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The Australian television and media have become americanized through the influence of American media and television programs in Australia. This research will only concentrate on the extent of Americanisation in Australia through the influence on television and the film industry as the aspect of Americanisation covers a wide range from fashion to language. To fully understand the topic of the hypothesis, proper exploration of the definitions of identity and culture are of relevance. Identity and culture play an integral role in what an Australian represents as well as how the world views Australians. The meaning of identity can be summarized as; The collective aspect of the set of characteristics by which a thing is definitively recognizable or known as well as the set of behavioral or personal characteristics by which an individual is recognizable as a member of a group (Meriam-Webster 2003). Culture one the other hand, can be simply coined as the way of life, language and traditions that are common amongst a group of people (Meriam-Webster 2003).
The Australian identity and culture is something that is unique and exclusive to its people, word like baby, gay mate and tennis immediately refers to Australia. Australians pride themselves as hard-working, humourous and jovial people, who love the outdoors and good food. But in recent times we notice that Australians, are not being Australian enough. Gone are the days where men wore rabbit-fur and trusty leather work-shoes. New York Yankees caps worn backwards and polished white Adidas Superstar sneakers coupled with denims worn below the hips instead have replaced these. Ten years ago, the mentioned situation could only exist in the United States of America.
Today we see it happening in almost all major cities and suburbs in Australia (Mengel 2001, pers. comm. , 11 Aug) Throughout the years, we have heard the term Americanisation frequently invoked but seldom defined. Originally, Americanisation was the label used to define the assimilation of immigrants and other minorities seeking citizenship in the United States of. In most cases, Americanisation was defined broadly as The process by which an alien acquires our language, citizenship, customs and ideas. (Bell & Bell, 1998: 2) The overall term Americanisation is most of the time no more than an assumption regarding the origin of cultural values (language, food, fashion) that come from the USA, which may not be accurate. It is applied indiscriminately within the Australian media to label array of factors seen as threatening to national identity, way of life or values. This uncomplimentary use of Americanisation sees Australia as adopting social practices and cultural values which originates in the United States. (Bennett 1999) Television has, without doubt, received more attention from Americanisation critics on media globalization more than any of the other domains e.
g. fashion, language. According to Tony Bennett (1999, p. 207) the early 1960 s represented the peak in the Americanisation of popular culture measured by the proportion of American material transmitted. Most analysis now agree that about half of Australian television scheduled is taken up with imports, with US material dominating the commercial channels and British programs comprising the bulk of overseas material broadcast by the ABC (Bennett 1999, p. 212). In what is probably the most systematic comparison of international flows, Topic Varis reported that Australia has seen a decline from 57 per cent of imported programming to 40 per cent in 1983, although the proportion of imported programs at prime time was slightly higher at 46 per cent.
Although Australias proportion of imported television is high compared to the Western European countries (yet significantly lower than New Zealand), commentators have generally claimed that such imported programs do not attract overwhelming audience attention (Varis 1984, quoted in Bennett 1999). US programs do undoubtedly lead the world in distribution and even manage to dominate schedules in some countries; they are rarely the most popular programs where viewers have a reasonable menu of locally produced material from which to choose. (Bennett 1999: 207) The US sitcom Seinfeld is clearly symbolic of this generational shift towards the Americanisation of cultural choice. Twenty-one percent of the entire allocations of the top 30 choices of youngsters are for this program alone; but when it comes to the 60 year olds and above, it goes almost unacknowledged. However, it has also been pointed out that the coding system used to come up with these statistics may in fact be underestimating the degree of Americanisation in Australian television content. Several of the programs considered to be Australian are actually clones or remakes of their American counterparts (e. g. 60 Minutes, Sale of the Century, Wide World of Sport) (Bennett 1999, p. 209).
These results clearly show that young Australians inhabit a world which is clearly saturated with American materials, but that they are more likely to prefer this material, in some cases to the almost exclusion of other national products (Emmison 1997, p. 23). This inclination suggests the shift towards the acceptance of American culture has intensified, in that the cultural profiles of the young are more clearly Americanised than their parents. Many seem to view this as a threat to the national identity; I live in Australia, but apart from the occasional kangaroo hopping by it looks more like America. McDonalds, Hungry Jacks, KFC and Subway are suffocating our pub filled landscape (Gardner 2003) Many Australian alike shares this view, although a handful of social commentators and economists view this as the merging of cultures due to globalization. However there is a fine line to be drawn as what can be defined as a normal international cultural exchange and the mindless imitation of another countrys habits and fashions which Boyd feels characterised Australias relation to America (Boyd 1960). Geoffrey Serle shared Boyds point of view some years later after observing that Australia was willingly accepting American culture and values.
We are happy or phlegmatically exchanging one neo-colonial situation for another. Australia has abandoned the prospects of independent statehood; we are going to become just slightly different sorts of Americans (Serle 1987, p. 122) Noting the fact that Australia and the USA share similar characteristics and history, it can be seen that Australia itself is leaning to become like its successful big brother. But this opinion can be heavily criticised, as cultural absorption not necessarily means that America is exerting dominance over Australia. A somewhat fairer comment on Americanisation would be, Whats new about American culture invading Australia? Nothing.
Australia might look, absorb, then move on to its own beat (Mengel 2001, pers. comm. 11 Aug. ) According to Mengel, this may be exactly what Australia along with the rest of the world is experiencing. There is no doubt that USA has managed to spread just about everything from fashion to fast food to hip-hop music throughout the world creating a popular culture. Australians may enjoy and appreciate this popular culture, but this by no means making them any less Australian (people still prefer watching cricket to professional wrestling e. g. WWE Smackdown) (Bennett 1999, p. 208).
An interesting fact is that the USA has its own cultural dilemma, it should be recognized that the US has likewise absorbed diverse cultures and traditions leading to many people to question who or what is a real American (Bumbrey S. 1999). The idea of Americanisation should not be ignored but rather regarded as part of the cultural assimilation of the world leading towards globalization.
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Research essay sample on Cultural Values Popular Culture
