el fin.

I’ll confess that when I started this subject I had only blogged once before and, if I’m honest, I was still dreading my first post. I was unaware of what was expected, or how to stand out from the sea of BCM111 bloggers.

However, within this course I really enjoyed being able to sit back and reflect on the readings and lecture content each week. This enabled me to work through the more challenging concepts in my own time and allowed me to research real life situations and examples of the content. Blogging was extremely helpful, as it not only allowed me to get a better grasp on the topics, but also gave my readers and classmates something to relate the topics to and gave them a different angle to view them from.

I found it quite difficult to remain unique and interesting throughout my blog, especially on topics that I didn’t engage as well with. However, I learned that by adding relevant links and visual content, such as images and videos, I was able to keep my readers engaged.

My goal for my BCM111 blog was to try and continually increase my readership and blog traffic in order for my posts and opinions to reach a wider audience. By frequently linking significant keywords from my discussion topics as hash tags on my blog posts I was able to optimise the search engine capabilities and furthered my readership, as they were able to search for my posts through the hash tags.

My favourite blog post for this semester would have to be my ‘Blurred Lines’ post on the week six topic, ‘Transnational film industries: Hollywood and beyond’. This post covered the Tofo Tofo dance group and their introduction into the world of Hollywood. However, the underlying question I wanted to pose to my readers was, why do artists always need the American/ European stamp of approval in order to be recognised and valued? Within this post I hoped to resonate that while our media industry in indeed changing and evolving, we need to remember the values and traditions behind all of the glitter and glamour of our new media world.

My favourite reading throughout the semester was by O’Shaughnessy & Stadler (2010), called ‘Globalisation’. I think his notion that the world has been ‘commodified, commercialized, decontextualized and stripped of tradition and cultural meaning’ is a very important concept, and one that we must be aware of. While I do not believe that all traditional and cultural meaning has been stripped, I think that this notion has truth to it; especially in relevance to the future direction we are heading with the growth of technology’s role in our lives.

Another reading I found while researching on the Internet that made an impact to my writing was by Kuldip R. Rampal, called ‘Cultural Imperialism or Economic Necessity?: The Hollywood Factor in the Reshaping of the Asian Film Industry’. Rampal demonstrates how transnational films are combining traditional film techniques with modern styles to appeal to a wider audience. In relation to the many tutorial discussions that we had surrounding cultural imperialism, this reading gave me a greater insight into the topic, and made me wonder whether countries were truly being imposed upon, or simply embracing the popular culture. A question I’m yet to find the answer to.

This task has taught me that meeting a deadline involves dedication and organization, and has significantly improved my writing and referencing skills, and my ability to critically analyse a text. The main thing I hope to take from this task is the notion that within this new phenomenon of globalisation, we must learn that a balance of old and new culture is essential in order to retain our traditional values

O’Shaughnessy,M, Standler, J, 1999, ‘Globalisation’, Michael O’Shaughnessy (eds.), Media and Society, OUP, Australia & New Zealand, 2012, pp.458-470

A Tribute to the Glocal.

Although today hip-hop is commonly associated with the likes of Snoop-dog and all of his ‘bitches’ and Nicki Minja and all of her ‘booty’, the once unnamed culture was characterised as a result of structural inequality and ghetto conditions, and became a chance for young teenagers in the Bronx of America to steer away from of street violence and gang culture.

Formed in New York City’s ghettos in the 1970’s, this genre  of dance, today known as ‘hip-hop’, drew on its’ influences from African-American and African cultures and cultural dance.

Throughout history, hip-hop has commonly been used to comment on political and social problems. It has always been more than a genre of dance; rather it is a form of connection and a chance for others to have a say.

Hip-hop includes many genres and distinctions, such as commercial, gangsta, conscious, grime and booty, however hip-hop is most commonly related to four genres, MCing, DJing, graffiti and breaking.

The spread of hip-hop is evidence of the hybridity and ‘glocalisation’ of todays’ culture. In her reading, April K Henderson highlights Samoan’s as being amongst the first breakers who understood the importance of performing and embodying their local languages and culture through the genre of hip-hop. Henderson acknowledges that, “young Samoans in multi-ethnic neighborhoods earned status and respect through mastering the physical vocabularies of dance or sport”.

Hip-hop was first influenced to the Samoans by hip hop artists and dancers whom travelled back and forth between Samoa and their other homes, creating a global corridor for the development and reformation of Samoan hip hop.

Samoan hip-hop combines traditional forms of Samoan dance and hip-hop and “enables the children of migrants to have the confidence to learn and perform dance”. They not only embraced this form of dance, but glocalised the form of dance by merging hip-hop into the Samoan culture. It empowered the youth to become affiliated with their history and appreciate their traditions.

Samoan hip-hop dancers, such as Petelo Petelo, King Kapisi, Scribe, Dei Hamo, and Savage have become an inspiration for many other Maori and Pacific Islander dancers. They have revolutionized a new national identity and respect for their culture, old and new.

Hip-hop is an important part of our worldwide culture. It is a tribute to the glocalisation of culture, and proof that globalisation has the ability to affect countries all over the world, from the West Coast to the East Coast of America, from New York to the Samoan Island.

McWorld.

In short, globalisation – the spread of economic, social and cultural ideas across the world, and our seamless global connectedness – has produced a world of ‘instantaneity, interconnectedness and interdependence’ (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2001). The old saying, ‘the world is at your fingertips’, has become a modern reality as smartphones, Skype, Facebook and other interactive technology have created an interpersonal community that crosses geographic, racial, religious and cultural barriers.

Amid free sharing and entry into the public domain, citizens of the world have transcended the ‘nation-state’ to become part of a larger online community. With globalisation eradicating boundaries of time, space and knowledge, we can now draw on our intelligence and interconnectedness in a global response to changing realities, such as natural disasters and climate change.

However, while new media and communication have the ability to educate, empower and democratise, they have also formulated a world in which some cultures have been ‘commodified, commercialized, decontextualized and stripped of tradition and cultural meaning’ (O’Shaughnessy & Stadler, 2010). With the aid of globalisation and it’s technological advancements, we now have the ability to increase our awareness of foreign cultures, however we must recognise that in exercising Western choice and values, we may deny others cultural desires and limit their individual choice.

This ‘Westernisation’, or ‘Americanisation’, could unfortunately result in a new form of dependency on Western values and traditions, creating a world that is nomadic, alienated and filled with no real connections. As Appadurai claims, “The world we live in now seems rhizomic even schizophrenic, calling for theories of rootlessness, alienation and psychological distance between individuals and groups on the one hand and fantasies (or nightmares) of electronic propinquity on the other”. I’ll be the first to confess that I love my iPhone, my iMac, my TV and my unrestricted and unlimited access to the World Wide Web. However, as we transition into this modern, fast-paced, commercially driven world, global discourses concerned with late capitalist culture, such as dislocation and alienation of the individual, reveal the need to maintain greater connections within our evolving society.

In this modern age, links to television, telecommunications, the Internet, international trade and air travel, have all combined to create what Marshall McLuhan called the ‘global village’. However, we must tackle this new phenomenon head-on to protect our diversity and individuality. Technological advances and widespread communication could be the greatest achievement mankind has made; conversely it could also be our downfall. I have travelled from the beaches of Bali, to the mountains in Switzerland, to the shops in London and the monuments in Paris and I have no doubt that it is the world’s variety and array of cultures that make it so incredible. And so I, like the wise Dr Seuss, pose a question –

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” 

O’Shaughnessy,M, Standler, J, 1999, ‘Globalisation’, Michael O’Shaughnessy (eds.), Media and Society, OUP, Australia & New Zealand, 2012, pp.458-470