Indigenous cultures in the era of globalisation: a case against cultural imperialism theory
a case against cultural imperialism theory
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- Submited: October 16, 2022
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Published: October 17, 2022
Abstract
Advocates of cultural imperialism theory have continued to argue that indigenous cultures,
especially of African societies, are daily eroded in the age of globalisation. Their argument is
based on Schiller’s debatable notion that a society is brought into a modern world system when its
dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, cajoled and sometimes bribed into accepting
its traditional system and values as inferior, outdated and mundane; and shaping such system
and values to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre
of the system. This paper submits that this argument is no longer tenable in the age of globalisation. This is
because the major arguments of the cultural imperialism theory now strike a discordant note with
global-village and media-convergence tunes. Second, the theory - as suggested - builds on masssociety
and magic-bullet perspectives that have long been discredited both in media practice and
in scholarship because they do not acknowledge audiences’ ability to process information and
interpret cultural messages differently based on their cultural environment. The paper therefore
concludes that cultural imperialism theory needs a re-examination in line with the contemporary
realities of today’s world as a global village made possible by the advances in information and
communication technologies (ICTs).
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How to Cite
Indigenous cultures in the era of globalisation: a case against cultural imperialism theory. (2022). Communicare: Journal for Communication Studies in Africa, 28(1), 126-143. https://doi.org/10.36615/jcsa.v28i1.1703
