Cultural Globalization as the Emergence of a Transnational Cultural Field: Transnational Television and National Media Landscapes in Four European Countries

Abstract

This article analyzes cultural globalization as the emergence of a transnational cultural field, integrating Bourdieusian field theory with globalization theory. Drawing on interview materials and secondary data analysis, it compares the “opening up” of national television fields in France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland and the formation of a transnational TV field with (partly) its own standards, practices, and cultural geography. Cultural intermediaries, such as television buyers, are crucial to this transnational field, mediating and maintaining relations between the national and transnational arenas. These transnational professional create transnational practices and quality standards and diffuse them into national cultural fields.