International Media Flows: Global Media and Culture

Ian Condry introduces five graduates of the Comparative Media Studies Program—Aswin Punathambekar, Xiaochang Li, Jing Wang, Orit Kuritsky, Ana Domb —in this final panel, who share their views and experiences about the international/global dimension of the program. ‘Comparative’ can be interpreted across time—media through history, media in times of transition or across media—across platforms, across kinds of technological connectivity. Condry asserts that storytelling and other kinds of social practices are no longer constrained “within a ‘silo’ of media,” but continue to move across media forms. Reinforcing the notion that the world has gotten closer through communication technology, a common theme throughout the discussion is the view that “the local is the new global.” Concerns that globalization would be akin to the “Americanization” or “Westernization” of the creative output have been replaced by a new understanding that media is something everyone participates in, even as it moves around the world undergoing changes along the way. National boundaries no longer exclusively define location, but allow participants to see and change the output with a new objectivity and perspective. “Living within and through difference,” as Punathambekar describes it. The fascination lies in watching as local media become global media then become local media again. Kuritsky provides an example of mainstream English-language lifestyle programs becoming the common language in cable channels throughout the world; Domb uses tecno brega, music from northern Brazil, to show how local musicians create “centers out of the peripheries,” inserting themselves into the mainstream music scene; Punathambekar describes how the local Indian movie scene in Bombay became the global phenomenon known as “Bollywood;” Wang uses her civic media project, NGO 2.0, to show how grass-roots organizations can gain mainstream media attention. Underlying the local-global dialogue is the importa...

Channel: MIT World Video Length: 0s Date Found: Wed, Sep 29 2010 12:56 PM Category: Science Date Produced: Wed, Sep 29 2010 12:00 AM View Count: 0