individuals own attitude and mindset? Whatever the case maybe, the media has now changed its focus from just informing but now to also cater for their targeted audience. Why some might ask? Well, money and profit of course! Money makes the world go round and so do media. So is the media now influenced by agendas that are just purely informational? Or is it influenced by political and economical agendas that we might not know of? You be the judge!!!

Culture is not innate but learnt!

Have you ever wondered what this world would be like if culture was absent? Everyone around us would think the same, act the same, dress the same and even eat the same. Culture differentiates all of us and it is culture that provides us with the uniqueness of what makes us human. In commuication, culture is an important aspect as it influnces and decides our perceptions when we interact with the world around us. Now lets talk about office culture in our post war modern metropolitant society. Office culture is like a culture within another culture where people interact with one another in a small confined space. Look at this comic strip. It dispicts the ever so present dishonesty when it comes to climbing the career ladder or simple just securing a place in a prominent company. As we all know culture is learned, shared and dynamic. Its is also multi faceted and such principles used here in the office reflects the kinds of mindsets that some people have with regard to their own culture. Within a context of a office, such behavoirs are usually catogorize as indiviualistic cultures where social behavoir is largely determined by personal goals, values and attitudes. Especially in our Singaporean context, 'kiasuism' seems to be our acquired culture and its not surprise that some cases or incidents of such frauds did take place in our very homeland. Whatever it is, whether good or bad, cultural identities overlaps and gives us humans a unique and distinct flavour when it comes to communicating with one another and the world around us.