Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry. University of British Columbia Press, 2016. (2024)

Mass Media and Imperialism

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, 2020

This entry is a holistic conceptualization of the US Empire and the cultural industries. The first section conceptualizes the “media” dimension of US Empire and cultural imperialism. The second section highlights the global economic dominance of the US cultural industries and the role played by the US State in supporting this dominance. The third section focuses on the global geopolitics of the US cultural industries and their support for US “soft power” or public diplomacy campaigns that attempt to build transnational consent to dominant ideas about America and US foreign policy. The fourth section conceptualizes “the media products” of US Empire. The concluding section identifies some of the consequences the US cultural industries, US State public diplomacy campaigns, and media products may have within non-US countries.

Review Essay: Historicizing U.S. Imperial Culture

The DoD's Cultural Policy: Militarizing the Cultural Industries

Communication + 1, 2017

In pursuit of this Special Issue’s goal to “push the traditional boundaries of cultural policy studies,” this article conceptualizes the US Department of Defense (DoD) as a cultural policy agency. All cultural policy is goal oriented and aims to act within and have effects upon “the cultural.” Cultural policy scholars examine how State agencies, policies, and regulations act upon to influence: the cultural industries; cultural texts; and, national identities and citizen-subjects. Although the US Federal government has no official cultural policy agency like Canada (the Department of Heritage) or France (the Ministry of Culture), this article conceptualizes the DoD—one of the largest US Federal government agencies—as a cultural policy agency and explores how it uses cultural policy to act within and upon the cultural field. It presents a study of one important DoD cultural policy agency (the Public Affairs Office’s Special Assistant for Entertainment Media) and one significant DoD cultural policy doctrine (DoD Instruction 5410.16 DoD Assistance to Non Government, Entertainment-Oriented Media Productions). This particular DoD cultural policy formation acts upon the cultural field, and in effect, supports and legitimizes the current and ongoing militarization of the cultural industries, popular culture and national identity.

Cultural Globalization and American Empire

Murdock, G. and Wasko, J. (eds), Media in the Age of Marketization, Hampton Press, Creskill, NJ, pp. 131-150. , 2007

Ever since the 1960s and 1970s, social theorists have sought to explain and interpret the significance of such cultural influence in terms of deeper economic and political transformations at work in the world. There have been two main critical paradigms employed to do this: firstly, that of ‘cultural imperialism’, which was prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s, and then, after the end of the Cold War, cultural flows have been understood more as an integral dimension of globalization. This chapter begins by reviewing the cultural imperialism perspective, and examining the reasons why ‘cultural globalization’ emerged as a more valid way of conceptualising how cultural influence works. It will also take account of how certain key assumptions and concerns of the cultural imperialism approach nevertheless have persisted into the present, including the belief that cultural globalization is really a process of ‘Americanization’.

Cultural Imperialism

In this essay, I present some of the main criticisms of the cultural imperialism paradigm and analyse the validity of these criticisms. Owing to its discursive nature, for the scope of this essay, I will center my arguments on the phenomenon of cultural imperialism from the lens of media imperialism – with particular emphasis on the US entertainment media. I will explore some of the main criticisms directed by media imperialism scholars; labeling the flow of media content being exchanged in the world market as Eurocentric-with concerns that export of media entertainment products is dominated by American transnational media conglomerates and exposure to American programming is leading to an erosion of local cultural values and identity (Tomlinson,1991; Schiller,1992). Another criticism is the dependency created by this exposure to US media where international audiences end up preferring US programming – compelling domestic production companies to import expensive Western technologies and equipment to produce similar quality shows at home (Sparks,2007). I will argue that the global flow of information and communication is controlled by US based transnational media corporations. I then present the reasons for this US dominance by looking at the success and appeal of Hollywood, financing of media broadcast agencies abroad, export of US values based training, technologies, and commercial advertisements being salient (Boyd-Barett, 1977).I then probe the validity of these criticisms by examining some of the counter arguments that debunk the magic bullet proposition of homogenous audience members, and the rise of regional media exporting hegemons like Brazil, Mexico and India that have diminished the pre-eminence enjoyed by US media giants in the international entertainment media market (Sparks, 2012). I look at the case of

The global imperialism project: lessons from television, movies and radio

African Research Review

Hegemony, Cultural Hegemony, and The Americanization of Imported Media

U.S. Empire and Communications Today - Revisiting Herbert I. Schiller

This article revisits, refines and renews Herbert I. Schiller’s theory of U.S. Empire and cultural imperialism. Apart from one exceptional book-length examination of Schiller’s life and work and a few excellent essays published following his passing, Schiller’s theory is often rejected by scholars inside and outside of the political economy of communication tradition. Although important changes have reshaped the global communications landscape over the past four decades, Schiller’s theory of U.S. Empire and cultural imperialism continues to have conceptual, descriptive and analytical value for 21st century research. To show how, the article’s first and second sections contextualize and explicate Schiller’s understanding of U.S. Empire and cultural imperialism. The third section highlights post-9/11 economic, military and communicational developments that support a refined and renewed theory of U.S. Empire and cultural imperialism. Overall, the article highlights continuity and change in the operations of the U.S. Empire and cultural imperialism.

The Military Entertainment Complex

The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Imperialism and Anti-Imperialism, 2020

The relationship between the US State’s military propaganda agencies, the entertainment industries, media products, and public opinion is of interest to researchers, and the alliance of the military and the entertainment industries is often conceptualized as a “military-entertainment complex” (MEC). This entry focuses on some relevant concepts for studying the MEC (the military-industrial complex, the military-industrial-communications complex, the military-industrial-media-entertainment network, the media war/virtuous war, and interactive militainment), identifies the political and economic institutions that make up the MEC (the Department of Defense’s public affairs office and US media and entertainment corporations), and highlights synergies between the DoD and specific sectors of the entertainment industries that underlie the production of militainment (the DoD-news complex; the DoD-Hollywood complex; the DoD-sports complex; the DoD-digital games complex; and the DoD-social media complex).

Iraqi stereotypes in American culture: the case of video games and films

International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, 2008