Elasmar, Michael G. (Ed.). The Impact of International Television: a Paradigm Shift.

McAnany, Emile G.

Elasmar, Michael G. (Ed.). The Impact of International Television: A Paradigm Shift. Mahwah, NJ and London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2003. Pp. x, 213. ISBN 0-8058-4219-5 (hb.) $49.95; 0-8058-4220-9 (pb.) $25.00

The argument of this book is one that has been around for more than 20 years: that the claims of Cultural Imperialism about the dangerous impacts of foreign television has no basis in empirical evidence for audience effects. This was first raised by a critical researcher himself in 1981 when Fred Fejes suggested that media imperialism had no evidence about audience impacts.

The present book under the editorship of Michael Elasmar of Boston University seeks to bring together what evidence there is on audience effects of watching foreign programs. The conclusion of Elasmar (who authors or co-authors four of the 10 chapters) is that there are still few studies of audience effects and that evidence does not account for much of the variance even though the 28 studies almost all showed some impact on audiences. The centerpiece of the argument is a meta-analysis in Chapter 8 of these 28 studies. Although one might argue with some of the technical assumptions of the analysis, the work does help to clarify the continuing lack of good studies of audience effects of watching foreign (often American) programs.

The question to be asked is why this dearth continues decades after the challenge by Fejes. This question, regrettably, the book does not answer. Two responses are possible: first and most importantly, there is no simple answer about media effects anywhere, even on much studied topics like U.S. children's exposure to violent television, and certainly not in a complicated area like the viewing of foreign programs; and second, the issue of cultural imperialism though far from dead in many peoples' minds has moved out of the policy limelight these days and has few scholars devoting time and effort to the topic.

Even with this critique, there is still much to be learned from this book. Elasmar has focused his attention on a central failing of the media/cultural imperialism argument: what about the audience in this whole debate? There are six chapters reporting new data or summarizing older studies done by the authors. Of these, the one by Joseph Straubhaar is by far the strongest. What Straubhaar does is to summarize much of his previous work on the pattern of choice of Latin American audiences toward those programs that are either national or Latin American in origin over those from outside the region (primarily from the U.S.). Moreover, he develops a much more sophisticated analysis of why audiences choose local programming. He begins with the obvious issue of language as a filter for audiences in choosing programs, arguing that even with dubbing, American programs are not as close to audience language, experience, and culture (cultural proximity is the phrase that captures this). But he adds to this these elements--the impact of family, religion, schooling, personal networks, and travel--to argue for a complex mix of factors that directs audience choices toward more familiar programs from national and regional sources. He adds to these culturally unifying factors the important notion of class and its attendant distinctions in cultural capital that different segments of society bring to program choice. Yet he does not take a simple individual audience member approach but recognizes the structural realities of international television distribution and scheduling, including the showing of many Hollywood films on television. Finally, he uses a series of in-depth interviews among a variety of Brazilian audience members to define the variety of choices that different class members make regarding local, regional, and global programming. Not surprisingly, it is the middle and elite classes who tend to participate more in global programming because their cultural capital (education, income, employment, travel) allows them more contact with the world beyond national borders and national culture.

The chapter by Alex Tan and colleagues shows a sophisticated analysis of different theories that may be appropriate to the study of television impacts of foreign programs, but in reporting his own studies among different national audiences, he comes to a conclusion that is a theme throughout the book: the process of influence by television is more complex than cultural imperialists thought. This is echoed by many of the other authors because their studies have run into the same complications that the television violence studies experienced in this country in the 1970s. We may be convinced that there is an effect, but to demonstrate it convincingly is not easy. When we consider that many of the studies reported in the book were poorly funded and were done under difficult field conditions, it is not surprising that better data were not gathered. The conclusion of these studies is that the cultural imperialists overstated the simple connection between foreign program presence and a number of negative consequences for audiences.

The final chapters of the book report the meta-analysis that shows that there are small impacts on audiences but consistently indicating some consequence of watching foreign programs. Elasmar and Hunter correctly observe that none of the 28 studies that corresponded to the requirements of the quantitative measures indicated an overwhelming impact and that very little of the variance in the dependent measures could be accounted for by exposure to foreign programs.

In the final two chapters, Elasmar gives his version of an approach that would provide a final answer to the question along with recommendations in the final chapter of how such a paradigm study might be implemented. The contents here seem to be reasonably coherent but the paradigm outlined may illustrate how complicated a task is at hand. And the question to be asked is, if it could be carried out, would it allay the cultural concerns of people in other countries? I think not. The issue that surrounds the question of cultural imperialism is one of power and not of individual change. As long as there is a feeling that American culture represents at least a threat to someone's culture, language, values, or identity, then there will continue to be critics of influence of that culture.

This book takes up a challenge from more than two decades ago and examines the evidence for claims that are still around though dressed in different language. It brings together that evidence and identifies the complexity of the process of media influence. The challenge to rectify this lack will depend on moving the audience issue back into the public policy limelight.

Each chapter has its own reference list/bibliography. The editors provide both an author and a subject index for the whole volume.

References

Fejes, F. (1981) Media imperialism: An assessment. Media, culture and society, 3, 281-289.

Emile G. McAnany

Santa Clara University