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The Media And Its Effects On The Global World

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In a globalized society, commodities, ideologies, and hegemonic forces are constantly transferred from a dominating power onto other cultures with lesser global influence. The Disney media conglomerate yields an unprecedented amount of control over the means of media consumption on a global scale. As Souad Belkyr proposes in “Disney animation: Global diffusion and local appropriation of culture,” “Disney products function as an apparatus that potentially prescribe consumerist ideologies and individualistic ethics beneficial to the US as a group in power over dominated and less powerful groups” (Belkyr 705). Disney not only owns major television networks such as ABC and ESPN, but also has control over radio stations, and targets the …show more content…

Based on Lee’s argument, Disney’s cultural imperialism is a mode for inserting American cultural values in their products, but what does cultural imperialism mean? According to the Cambridge dictionary, cultural imperialism is “the fact of the culture of a large and powerful country, organization, etc. having a great influence on another less powerful country, etc.” (English Definition). In the documentary, Mickey Mouse Monopoly, Disney is expressed as having major influences on national and international culture; shaping and sometimes policing their market image to better represent their cultural imperialism (Mickey Mouse Monopoly). Now that it’s been established Disney has tremendous influence on cultures in a global fashion through hegemony, and imposes the dominant cultural ideas through their products; how does Disney contribute to cultural homogenization? Cristina Lim describes homogenization of culture as “a result of cultural imperialism where the dominant countries impose upon other countries their beliefs, values, knowledge, norms and style of life” (Lim 21). It has already been established that Disney does incorporate cultural imperialism, so the dominant values

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