Reception, Identity, and the Global Village

Media scholars operating within a Marxist framework view the penetrationof mass media into Fourth World cultures as a form of oppression enactinga colonialist agenda upon helpless spectators. Proponents of culturalstudies, however, argue that television audiences actively and creativelyconstruct their own meanings rather than passively absorb pre-packagedmeanings imposed upon them (Ang 243). In this article, I will posit an alternative approach. I will argue thatFourth World people are forced to ask not only "Who are 'we'?" but also"Who are 'they'?" The answer to the second question shapes and informsthe answer to the first question, as Fourth World people are forced tonegotiate their identity upon exposure to First World television. Theresult is a transformative process whereby Fourth World viewers reassignthe roles of "self" and "other" in order to defend, preserve, and re-construct their own selfhood. An Anthropology of TelevisionStudies on audience reception have been virtually ignored withinanthropology. Spitulnik bemoans the fact that there is as yet no"anthropology of mass media" as anthropologists have largely managed toneglect the centrality of mass media in 20th-century life (293).Anthropologists in industrial countries have paid scant systematicattention to the production, distribution, and consumption of mass mediain their own societies and even less to mass media in non-industrialsocieties (A. Lyons 432). While there are emerging wide-scale debates onthe subject of anthropology and film current within the field of visualanthropology, discussions concerning anthropology and television arescarce (Weicker 273). The glaring lack of reception studies reflects the unacknowledgedassumption that all viewers process information in the same manner. Studies have shown, however, that there is an intrinsic link betweenculture and communication and that each culture socialises its members inits own viewing habits and interpretive strategies. Simply stated, themedia do not affect all equally or in the same fashion. The dynamics ofimage interpretation are magnified when the producer of the image and theconsumer of the image come from different cultures. Messages encoded inthe First World may be aberrantly decoded wholly or partially in FourthWorld countries, or they may not be fully acceptable (A. Lyons 442). Although television attracts a tremendous amount of popular interest,serious criticism is relegated to the margins of film or communicationstudies if it enters into academia at all (Joyrich 21). Anthropologistsare only beginning to consider the rich cultural forms of television thatare so pivotal in the development of national sentiments (Abu-Lughod 493).Most TV impact studies done so far are generally limited to the FirstWorld and tend to focus on a limited target group (i.e., children) andrange of effects (i.e., violence) (Kottak 11). This is unfortunate considering television's huge cultural significanceas one of the most important parts in society's mass communication. Inmany parts of the world, television is the most popular and ubiquitouspublic medium, offering a diversity and availablity unmatched by the printmedia (Abu-Lughod 509). Mass media, and television in particular, areforces which provide audiences with ways of seeing and interpreting theworld -- ways which ultimately shape their very existence andparticipation within society. Television must be viewed with a wider lens. Framed by the discourses oftelevision, contemporary formations of identity have shifted in ways thatradically alter the epistemological, aesthetic, and ideological space ofcultures (Joyrich 22). Television is the site of convergence that joinsthe private world of the home with the larger public worlds beyond thefront door (Moores 9). The "Global Village"In Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan prophesied the worldwidecoalescence of human awareness into a single community that he wouldultimately call the "global village". According to McLuhan, the developedworld is experiencing a transformative convergence of computing andcommunications technology whose impact will rival that of the replacementof muscle power by machines (Wright 84). Over 30 years later, Hillary Rodham Clinton remarked on the "frantic andfragmented" lifestyle brought about by this new technology. She echoesthe African proverb (which is also the title of her bestselling book) that"it takes a village to raise a child" (13). The "village" she refers tocan no longer be defined as a place on a map, or a list of people ororganisations, but its essence remains the same: it is the network ofvalues and relationships that support and affect our lives (Clinton 13). Although the American President's wife uses the concept of a "village"differently from her unwitting predecessor, the notion ofinterconnectedness remains the same. The Threat of HomogenisationAmid the social, territorial, and cultural developments of the 20thcentury, the landscapes of cultural identity -- "ethnoscapes" -- aroundthe world are no longer familiar anthropological objects, insofar asgroups are no longer tightly territorialised or spatially bounded(Appadurai 191). In this culture-play of diaspora, the familiar line ofdemarcation separating "self" from "other" has become increasinglyblurred. According to Meyrowitz, the media have created new "communitiesacross spaces of transmission, bringing together otherwise disparategrounds around the common experience of television, thereby resulting inthe cultural 'homogenization of here and there'" (cited in Morley 12). As electronic tools have proliferated, Halleck & Magnan argue, thevariety of views has lessened in mainstream media: "Coca-Cola says theyneed not make commercials for specific national markets anymore: everyonelikes the same music, understands the same images and yes, everyone drinksCoca-Cola" (155). The global popularity of American transnational culturehas made it impossible to get a tabula rasa, if one ever existed. This"westernisation" of the entire world has serious repercussions for howpeople in non-Western countries, and the Fourth World in particular,grapple to preserve their ethnic and cultural identity amidst a whirlwindof McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Pamela Lee. When McLuhan first coined the term "global village" in the 1960s, hisview of such a world was optimistic. As years passed, however, he grewincreasingly wary of the communications "implosion" (Wright 89). In TheGlobal Village, which his friend and collaborator Bruce Powers publishedposthumously, the authors devote nine pages to the "satisfactions" of"Global Robotism" and 38 pages to its "dissatisfactions". They claim thatthe salient issue of the information age will be the need to excludeinformation as the average global villager will be bombarded by anonslaught of media messages. In 1984, George Orwell warned that society would be controlled by anexternally imposed oppression. In Alduous Huxley's vision, presented inBrave New World, people will come to love their oppression and to adorethe technologies that undo their capacities to think (Postman vii;emphasis added). In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman argues that thereare two ways by which the spirit of a culture may be shriveled. In thefirst -- the Orwellian -- culture becomes a prison, whereas in the second -- the Huxleyan -- culture becomes a burlesque:In the age of advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. (Postman 155)By ushering in the Age of Television, Postman contends that America hasbrought the Huxleyan prophecy to fruition. The Cultural Imperialism ThesisMedia scholars operating in a Marxist theoretical framework like Postmanhave deplored the consequences for cultural autonomy of the global reachof First World television programs. Electronic media can potentiallycolor, distort, and even degrade an entire cultural world view, theyargue, by presenting images of the world suited to the agenda of the media(Funkhouser & Shaw 86). This theory is generally referred to as "culturalimperialism", which Sarmela defines asthe economic, technological, and cultural hegemony of the industrialized nations which determines the direction of both economic and social progress, defines cultural values and standardizes the civilization and cultural environment throughout the world. (13)In Make-Believe Media, Parenti portrays the media as an insidiousjuggernaut controlling every thought of a mass of mindless zombies. Hecontends that films and television programmes have propagated images andideologies that perpetuate the "isms": imperialism, anti-communism,capitalism, racism, sexism, militarism, and vigilantism, to name but a few(2). Prolonged exposure results in the surrender of a critical capacity. In fact, consumers of mass media "become active accomplices in [their] ownindoctrination" (6). This is the only thing viewers actively do, becausein Parenti's estimations, media render their victims little more thanpassive spectators. Herbert Schiller is perhaps most closely associated with the culturalimperialism thesis. In Mass Communications and American Empire, he claimsthat American television exports are part of a general effort by theAmerican military industrial complex to subject the world to militarycontrol, electronic surveillance, and homogenised American commercialculture (cited in Tunstall 38). The export of cheap American televisionprograms, Schiller speculates, was deliberately undertaken by Americanpolitical interests in order to convert subaltern populations to Americancultural and political values, thereby maintaining American politicaldominance and securing a market for American products (A. Lyons 441). Schiller may get a bit carried away but the impact of television onFourth World cultures is irrefutable. In their article, "Why Do TheIndians Wear Adidas?", Arnould & Wilk describe the influence ofglobalisation upon subaltern cultures:Peruvian Indians carry around small, rectangular rocks painted to look like transistor radios ... Bana tribesmen in Kako, Ethiopia pay a hefty price to look through a view-master at 'Pluto Tries to Become a Circus Dog' ... When a Swazi princess weds a Zulu king, she wears red touraco wing feathers around her forehead and a cape of windowbird feathers and oxtails. He wears a leopard skin cloak. Yet all is recorded with a Kodak movie camera, and the band plays 'The Sound of Music' ... Veiled noble Tuareg men carry swords modelled after the Crusaders' weapons and sport mirrored sunglasses with tiny hearts etched into the lenses. (748)Every culture in which television appeared has experienced a reduction inthe diversity of activities. Kent found that Navajo families withouttelevision, for example, performed a wide array of activities such asfamily discussions, butchering, weaving baskets and blankets, jewelrymaking -- which were generally absent in Navajo households with television(124). Similarly, in a rural city in Nigeria, H. Lyons discovered thatthe introduction of the new and highly popular evening activity, conductedlargely within private family quarters, has markedly reduced eveningsocial life by "keeping them indoors" (413). This same pattern ofdisrupting and monopolising leisure activity appears everywhere televisionpenetrates Fourth World cultures. For this reason, cultural imperialism theorists have decried the"contamination" of traditional culture by mass media, recognising a cleardifference between those with access and those without (Aufderheide;Mankekur). The logical conclusion to be drawn is that Western media arefundamentally incompatible with notions of cultural autonomy anddiversity. The Active AudienceProponents of cultural studies see the cultural imperialism thesis asproblematic. In their view, cultural imperialists reduce societiespenetrated by electronic media to a simple juxtaposition of two worlds: apristine "before" and a degenerate "after". Television thus becomes acultural and historical watershed allowing people to create a mythicalpast (Wilk 237). While there have certainly been changes since theintroduction of television, there have always been changes. Culturalstudies advocates argue that the media constitute only part of the processof actual and alleged cultural loss. Rather than creating massive cultural homogeneity on a global scale,societies who have recently gained access to television are replacing onediversity with another (Hannerz 555). The popular perception amongcultural imperialism theorists that globalisation threatens culturalidentity is, according to Ang, a misnomer (252). The desire to keepnational identity and culture wholesome and pristine is not onlyunrealistic but oblivious to the contradictions condensed in the veryconcept of national identity. Defining identity in static terms ignoresthe fact that identity is a site of struggle -- a fundamentally dynamic,complex, and unstable phenomenon. Cultural studies scholars have responded by portraying people of theFourth World not as passive objects to be dominated at will but as activesubjects capable of making their own decisions. Katz & Liebes, forexample, argue that television viewing is a negotiation process involvingthe story on the screen, the culture of the viewers, and the interpersonalexchanges among the viewers (101). The audience is not a "sponge" whichwill automatically soak in Western culture for good or evil. Rather, itpicks and chooses what it likes and interprets what it chooses. TV viewing is, first and foremost for cultural studies scholars, anactive and social process. Television audiences actively and creativelyconstruct their own meanings rather than passively absorbing pre-packagedmeanings imposed upon them (Ang 243). In fact, Lembo & Tucker argue thataudiences engage with television images and interpret them in accordancewith their life situations, struggling to redefine meanings of mediaobjects in ways consistent with their own cultural values (98). Viewers'active interaction with television texts turns reception into a site ofstruggle and not simply a site of domination. This argument is repeated ad nauseam in cultural studies. I agree withSilverstone that there is a danger in pursuing the active audience too far(177). While cultural studies properly emphasises the significance ofunderstanding audience decodings, it neglects the contexts and pressurethat influence those interpretations (Carragee 87). More specifically, ithas failed to examine how media content expresses dominant ideologicalmeanings. Here, I posit an alternative approach to television reception amongFourth World audiences. Television is neither homogenising, as culturalimperialism theorists advocate, nor simply a terrain for activeinterpretation, as proponents of cultural studies argue, but revolvesaround the negotiation for identity rooted in a negotiation of powerrelations. Negotiation for IdentityAs the world becomes increasingly mass-mediated, the study of howaudiences manage contradictions between the specificities of their ownlives and the imposed generalities of a homogenised mass culture becomescentral (Silverstone 173). Institutions of mass cultural disseminationprovide the cultural field on which fragmented identities are formed andreformed (Garnham 253). Television, in particular, plays a crucial rolein the formation and maintenance of cultural and social identities. Recent trends in anthropology reflect a growing acknowledgment of thesignificance of mass media to processes of identity construction(Mankekar). Viewers' interpretations are profoundly influenced by broadersocial discourses in which they are interpellated. In an increasinglyintegrated world system, there is no such thing as an independent culturalidentity; rather, every identity must define and position itself inrelation to the cultural frames affirmed by the world system (Ang 253). Inthis way, the global and local are inextricably linked in a dialecticalrelationship: what people watch is mediated by, and simultaneously helpsilluminate, developments in their lives. More specifically, I contend thatthe question "Who are 'they'?" directly shapes and informs the question"Who are 'we'?" Who Are "They"?According to Katz & Dayan, the viewing of television is a liminalactivity in which masses of people routinely -- even ritualistically --disconnect themselves from their everyday concerns, enter into a protected"time out", and allow themselves to be transported symbolically elsewhere(305). This liminal phase exists between the real world and an imaginaryworld or what Funkhouser & Shaw term "real experience" and "syntheticexperience" (80). Until the advent of electronic media, for most people actual experiencewas limited to events within reality. But with the emergence of the"global village", people gain access to an information environment ofunreal and synthetic events -- an experience akin to "viewing life througha one-way mirror" (Funkhouser & Shaw 79) As Postman writes: "there is nomore disturbing consequence of the electronic and graphic revolution thanthis: that the world as given to us through television seems natural, notbizarre" (79). Horton & Wohl argue that media and media performers deliberately createan illusion which they call a "para-social relationship" -- the implicitagreement between performer and viewer of an interpersonal relationship(33). The pattern and structure of the television medium breeds a comfortand familiarity which foster a close, social relationship between theviewer and viewed. Caughey calls the intimate involvement with largenumbers of unmet media figures through media consumption "synthetic socialrelations" (33). Despite the lack of actual contact, viewers tend to feelstrongly about media figures. The question "Who are 'they'"? consists of an individual's "real socialworld" -- the people with whom he or she actually interacts -- and"artificial social world" -- all beings known through the media (usuallynumbering several times more "persons"). The television viewer becomesfamiliar with a throng of other beings with whom he or she never engagesin actual contact. In the developed world, people devote considerablymore time to artificial rather than real relationships. At the time ofCaughey's writing, mass media consumption occupied 50% of leisure time(Caughey 73). With the advent of the Internet, I estimate that figure tobe much higher today. The situation is different, however, for Fourth World viewers. Whiledirect interaction can correct or disprove media stereotypes for Americanviewers, this is less likely for Fourth World viewers who are more apt tobelieve what they see on television because they generally lack any frameof reference to think otherwise. Because they rarely, if ever, come intoactual physical contact with the types of people represented on thescreen, their experience is limited to synthetic representations. Iftelevision consumption determines how one perceives the world and, inparticular, how one views "others", this power is amplified for FourthWorld audiences. Who Are "We"?Notions of "who are 'they'"? directly shape and inform an understandingof "who are 'we'?" because of the tendency to apply what viewers see onscreen to their own personal experiences. In his article "Fiction asTruth: Viewer Use of Fiction Films as Data About the 'Real' World", Custeninvestigated the ways viewers in peer groups discussed a feature filmafter its screening and found that events or objects within the cinematicframe are discussed in terms of their congruence not with the auteur'sworld, but with the extra-cinematic world of the viewer (29). In otherwords, the fictive material is used as data or evidence in discoursesconcerning the world outside the film frame. The real social world and the artificial social world seem to overlap. The verbal responses to the film are constructed using data from the "reallife" of viewers rather than the fictive world defined by the film andfilmmaker. Custen's findings indicate that viewers tend to discuss howthe film is meaningful to them in some real life context by employingmarkers from their own lives: "viewers organize the symbolic world interms that are 'common' to them through a selection process that holds thefilm up to a mirror of their shared, familiar realities" (35). In thisway, "who are 'they'?" mirrors "who are 'we'?" This phenomenon is not limited to film, as it is also evident in Reid'sstudy of the television viewing habits of black women in London. Reidfound that criticisms voiced about the portrayal of blacks on Britishtelevision revolved around how far such representations were from theirown experiences. As an example, the black women largely disparaged TheCosby Show for depicting an idealised and thus unrealistic portrayal ofblacks while similarly condemning documentaries because they reinforcednegative images of blacks. Likewise, Seiter et al. discovered that soap opera viewers tended topermit the fiction of the shows to spill over into their real lives andsocial worlds (235). All of the informants in one study felt so connectedto the characters on the shows that they viewed the soaps as relevant totheir own social reality. As one informant stated: "they [the soapoperas] do set moral standards" (Seiter et al. 236). The relationship is,in fact, reciprocal: viewers evaluate the characters according to theirown values while, at the same time, learning values from the characters. In other words, "Who are 'they'?" informs "Who are 'we'?" and vice versa. Despite the recognition that the characters are fictional, all informantstreated the characters as social beings. Viewers in these studiesinteracted with media figures because they are part of the same socialworld. What if the characters are a part of a different social world, asin the case of Fourth World viewers? Negotiation of Power RelationsIdentity formation is embedded in the negotiation of perceived powerrelations. Most audience studies ignore the fact that discourses ofindividual viewers and those of television have different levels of power(Carragee 92). The capacity of viewers to negotiate meanings does notmatch the power of a centralised storytelling institution such astelevision. For Fourth World viewers watching First World television, theanswer to "Who are 'they'?" is always more powerful than the answer to"Who are 'we'?" Idealising the "Self"When the Fourth World ("other") views the First World ("self") throughthe medium of television, it is exposed to a strange world most know verylittle about. Initially, Fourth World viewers are overwhelmed by thedisparity of the two worlds and struck by what they do not have incomparison. Television generally provides Fourth World viewers with anelaborately extended sense of "otherness". As a result, the admiration ofthe represented First World "selfhood", and the concomitant inadequacy oftheir own "otherness", are magnified. For example, in "The 'Other' as Viewer", Adra records and describes theinitial audience reactions to television in a small rural community inYemen. What happens when Western filmic representations are shown topeople whose assumptions about human nature, intentionality, and thenature of society are almost exactly opposite to those in the West? (Adra263). Predictably, perceptions of the nature of the world outside Yemenaltered radically. Before television, they were justly proud of theircivilisation. However, after seeing images ranging from skyscrapers andfactories to blenders and the daily operation of a bank, some began toquestion the adequacy of their own lifestyle (Adra 260). Disparaging the "Other"After this initial phase of idealisation, envy evolves into disparagementas Fourth World peoples are forced to assert their own identity. Kuehnastdescribes this phenomenon as "the export of prejudice", by which sherefers to the dissemination of a dominant ideology which results in theperpetuation of myths, prejudices, or limited understandings about otherpeoples (184). In Kuehnast's estimation, the "export of prejudice"results when the "self" views the "other". I contend that this alsohappens when the "other" views the "self". The "export of prejudice" is essentially another name for ethnocentrism,which Segall et al. define as "the view of things in which one's own groupand customs are unconsciously used as the standard for all judgments, asthe center of everything, with all other peoples and customs scaled andrated accordingly" (9-10). I agree with Crawford that television "isintrinsically ethnocentric" because, as a mass audience medium, it mustalways try to relate "their" societies to "ours" (75). Among television audiences, ethnocentrism usually takes the form of a"love/hate" relationship with media figures. In Seiter et al.'s soapopera study, for example, the relationship between viewer and charactertypically oscillated between hostility and admiration (237). In the caseof Erica Kane, a popular soap opera villain, one of the informants enviedher but (or as a result) also felt the need to disparage her (Seiter etal. 238). Perhaps fuelled by the recognition of gaping class differencesbetween the extravagant lifestyles of the characters and the more domesticlifestyles of most of the informants, viewers put the characters "down" sothey could feel "up". The export of prejudice goes hand in hand with the import of pride. Manymembers of the Benin audiences in Nigeria, for example, criticise the lackof filial piety displayed by children on American television (H. Lyons). This strong opposition is predictable in a society that prides itself onhaving retained more reliable family values than the perceived norm inEurope or North America (H. Lyong 419). The Benin audience highlights thenegatives of the television representation in relation to their ownpositives. This interpretation is based on ethnocentrism. Transformative ProcessViewers can rearrange the textual encodings of ideology withoutnecessarily articulating an oppositional ideological stance (Lembo &Tucker 111). The homogeneity of television is never complete becausepeople interpret what they see in ways different from, and often opposedto, the ideological encoding preferred by élites (Fiske 61). The FourthWorld audience rearranges the textual encodings in television byreconstructing its sense of "self" and "other". In dialogism, the very capacity to have consciousness is based onotherness (Holquist 18). "Self" can never be a self-sufficient constructbut is dialogic, or defined in relation, to the "other":I get my self from the other; it is only from the other's categories that will let me be an object for my own perception ... In order to forge a self, I must do so from outside. In other words, I author myself. (Bahktin cited in Hoquist 28; emphasis added)Dialogism argues that all meaning is relative in that it is the result ofa relation between two bodies occupying simultaneous but different space. Reality is always experienced from a particular position. Thus, I contend that the Fourth World television audience undertakes atransformative process whereby it reassigns the roles from the "other"viewing the "self" to the "self" viewing the "other". After initiallyidealising the First World, Fourth World viewers embark on the process of"otherising" the First World through an export of prejudice and import ofpride. "Otherising" is not negative, as is commonly perceived. In fact,in the context of Fourth World viewers of First World television, it isnecessary for self-defence, self-preservation, and self-construction. ConclusionDepending on who you ask, awareness of the outside world throughtelevision can lead to anything from enlightenment to damnation. Butabove all, images on the electronic box radically transform not only anunderstanding of the outside world but also the way Fourth World peoplesdefine themselves and their relationship to each other. By presentingsubaltern audiences with an objectified "other", television prompts theemergence of an objectified "self". People who are heavily exposed to the media use it as their main rawmaterial for perceiving and understanding the outside world. In this way,television determines how Fourth World peoples see and interact withothers. In Brazil, for example, television trains villagers in nationalnorms and teaches them how to deal with non-Brazilians (Kottak). As afacilitator of social interaction, television plays an integrative role increating a pan-Brazilian identity. Thus, television also determines howFourth World peoples see themselves. The intimate awareness of otherness, presented by television images, hasled Fourth World peoples to create a new concept of culture. In FourthWorld cultures after television, people talk about "culture" in ways thatwere not possible before its arrival (Wilk 240). "Who are 'we'?" wouldnot have been asked, or asked in the same way, were it not for the "Whoare 'they'?" necessitated by the introduction of television. Paradoxically, contrary to most fears, television actually serves tocreate rather than destroy a national identity by forcing Fourth Worldpeoples to re-define themselves. ReferencesAbu-Lughod, Lila. "Finding a Place for Islam: Egyptian TelevisionSerials and the National Interest." Public Culture 5.3 (1993): 493-514.Adra, Najwa. "The 'Other' as Viewer: Reception of Western and ArabTelevised Representations in Rural Yemen". The Construction of theViewer. Eds. Peter I. Crawford and Sigurjon B. Hafsteinsson. Aarhus:Intervention Press, 1994. 255-69.Ang, Ien. "Culture and Communication: Towards an Ethnographic Critiqueof Media Consumption in the Transnational Media System." European Journalof Communication 5 (1990): 239-60.Appadurai, Arjun. "Global Ethnoscapes: Notes and Queries for aTransnational Anthropology." Recapturing Anthropology. Ed. Richard Fox.Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research P, 1991. 191-210.Arnould, Eric J., and Richard E. Wilk. "Why Do the Indians Wear Adidas?"Advances in Consumer Research 11 (1984): 748-52.Aufderheide, Pat. "Deep Dish TV." In Our Times 3-16 Aug. 1988: 24ff.Blum, Alan. "Lower-Class Negro Television Spectators: The Concept ofPseudo Jovial Skepticism." Blue Collar World. Eds. A. Shotak and W.Gomberg. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1964.Carragee, Kevin. "Interpretive Media Study and Interpretive SocialScience." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 7.2 (1990): 81-96.Caughey, John L. "Social Relations with Media Figures." Imaginary SocialWorlds. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1984.Clinton, Hillary Rodham. It Takes a Village and Other Lessons ChildrenTeach Us. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.Crawford, Peter Ian. "The Kayapo on Television." Visual AnthropologyReview 8.1 (1992): 107-12.Custen, George. "Fiction as Truth: Viewer Use of Fiction Films as Dataabout the 'Real' World." Visual Explorations of the World. Eds. Jay Rubyand Martin Taureg. Aachen: Editions Herodot, Rader Verlag, 1987. 28-46.Fiske, John. "Moments of Television: Neither the Text nor the Audience."Remote Control. Eds. E. Seiter et al. London: Routledge, 1989. 56-78.Funkhouser, G. Ray, and Eugene F. Shaw. "How Synthetic Experience ShapesSocial Reality." Journal of Communication 40.2 (1990): 75-87.Garnham, Nicholas. "The Mass Media, Cultural Identity, and the PublicSphere in the Modern World." Public Culture 5.3 (1993): 251-65.Halleck, Dee Dee, and Nathalie Magnan. "Access for Others: Alter(Native)Media Practice." Visual Anthropology Review 9.1 (1993): 154-63.Hannerz, Ulf. "The World in Creolization." Africa 57.4 (1987): 546-59.Holquist, Michael. "Existence as Dialogue and Language as Dialogue." Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World. New York: Routledge, 1990. 14-39.Horton, Donald, and R. Richard Wohl. "Mass Communication and Para-SocialInteraction: Observation on Intimacy at a Distance." Inter/Media-Interpersonal Communication in a Media World. Eds. G. Gumpert and R.Cathcart. New York: Oxford UP, 1956. 32-55.Joyrich, Lynne. Re-Viewing Reception: Television, Gender, and PostmodernCulture. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1996.Karthigesu, Ranggasmay. "Television as a Tool for Nation Building in theThird World: Post-Colonial Patterns Using Malaysia as a Case-Study". Television and Its Audience: International Research Perspectives. Eds.Phillip Drummond and Richard Patterson. London: BFI Publishing, 1988. 306-26.Katz, Elihu, and Daniel Dayan. "Media Events: On the Experience of NotBeing There." Religion, 15 (1985): 305-14.Katz, Elihu, and Tamar Liebes. "Decoding Dallas: Notes from a Cross-Cultural Study". Inter/Media--Interpersonal Communication in a MediaWorld. Eds. Gary Gumpert and Richard Cathcart. New York: Oxford UP, 1984.97-109.Kent, Susan. "The Effects of Television Viewing: A Cross-CulturalPerspective". Current Anthropology 26.1 (1985): 121-6.Kottak, Conrad P. Prime-Time Society: An Anthropological Analysis ofTelevision and Culture. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1990.Kuehnast, Kathleen. "Visual Imperialism and the Export of Prejudice: AnExploration of Ethnographic Film". Film as Ethnography. Eds. P. Crawfordand D. Turton. Manchester, 1992. 183-195. Lembo, Ronald, and Kenneth H.Tucker, Jr. "Culture, Television, and Opposition: Rethinking CulturalStudies." Critical Studies in Mass Communication 7.2 (1990): 97-116.Lyons, Andrew P. "The Television and the Shrine: Towards a TheoreticalModel for the Study of Mass Communications in Nigeria." VisualAnthropology 3.1 (1990): 429-56.Lyons, Harriet D. "Television in Contemporary Urban Life: Benin City,Nigeria." Visual Anthropology 3.1 (1990): 411-28.Mankekar, Purnima. "National Texts and Gendered Lives: An Ethnography ofTelevision Viewers in a North Indian City." American Ethnologist 20.3(1993): 543-63.Moores, Shaun. Interpreting Audiences: The Ethnography of MediaConsumption. London: Sage Publications, 1993.Morley, David. "Where the Global Meets the Local: Notes from the SittingRoom." Screen 32.1 (1991): 1-17.Parenti, Michael. Make-Believe Media: The Politics of Entertainment. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Ageof Show Business. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.Reid, Evelyn Caulete. "The Television Viewing Habits of Young Black Womenin London." Screen 30.1 (1990): 115-21.Sarmela, Matti. "What Is Cultural Imperialism?" Cultural Imperialism andCultural Identity. Ed. C. Sandbacka. Helsinki: The FinnishAnthropological Society, 1977. 13-36. Schiller, Herbert. MassCommunications and American Empire. New York, NY: Augustus M. Kelley,1969.Segall, M.H., T.D. Campbell, and M.J. Herskovitz. The Influence ofCulture on Visual Perception. New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1966.Seiter, Ellen, Hans Borchers, Gabrielle Kreutzner, and Eva-Maria Warth."'Don't Treat Us Like We're So Stupid and Naive': Toward an Ethnography of Soap Opera Viewers". Remote Control: Television, Audiences, and Cultural Power. Eds. Ellen Seiter et al. New York: Routledge, 1989. 223- 47.Silverstone, Roger. Television and Everyday Life: Towards anAnthropology of the Television Audience. New York: Routledge, 1994.Spitulnik, Debra. "Anthropology and Mass Media." Annual Review ofAnthropology 22 (1993): 293-315.Tunstall, Jeremy. The Media Are American. New York: Columbia UP, 1977.Weicker, Susanne. "Anthropology and Television: Ethnographic-Ethnological Topics on German Television." Visual Anthropology 6 (1993):271-83.Wilk, Richard. "'It's Destroying a Whole Generation': Television andMoral Discourse in Belize." Visual Anthropology 5 (1993): 229-44.Worth, Sol, and John Adair. Through Navajo Eyes: An Exploration in FilmCommunication and Anthropology. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1972.Wright, Karen. "The Road to the Global Village." Scientific American 1990.Citation reference for this articleMLA style:Sam Pack. "Reception, Identity, and the Global Village: Television in theFourth World." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.1 (2000). [your dateof access] .Chicago style:Sam Pack, "Reception, Identity, and the Global Village: Television in theFourth World," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 1 (2000), ([your date of access]). APA style:Sam Pack. (2000) Reception, Identity, and the Global Village: Televisionin the Fourth World. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(1). ([your date of access]).