Since the Communist system has fallen, America has been, in a way, spreading its culture and values through public media to other nations of the world. Symbols of American culture and life such as Mc Donald’s, Pizza Hut, Disneyland…even TV shows such as Friends and Sesame Street can be found in every corner of the world.

Friedman proposes that America is spreading its influence across the globe, and several countries feel that it is a conspiracy of America to turn them into an appendage of the US by inflicting their society and values and ways of life upon them.

He states that with the end of the Cold War, the coming century belongs to America. Globalization is leaping forward and is globalizing American culture, icons and lifestyle – showing and giving the world the best and the worst of America.

However not everyone wants to have American values pushed on them. World economies differ in their distribution of gains and methods of marketing, and their way has worked for decades. However the world is being pressured, whether they like it or not, whether America herself wants it or not, to follow and emulate the American system of capitalism and economic policies.

Just as Britain monopolized the world in the 19th Century and showed the rest of the globe the way, today America is in the driver’s seat, reinforced by developments in technology and infrastructure that make it financially improbable for nations to adopt a different economy than the American model. And many nations do resist and resent this fait accompli presented to them, albeit on a silver platter.

Today, from economies to TV programming to the latest developments in any sphere – it’s all marked with that hated logo – UNCLE SAM WAS HERE. Friedman calls this the ‘second era of globalization’, which has the distinctly American face of Mickey Mouse, Mc Donald’s and Microsoft.

A world revolution is taking place, and it’s all churned out in the American factories, then presented to the world. To many foreign nations, there is no distinction between Americanization and globalization, says Friedman. This can be expressed in a nutshell by the words of Ronald Steel quoted in Friedman’s article: “It was never the Soviet Union but the United States itself that is the true revolutionary power. We believe that our institutions must confine all others to the ash heap of history.

We lead an economic system that has effectively buried every other form of production and distribution — leaving great wealth and sometimes great ruin in its wake. The cultural messages we transmit through Hollywood and McDonald's go out across the world to capture and also undermine other societies.

Unlike more traditional conquerors, we are not content merely to subdue others: We insist that they be like us. And of course for their own good. We are the world's most relentless proselytizers. The world must be democratic. It must be capitalistic. It must be tied into the subversive messages of the World Wide Web. No wonder many feel threatened by what we represent."

SUMMARY OF CARROLL’ ESSSAY:

Marnie Carroll is an American living in Switzerland. She has had an opportunity to observe the reaction of the European people to American culture and its so called icons, and she is not convinced that the world is indeed being ‘Americanized’.

She offers several reasons and examples to support her theory. While conceding that America is a powerful country and a world leader, and that it does exert some degree of influence on the world via its financial, economic and political presence, culturally America has not made a very deep inroad into European lifestyle. European culture and traditions are deep rooted and have been around fro a long time, even before America ever came to be an independent nation.

She feels that although American TV channels are available in Europe and several American TV serials and soap operas can also be viewed in Europe, they seem to acquire a different flavor once they cross the Atlantic. She offers the following reasons to support her claim that American culture undergoes a transformation in the host European countries:

(a) American culture is too young and too new to have much of na impact in Europe. Nothing that America has invented is so original or so path breaking as to provide a novelty to the Europeans.

(b) Even while American channels like CNN are available, in Europe, they acquire the local European flavor when aired, to play to their audience.

Thus there is no real influence of American culture on the Europeans, as what they are seeing cannot be construed as wholly American. These channels are transmitted in the local languages, not in English.

(c) According to Carroll, language is the biggest barrier for the rapid spread of American culture. Most people in Europe do not speak or understand English, and since movies and other programs involve a depth of knowledge of a language to comprehend it completely, most Europeans are unable to fully understand programs when they are transmitted in English.

Therefore there are several language channels in Europe, and even the American channels, when translated to the local European language, offer content and programming vastly different from its original.

In some cases, subtitles are given in the local language and often the content of these subtitles is not exactly what was in the original.

(d) Another large barrier to the spread of American culture in Europe, according to Carroll, is the fact that European channels do not broadcast programs at specific times and on a regular basis as they do in America. Therefore, while in America, it is possible for a person to become attached to a particular program or lifestyle; in Europe, when the frequency of programming is so sporadic, it becomes virtually impossible for a person to get hooked onto a particular program.

(e) Carroll also contends that the invasion of culture is not just a one-way process. It is not merely America colonizing European culture; the same holds good the other way round as well. There are certain European influences that have also seeped into American culture.

(f) Carroll therefore concludes her assessment by stating that it is true that waves of American culture are descending into Europe, but in the process of descent, they are modified, transformed and adapted to fit into the European mold. And hence the ensuing product is not really pan-American; rather it is a blended European-American motley in which the European home element tends to predominate.

ANALYSIS:

It is interesting to note that Friedman and Carroll appear to be on opposite ends of the scale. Friedman offers a perfectly convincing argument, that indeed the world is now becoming truly global – leaning heavily in the direction of Americanization. On the other hand Carroll feels that the influence of American culture is not overwhelming.

She contends that it has had only a marginal effect. Since we live in a global world, with international borders quickly dimming, the same is to be expected, even embraced.

Both Carroll and Friedman are convincing in putting forward their propositions and points of view. Which one is right? Perhaps in this matter, there is o real right and wrong. Perhaps the answer lies in the perception of the person making he analysis.

Carroll lives in Europe, and is therefore more in tune with the way American culture can be seen to have crept in. However Friedman is an American, born, bred and living; and therefore believes as all Americans do, that his country is blazing the path of freedom and Big Macs, and that every other nation is being led by the American leash. There are some nations in the world who enjoy an old and ancient culture, and there are also many people in these cultures, even in the present day, who cling to the old and cherished ways. To these people, America appears as the intrusive Big Brother – the gun toting, pizza chewing bully cowboy, who presumes to impose his views on others.

But from the American point of view, we consider ourselves to be the proponents and protectors of democracy world over. We feel that it is our right and our duty to impose that culture which we know and embrace as being so right and true, upon other unwilling people as well. An example of this would be George W Bush’s desire to ‘democratize the Middle east’.

Never mind that they have survived under a theocratic society for centuries, never mind that they are up in arms against the US’ plan; we know better and after all, once they get a taste of ‘American’ they’ll never look back, eh?

Nevertheless it must be said that there is a great deal of attraction towards the American culture world over. However there is also much merit in Carroll’s argument that cultures thousands of years old are not likely to switch over at a moment’s notice, or because a couple of Microsoft PCs or American food or TV or movies have filtered in. the reality of the situation is that people do look at America with either yearning or envy.

The former long to experience the same freedoms that Americans take for granted; while there are those who envy America for all that she has achieved in so short a time. The cultural and traditional framework in their countries is much too rigid to embrace the individual freedoms that America advocates.

CONCLUSION:

So, in the end, it all boils down to a matter of Point of view. The perception of the viewer. For example, if we were looking at an object, the frontal view would be different from its silhouette or profile. Similarly, depending on which corner of the globe we are viewing events or their effects from, our perception would differ.

The media is indeed a powerful weapon and many ideas and opinions from the US are being sent to other parts of the globe via the media. However it must be remembered that the media, whether American or otherwise, is only concerned with one thing – profits. Therefore it is likely to tailor its program to meet the requirement of the viewers.

There is a saying that a government cannot be better than the people. We might extend this concept and state that TV programming will only represent what the viewer wants – and as Carroll so adeptly points out - the fact that American news channels like CNN are adapting their programming to suit the local market does seem to prove that staple American fare is not yet palatable to the world taste.

REFERENCES:

1. FRIEDMAN, Thomas L. “Come the Revolution” – New York Times, Op-Ed, April 2, 2003.
2. FRIEDMAN, Thomas L. “What Goes around” – Published February 26, 2004.
3. LOCKARD, Joe. “The American Empire in televised crisis” – Issue #57, October 2001.