The Relationship, Tension and Interaction between Cultural Imperialism and Contra-Flow in Contemporary Media Culture

Abstract

This study discusses the interaction between cultural imperialism and contra flow in the context of contemporary media culture, mainly looking at the perspective of visual media such as television and movie other than print media. It talks about the relationship between cultural imperialism and dominant flow in global cultural industries. It also explores the relationship between dominant flow and contra-flow and how they influence and challenge each other. Although the wide use of satellite and cable television as well as the increasing use of online communication has enabled the flows of international culture in a multi-national, multi-media and multi-directional movement instead of a one-way model—from the West to the rest of the world, the market share of non-western media content products is still small compared to that of the western media content products. And most globally popular cultural genres are still from the West. Whilst contra-flow may somehow challenge the dominant position of the West in global cultural industries, it is still short of the power to reverse such situation.