The Global Flow of Visual Culture

Cultural Imperalism

Cultural imperialism is an old phenomenon about sending country’s values in different nations. There are several ways to do it e.g. tv, radio, and internet. The whole world has become global village. For instance, American ideals of equality, freedom, and democracy now available in the world may give more freedom to women, children, and to minorities in all cultures, and will promote anti-racist, anti-sexist or anti-authoritarian messages and regimes. Examples to discuses cultural imperialism are Iraq, and Afghanistan. Setting up democracy in both the countries based on American ideals of equality was not an easy task for US. Starting off with President Bush who had a lot of obstacles in his way to make both the countries democratic. Some how he got succeed to built a democratic government in Iraq and helped the locals to elect their Leader democratically but in Afghanistan US values of equality and freedom to women has not found its place and it is still not being accepted as life style.

The U.S. and Soviet Union are known for their cultural imperialism that is a way for the countries to create an “non-invasive presence” in other countries. Although they are known for these types of tactics other countries are also using these types of media implementations as well. An example of this was the hit BBC television show “the Office”. It received acclaim in England and then the show was replicated in the U.S. with new stars and additional story lines to fit the entertainment ideas of a U.S. audience.

Cultural imperialism creates a line of presence to other countries that can be used to help people see a countries view that they are not native to. It can play both ways, but is often applied by a country with more power trying to impose a view and way of life on another country.

Global Niche Markets

Coca Cola achieves success in global niche marketing by featuring people from the culture the company wishes to reach and by using pop culture references from the culture. We think Coca cola is successful in many of its attempts at global marketing because often the commercials can be understand without knowing the language or the reference being made. Typical Coca Cola commercial show the consumer finding refreshment or relief in the drink.

In our first video, which is from Lebanon, this is done very well. All the consumers are saying "brrrr" to let the audience know that the drink is cool, refreshing and fun to drink. It's a great commercial that can be done throughout the world. All the Coke corporation has to do is hire new actors to reflect the country the commercial appears in.

The second commercial we found does a very good job of targeting a specific culture, which happens to be America. The commercial uses The Godfather to get the attention of the American audience. This commercial wouldn't translate well among cultures, but it is a good example of taking a culturally significant media and using it to target a specific group of people.

The second commercial.

Global Brands

Our example of a global brand is Subway.

The company has technically been successful because it has entered the global

market, but Subway might not maintain that success because of an inability to adapt to cultural tastes.

In Pakistan, for example, Subway uses the same recipes as it does in America, which are very plain and lack a lot of spice. Subway is not as popular in Pakistan as it is in America and we believe this could be because food in Pakistan traditionally has spices in it.

Meanwhile, McDnonalds, in addition to its regular items, offers special menu items that meet the needs of the country it operates within. It is well known that McDonalds is extremely successful in the global market and we believe that Subway would do better if it followed McDonald's example.