section 2.4 21/9/00 3:00 pm page 269 cultural integration...

269CULTURAL INTEGRATION

Cultural Integration 2.4

deregulation removing government controls and super-vision.

economic restructuring the significant and enduringchanges in the nature and structure of the economybrought about, primarily, by the emergence of the globaleconomy.

globalisation the integration of the world’s economythrough the mass consumption of mainly Westernculture, technology and trade. Globalisation affects eco-nomic, political, social, cultural and environmentaldecision-making.

global village a term used to describe how the worldappears to be getting smaller through the accessibility oftechnology—especially technologies that facilitate thetransfer of information. Thus, the actions that occur in onecorner of the globe can rapidly and significantly affectpeople elsewhere.

high culture incorporates elements of lasting value such asart, literature, theatre, ballet, opera and classical music.Some critics consider its content to be ‘high brow’ or‘intellectual’ when compared with ‘popular culture’.

homogenised a term used to describe when one culturebecomes similar to another.

intellectual capital using ideas, knowledge or inventionsas a means of gaining material wealth through a business

enterprise. Specialised knowledge of how a productworks creates jobs in areas such as information tech-nology (IT) support.

multiculturalism the official Australian Governmentpolicy of encouraging immigration from diverse, ethnicbackgrounds. It also refers to the promotion andencouragement of the retention of ethnic languages andcultures within Australian society.

popular culture considered to be more mainstream than‘high culture’. It is associated with ‘lighter’ forms of enter-tainment such as sporting events, television programs,comic strips and rock concerts.

rationalisation to eliminate what is considered unneces-sary, in order to make it more efficient.

secular a term meaning ‘non-religious’.sovereignty the supreme and unrestricted power to

govern a state.transnational corporations (TNCs) large international

companies whose operations take place in both devel-oped and less developed countries; their headquarters areusually located in developed countries.

World Bank an international organisation made up ofthree United Nations (UN) agencies. It provides lessdeveloped countries (LDCs) with technical assistance andreconstruction and development finance.

Glossary of selected terms

What is globalisation?No culture is static. Ideas, technologies, products, and people move from one place toanother. When cultures come into contact through migration, trade, or the latest telecom-munications devices, they influence each other. Sometimes cultures cross-pollinate,exchange foods, music, sports. At other times, say critics of globalisation, a culture swampsanother like an invasive, fast-reproducing weed.

Cultures have evolved in response to contact for thousands of years. But the pace haschanged. In the past the influences of distant cultures came slowly, delayed by long journeys.Today, because of the telephone, the television, the Internet, telecommunications satellites,world trade, and long-distance travel, cultural influences can spread across the planet as fastas the click of a mouse.

National Geographic, August 1999

Figure 2.4.1 Paris Disneyland: an example ofthe spread of American popular culture.

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A GEOGRAPHY OF GLOBAL INTERACTIONS 1270

Defining cultural integrationCultural integration is difficult to define because it ismade up of many concepts. The idea of a multiculturalsociety reflects cultural integration at work; so too doesthe idea of the ‘global village’, where, through technologyand trade, a seemingly borderless world is created.Cultural integration also concerns the adoption of a massconsumer culture where everything from fashion to sport,music to television, becomes integrated into the nationalculture, often without challenge. While this may be seenby some as a positive step towards unifying the world, toothers, cultural integration is seen as a threat to nationalsovereignty and cultural diversity. Geographically,where a person lives in the world often determines whatpart, if any, he or she can play in this globalisationprocess.

What is culture?Even experts struggle to define the word ‘culture’. In avery general sense it can be defined as the ‘way of life’ ofa group of people. More specifically culture can bedescribed as the elements of human existence that arepassed down from one generation to the next, the productof humanity’s collective intellect and memory. Theseelements include the traditions, customs, languages, beliefsystems, art, architecture, music, food and institutionsshared by a particular group of people. It includes thematerial goods the group creates and uses, and the skills ithas developed. Culture is expressed in many ways:through the creative and performing arts and the wayspeople communicate, use resources and utilise space.

Globalisation is what happenswhen you lose your job inBrunswick, Bankstown or Elizabethbecause the company for whichyou work has been bought out bythe Australian subsidiary of aDallas-based transnationalcompany that has decided torelocate its production of T-shirtsto Mexico because of cheaper wagecosts and lower health and safetystandards. It is what happens whenyou finally get a new job inBrisbane under a new employmentcontract that lowers your wagesand conditions and your bossexplains that this is essential tocompete with Mexican, orIndonesian, or Chinese, workers.

It is what happens when yoursister is sacked from her hospitaljob because of budget cuts by aState Government that defends itsactions by saying it must meet thedemands of international credit-rating agencies for balancedbudgets and lower taxes. And it iswhat happens when you get skincancer because of the hole in theozone layer created by chemicalsreleased by refrigerators andaerosol cans all over the world.

But globalisation is also whathappens when you use thecomputer at your local library toconnect to the Internet and findpages of information from unionsand community organisations in

GLOBALISATION: THE HUMAN DIMENSIONEngland, Mexico or Indonesia,which are trying to link up withworkers around the world to stopthe driving down of wages and therepression of trade-union activists.Globalisation is what happenswhen young London musicians ofEnglish, Caribbean and Indiandesent begin to create new cross-rhythms of black reggae, whitetrance and Hindi rap … Andglobalisation is also what happenswhen a child sees photographs ofthis planet taken from space andrealises that the Earth is indeedfinite.

John Wiseman, Global Nation? Australia and thePolitics of Globalisation, Cambridge University

Press, Melbourne, 1998, pp. 13–14

Figure 2.4.2 Ricky Martin and Pepsi make their mark on the streetsof Beijing.

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Some people fear that the earth’s cultural diversity is under threat. Theyare concerned that cultures are being swamped by Western (mainlyAmerican) cultural influences. Others see this development as part of theongoing process by which a particular culture evolves and is enriched bythe cultures with which it interacts. Advanced communication technologiesmake it inevitable that cultures, of all types, will become more interrelatedand interdependent.

There are many measures of cultural diversity but one of the bestindicators is the state of the world’s languages. Some languages are grow-ing. English, for example, is now spoken by more than one-fifth of theworld’s people. It is an essential element of the new global culture—thelanguage of science, commerce, diplomacy and popular culture. Otherlanguages, however, are fading. More than half the 6000 or so languagescurrently spoken are unlikely to survive the twenty-first century. About halfthe world’s languages have fewer than 10 000 speakers. A quarter have lessthan 1000. Many blame globalisation—a growing uniformity fuelled bytechnological advances in telecommunications and the emergence of theglobal economy.

Goods move. People move. Ideas move. Andcultures change. The difference now is thespeed and scope of these changes. It took

television 13 years to acquire 50 millionviewers; it took the Internet only five.

Not everyone is happy about this. SomeWestern social scientists and anthropologists

believe that a sort of cultural cloning willresult from what they regard as the ‘culturalassault’ of McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Disney,

Nike, MTV and the English language itself …critics are convinced that Western—often

equated with American—influences willflatten every cultural crease, producing, asone observer terms it, one big ‘McWorld’.

E. Zwingle, National Geographic, August 1999, pp. 12–13

1 What is meant by the term ‘culturalintegration’? Why do some peopleregard it as a threat? What positivebenefits may it have?

2 What is culture? What are its mainelements? How is it expressed?

3 Define ‘popular culture’. Giveexamples of the type of popularculture you interact with.

4 Contrast the views concerning the impact of Western culturalinfluences.

5 Outline the impact that advancedcommunication technologies arehaving on culture.

UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT

1 Working in groups, brainstorm theelements of Australian culture thathave their origins in other parts ofthe world. Compare your group’s listwith other groups. Compile a classlist. What conclusions can you drawfrom this activity?

2 Study figure 2.4.2. Write a paragraphoutlining how this photograph

illustrates the process of culturalintegration.

3 Study the extracts on pages 269 andabove. Explain in your own wordsthe point being made in each extract.

4 Using the media, collect photographsthat help to illustrate the process ofcultural integration. Mount a wall

display. Add to the display over thecourse of the year.

5 Study the box ‘Globalisation: TheHuman Dimension’. Using your own examples, write a paragraphsimilar to those written by JohnWiseman to illustrate the process ofglobalisation.

ACTIVITIES

The diffusion, adoption and adaptationof mass consumer culture

Global culture doesn’t mean just more TV sets and Nike shoes. Linking is humanity’s naturalimpulse, its common destiny. But the ties that bind people around the world are not merelytechnological or commercial. They are the powerful cords of the heart.

E. Zwingle, National Geographic, August 1999, p. 33

Cultural integration is about accepting or rejecting the process of changedescribed as ‘globalisation’. At its simplest level, it is a process where theissues of class, gender, race and ethnicity are denoted simply by what brandof clothing we wear, by where we live, by what music we listen to and bywhat cultural events we attend. It is about keeping up with the latest trendsand allowing them to define our identity, rather than preserving an identitythat is uniquely our own.

The following examples of food, fashion, advertising, sport, music andreligion demonstrate the nature and extent of cultural integration.

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Fast-food going global One of the most obvious examples of globalisation has been the prolifera-tion of fast-food retailers such as McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Pizza Hutand Starbucks. Today, these giants of the fast-food industry are a ubiquitousfeature of streetscapes around the world. (See figures 2.4.4 a to c.) Theirproliferation has helped to transform the dietary habits of people in manycountries and helped shape (through advertising) the lifestyle aspirations ofpeople—especially the young. Vendors of traditional foods have respondedby adapting the fast-food industry’s approach to the promotion, productionand sale of food. In some cases the fast-food giants have adapted theirproducts to the cultural context in which they operate.

Cultural diffusion: the dispersion,or spread, of different culturalelements between countries.Cultural adaptation: themodification of a culture toincorporate aspects of anotherculture.Cultural adoption: the acceptanceand integration of different culturalelements as if they were your own.

TERMINOLOGY: GETTING IT RIGHT

When we think of the process ofcultural integration the first imagethat often comes to mind is theubiquitous golden arches. No otherfirm so graphically demonstratesthe diffusion, adoption andadaptation of mass consumerculture.

The McDonald’s Corporationhad its beginnings in 1955. RayKroc, a Multi-Mixer milkshake-maker salesman received an order for eight Multi-Mixermachines from the McDonaldbrothers, the owners of a takeawayfood outlet.

Ray Kroc was fascinated by the way the McDonald brothers

operated their business. The menuwas short, simple and cheap butthe hamburgers were very popular. Ray convinced thebrothers to allow him to open new McDonald’s stores. In return,Ray agreed to pay the brothers0.5% of the gross sales of the newstores. Ray opened the first of thenew stores in Des Plaines, Illinois.He expanded his business bygranting franchises to localentrepreneurs, all of whom had toadhere to the same principles thatmade the original McDonald’s sosuccessful. By 1960 Ray Kroc hadopened 200 outlets across theUnited States. In 1961 he bought

THE GOLDEN ARCHES: SPANNING THE GLOBEout the McDonald brothers for $3 million.

Today, McDonald’s has morethan 23 000 restaurants in over 110 countries on six continents.Every day, McDonald’s serves 28 million people worldwide. It is one of the hundred biggestcorporations in the United States.Its head office is located in OakBrook, near Chicago.

McDonald’s promotes itsproducts via extensive worldwidemarketing campaigns. Indeveloping countries thesecampaigns target the young and the elite. It promotes Western-branded fast food as a fashionable

0 5000 km

Number of stores

500 or more

100–500

20–100

6–20

1–5

Store numbers accurate as at end May 1998. Numbers are for traditional stand-alone restaurants only.

Figure 2.4.3 The worldwide distribution of McDonald’s restaurants, 1998. Source: McDonald’s

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alternative to traditional foods. It also promotes the perception thattheir restaurants are more hygienicand appealing than the localalternative.

In some developing countries,governments have resisted thespread of Western-based fast-foodretailers such as McDonald’s. India,for example, imposes tough ruleson foreign entrants to its markets.Nevertheless, McDonald’sestablished its first two outlets inIndia in 1996: one in Delhi, theother in Mumbai (Bombay). To accommodate local religious

beliefs, vegetarian and lambburgers are on the menu, and aspecial sauce has been mixed usingan egg-free base. McDonald’s alsouses separate kitchen space andutensils to prepare vegetarian andnon-vegetarian meals—a highlysensitive point with traditionalHindus.

Elsewhere, local entrepreneurshave responded by adopting andadapting the McDonald’s approachto the promotion, production andsale of fast food. (See thenewspaper article, ‘Fast food a hotmarket in Thailand’, page 274.)

a Venice, Italy. b Zermatt, Switzerland. c Beijing, China.

Figure 2.4.4 McDonald’s outlets in different parts of the world.

Globalisation: A hard pill to swallow?‘Resist America beginning with Cola,Attack McDonald’s, Storm KFC.’

This slogan is just one of the manyposters and leaflets that were dis-played recently at Beijing University, as students called for a boycott ofAmerican products. In China, dozens offast-food restaurants had their windowssmashed in response to NATO’saccidental bombing of the ChineseEmbassy in Yugoslavia. In Belgrade,seven McDonald’s restaurants wereclosed … after protesters, also eager tolash out at America, smashed windowsat those restaurants. Not surprisingly,their first targets were Americanfranchises. McDonald’s [and] KFC

… quintessential symbols of what is‘American’—have been singled out inthe midst of these protests.

But what many of these reports ofanti-American sentiments have oftenoverlooked, and what is perhaps mostnotable, is the reaction to these protestsby many of the local patrons of theseAmerican businesses. Consider, forexample, the reaction of two women inBelgrade to the re-opening ofMcDonald’s:

I am glad my grandson’s favouriterestaurant is open again. I don’t careif it is an American one, all employeesare our people.

I understand that [McDonald’s] hadto close at the start of the NATO airstrikes, but now Belgrade citizensknow that our people work here andthis McDonald’s is our restaurant.

These statements illustrate a verypowerful point about the effect ofglobalisation on local economies: it hasbecome increasingly difficult to identifywhat is ‘American’. As the two Belgradecitizens keenly understand, while theMcDonald’s restaurants symboliseAmerica, they have also become a partof the fabric of the local community.

P. Zeidman, Franchising World,Washington, July/August 1999

ACTIVITIES1 Study figure 2.4.3. Describe the

global distribution ofMcDonald’s restaurants.

2 Outline how McDonald’spromotes fast-food indeveloping countries.

3 To what extent does McDonald’sadapt its products to meet localcultural traditions?

4 Study the magazine article‘Globalisation: A hard pill toswallow?’ and then answer thefollowing questions:a Why do demonstrators target

fast-food franchises such asMcDonald’s and KFC?

b What does the attitude of theresidents of Belgrade sayabout the nature of culturalintegration?

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Fast food a hot market in ThailandBy TOM MINTIERBangkok Bureau Chief

BANGKOK, Thailand—Fried chicken andfrench fries become fashionable in the landof rice and noodles.

With the cutting of a gold ribbon,KFC—Kentucky Fried Chicken—hasopened its 100th store in Thailand. TheAmerican fast-food giant has expandedrapidly over the past decade in SoutheastAsia. Currently, there are nearly 2000 KFCoutlets in the region.

What does this mean? Western restau-rant officials say it is a very important stepup the socio-economic ladder for the localpeople. They say Western fast-food fare ismore than just dinner or lunch: It’s a con-cept that people are beginning to embrace.

That concept may be powered by thefact that there’s no time to cook andcommute. Bangkok’s rapid developmentand traffic jams have helped to popularisefast food. Every shopping mall seems tohave a Dunkin’ Donuts, Pizza Hut or

McDonald’s. The list goes on—includingjust about every Western fast-foodcompany in the world.

In Thailand, the fast-food industry is abillion-dollar-a year industry, and it’s grow-ing at rate of 30% a year. But althoughWestern fast food has dominated themarketplace for the past decade, local entre-preneurs now are entering the market withtheir own version of fast food, Thai style.

Small, individual food stands couldalways be found on the streetsof Bangkok,offering fried noodles and other fare.Recently, air pollution from traffic jamshave made street food experiences a littleless pleasant. In response, Thai fast-foodshops now feature in air-conditionedrooms with plenty of variety.

The latest entry is a company calledSaebIsan. It has opened 21 outlets in Bang-kok to compete with Western fast food,hoping to replace hamburgers and pizzawith broiled chicken and papaya salad in thediet of young Thais. ‘It’s my concept to try

to get students to know about their culture,’said businessman Aroon Sakarintr, ‘to eatThai food … not Western fast food.’

Aroon’s company has set up outlets onuniversity campuses in an effort to capturethe youth market. It puts food stalls whereKFC and Pizza Hut can’t compete. Andmany of the students seem to prefer theirown cuisine, saying the spiciness suitstheir taste buds.

Still, students seem to like the variety infast-food choices. Others consider Westernfast-food cultural pollution, and wish itwould stay in the West. And some parentsfeel fried foods are causing their young-sters to have weight problems.

But no matter which culture finallycomes out on top in the world of Thai fastfood, the local outlets may have oneadvantage. With Bangkok’s traffic prob-lems, getting to the Western fast-foodoutlets is difficult. Thai fast food offershome delivery.

Cable News Network Inc., 3 September 1995

Figure 2.4.5 A Vietnamese entrepreneur capitalises on the popularity of some familiar American cultural icons.

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What’s in a name? Influences on the fashionindustryThe fashion industry is both dynamic and competitive. It is an industry thatthrives on constant change and the promotion of youthful images. It dictateswhat is ‘in’ and what is not, and each season designers look to the tradi-tional fashion capitals of London, New York, Paris and Milan for inspira-tion. Whether you are aware of it or not, globalisation of the fashionindustry is everywhere and it is the United States that leads the way. Hanes,Calvin Klein, Guess? and Levi Strauss are all brand names owned by largetransnational corporations (TNCs), which target the youth market andsubtly influence which brand of boxer shorts, chinos or designer jeans youbuy. It is interesting to note, however, that very few of the garments that aremarketed and sold as ‘made in the USA’ or ‘made in Australia’ are actuallymade locally. Most are made in developing countries where labour isrelatively cheap and health and safety conditions are not considered animportant issue.

Promoting global consumerism: Advertising and the mediaThe process of globalisation is responsible for both cultural and economicintegration. As trade barriers around the world are lifted or altered, largecorporations have been able to play an increasingly prominent role in thereshaping of society. Encouraged by the possibility of making huge profits,new industries in advertising, media, creative production, consumerresearch and marketing education have emerged to promote consumerconsumption. When global corporations reach out and touch the fourcorners of the globe, they bring with them not only established productsand brand names, but also their favoured media and sophisticatedmarketing methods.

The media, in all its forms, has become a central influence in shapingindividual, community and national identities. It is also the preferredmedium by which large corporations create a market for the products theysell. Global marketing campaigns, based around advertising and the sponsor-ship of major events, are used to promote products to vast audiences. By theend of the 1990s, just five TNCs (Time Warner, News Corp., Bertelsman,Viacom and the Walt Disney Company) controlled the vast majority of themedia content available to audiences in most countries. Rupert Murdoch’sNews Corp., for example, has the capacity to reach two-thirds of the world’spopulation through its ownership of BskyB (Europe), Fox (North America)and Star TV (Asia). These vast corporations have the power to determinewhat information is available to people and thereby influence public opinion,cultural identity and lifestyle expectations. (See the newspaper article ‘Everystep you take, Rupert will be there’.)

Advertising is one of the largest industries in the world. Tens of billionsof dollars are spent annually creating demand for goods and services, allintended to improve one’s ‘self worth’ or ‘lifestyle’.

Advertisers are the major employers of persuasive language. Theybombard audiences with jingles, trendy rhymes, rock songs and a variety offast and fashionable images, which subtly take effect. Repetition and actionare the key weapons used to reinforce the names and images of products inthe audience’s head. It is not uncommon during a sustained advertisingcampaign to see or hear the same advertisement broadcast numerous timesthroughout a television program, particularly if a program is sponsored bya particular corporation. Sponsorship is big business.

Two of the largest sponsors of community related events and activities areCoca-Cola and McDonald’s. Their aim is to create a forum in which theirbrand names can appear in front of vast numbers of people and therebyincrease their sales. It is no secret that McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are major

Figure 2.4.7 Fashion is an industry thatthrives on constant change and thepromotion of youthful images.

It’s the middle of winter and I’m shoppingwith my daughter at Galeries Lafayette:

Paris’s most famous department store. Thesearch for clothing acceptable to a fashion-

conscious Australian teenager provesfruitless, until we come across racks of

clothing bearing the logos of Rip Curl andBillabong.

My daughter is now the proud owner of anAustralian-designed Rip Curl jacket, made inChina and purchased in Paris. Globalisation

at work!

Grant Kleeman

UNDERSTANDING THE TEXT1 What drives the fashion industry?

2 Where is an increasing amount ofclothing made? Explain why.

ACTIVITIES

1 Study figure 2.4.7 and then completethe following tasks:a What advertising techniques are

used to promote the productadvertised?

b Which market is being targeted?c Find other examples of advertising

that promotes youthful images.Share these with others in yourclass.

2 At home, look in your wardrobe atclothes you have recently purchasedand make a list of the brand names.Identify which are foreign made. In class, compare these lists andresearch where these companies arebased.

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sponsors of the Olympic Games. The exposure gained through such an eventis enormous, as are the profits gained from this marketing opportunity.

Traditionally, advertisers tended to target two groups: children andwhat was referred to as the ‘youth market’ (11–19 year olds). There has,however, been a reclassification of ‘youth’ to include all those under 30. Thereasons for this shift are many, but perhaps the most significant is thegrowing trend of this under-30s group not to leave home or marry untilthey are older. This, supposedly, leaves them with greater disposableincome and savings available for the purchase of goods and services suchas cars, travel, computers, sporting equipment, gym memberships andhome furnishings. Also falling under this new ‘youth market’ category areDouble-Income families with No KidS (DINKS).

Corporate executives dream of a global market made up of people with homogenisedtastes and needs… Logos on bottles, boxes and labels are global banners, instantlyrecognisable by millions who could not tell you the colour of the UN flag.

Richard J. Barnet and John Cavanagh, in D. C. Korten, When Corporations Rule the World, Earthscan,London, 1995, p. 149

Global brands are the progeny of globalmedia, those mostly US-based media

conglomerates which … have towered overthe global market... [They are] the

missionaries of our age, promoting thevirtues of commercialism and the market

loudly and incessantly through their profit-driven and advertising-supported enterprise

and programming.

The Bulletin, 14 July 1998, p. 32

The spread of global communicationstechnologies and global media empires hashelped create a world of globalised culture.

Barbie and the Lion King are as well known inRio as they are in Perth or Hollywood. CNN

brings us live coverage of the Superbowl andof missile strikes on Baghdad. Princess

Diana’s funeral becomes a globally televisedceremony of planetary grieving.

Wiseman, 1998, pp. 16–17

Figure 2.4.8 Corporate sponsorship plays animportant role in a range of cultural andsporting activities.

The critical mass of teenagers—800 millionin the world, the most there have ever been—

with time and money to spend is one of thepowerful engines of merging global cultures.Kids travel, they hang out, and above all they

buy stuff.

E. Zwingle, National Geographic, August 1999, p. 17

Every step you take, Rupert will be thereBy MARK RILEYNew York Correspondent

It is a solid hour of Rupert vision. Apriceless peek at Murdoch’s millennium.A rare glimpse of the 21st Century fox.

And the audience is suitablycaptivated.

It is no mean feat, for this is noordinary audience. Wedged into theballroom of New York’s Grand HyattHotel, pin-striped shoulder to pin-stripedshoulder, are 500 of the world’s highest-powered media brokers, stock analystsand investment bankers.

They have brushed off the openingbells down on Wall Street for the chanceto take in a rare sermon from the Count ofMedia, Rupert Murdoch. The Australian-born mogul has agreed to be key notespeaker on the final day of GoldmanSachs’ annual media conference andthese seats in the bursting auditorium areNew York’s most valued investmentcommodities of the day.

It is the sort of audience that could adda lazy few million dollars to the value of acompany with the single tap of a computerkey. Or carve off a few million as easily asslicing through their morning bagels.

It is the first time Murdoch has agreedto speak to them in six years and histheme appears to be ‘accretion’. Trans-lated, that means growth—’sustainable’,‘long-term’, ‘dependable’. It all means‘money’.

The brokers want to hear about thefuture of this accretion, about News Corp.2000, what this enigmatic, adventurous,unorthodox tycoon sees beyond thedazzling dawn of the digital age. Hisvision is pure, unadulterated, wall-to-wall, 24-hour Murdochia.

‘Our view is that the successful mediacompany of the future is one that willtouch consumers’ lives throughout theday, in every phase of their lives,’ he says.‘We have structured our company to meetthose needs. We are reaching people fromthe moment they wake up until they fallasleep.

‘We give them their morning weatherand traffic reports through our televisionoutlets around the world. We enlightenand entertain them with such newspapersas The New York Post and The Times inLondon over breakfast or as they take thetrain to work.

‘We update their stock prices and givethem the world’s biggest news storiesevery day through such news channels asFox or Sky News and their companionInternet sites … When they get home inthe evening, we entertain them with com-pelling, first-run entertainment on Fox orthe day’s biggest game on our broadcast,satellite and cable networks, or the bestmovies from 20th Century Fox Films, ifthey want to see a first-run movie.

‘Before they go to bed, we give themthe latest news. Then, hopefully, they canfall in to bed with one of our hundreds ofnew titles published every year throughHarperCollins.’

And that’s just the beginning. Murdochsees the digital age, with its satelliteservices and cable services and broadband,interactive, multi-service services, asredefining the meaning of mass media.Diversity? Sure thing. How would you likeyour Rupert vision? Television?Newspaper? Film? Video? Internet?Telephone? Analog? Digital? Fox? Star?Sky? Soccer? Gridiron? Rugby League—oh, well, he’s still working on that …

Sydney Morning Herald, 8 October 1999

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The power of the media to create a global consumer market for aproduct is best illustrated by theway it promotes the merchandisedeveloped for children. In thefootsteps of Barbie, Power Rangers,Cabbage Patch dolls, Ninja Turtles,the Lion King and Toy Story comesPokémon. No doubt, many otherswill follow.

The marketing of suchmerchandise represents a battle for children’s hearts and parents’dollars. Increasingly, it involves amultimedia and interactive barrage

of promotion that seeks to capturethe imagination of children.Because children now feel that theyhave to keep up with their peers,they have become increasingly fad-driven and consumer-oriented.Marketers are taking advantage ofthis trend. The children they aretargeting are becoming youngerand younger. Merchandisingcampaigns are usually, but notalways, built around the release of a movie aimed at young children.The Pokémon phenomenon is anexception.

Pokémon started off in 1996 asGame Boy software. It has sinceexploded into a multimillion-dollarempire with a television cartoonseries, movies, books, comics,music, videos, a huge range of toysand a card game that has childrenmadly collecting and swapping.On the Internet there are well over100 sites dedicated to Pokémonand at the height of its popularity it was the fourth most frequentlyused word in search engines.

POKEMON: A GLOBAL PHENOMENONBy the end of 1999 Nintendo had

sold well over $50 million worth ofPokémon merchandise in Australiaalone. So great was the demand thatimporters found it difficult to meetconsumer demand. In an effort toplacate frustrated consumersNintendo switched from shippingin Pokémon cards to flying in 30-tonne batches monthly—butthere was still a chronic shortage.Desperate kids were forced to puttheir names on waiting lists. Parentsrushed from store to store in searchof the merchandise that would fulfiltheir children’s Christmas wishes.

Figure 2.4.9 Pokémon mania: a global(media-induced) phenomena.

ACTIVITIES1 What role did the media and

Internet play in the commercialsuccess of Pokémon?

2 Select another example of fad-driven merchandise. Use theInternet to investigate its origin,the nature of the merchandiseand how it is promoted.

1 What allowed large corporations toplay an increasingly prominent rolein reshaping society?

2 What new industries emerged topromote the consumption of thegoods and services produced byTNCs?

3 Outline the role played by the mediain the integrated global economy.

4 Why are some people concerned bythe concentration of mediaownership and control?

5 What is the ethic underlying massconsumerism? Is such an opinionjustified?

6 List some of the techniques thatadvertisers use to promote a productor service.

7 Explain why corporations such asCoca-Cola and McDonald’s sponsorcommunity related activities.

8 a Explain why advertisers havetraditionally targeted the ‘youthmarket’.

b How has this market beenredefined in recent years?


1 Most large retailers are TNCs. Usethe Internet to find out about theoperations of one TNC. Write areport outlining its businessoperations and its record onenvironmental and human rightsissues.

2 Study the extract from the Bulletin onpage 277. Explain why the mediaconglomerates are described as ‘themissionaries of our age’.

3 Study the newspaper extract ‘Everystep you take, Rupert will be there’and then complete the followingtasks:a Outline Rupert Murdoch’s vision

for his global media network.b As a class, discuss whether a

media corporation should beallowed to exert such influence.

4 In your own words, explain the pointthat John Wiseman is making in theextract on page 277.

5 Take a class survey of the mostmemorable commercials. Considerwhat characteristics made themmemorable. Also consider whatimage the commercial is trying tosell. As a consumer, would you betempted to buy the product? Why or why not?

ACTIVITIES

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SportSport is widely recognised as an important part of Australian culture. Formany Australians, sport is tied up with the image we have of ourselves andthe image we want the rest of the world to have of us. Sports stars oftenbecome popular heroes, sometimes placed on higher pedestals than film orrock stars. We watch and judge their performance keenly and share theirtriumphs and their failures, sometimes as if they were our own! For many,Australia’s participation in international sporting events becomes an oppor-tunity to express patriotism. Where sport is concerned, however, thisappears to be an urge that is shared the world over; one only needs to lookat international cricket or rugby matches to see evidence of this.

In Australia, sport was once considered to be the great ‘leveller’. Itsymbolised equality between people by levelling differences and estab-lishing what was once seen as a working class alternative to ‘high culture’.Today, this is not so evident, particularly with the infiltration of sports fromother countries and events such as the Olympic Games, which attract peoplefrom all classes in society.

What is apparent, however, is the subtle change in the variety of sportsplayed in Australia. It is only within the past 10 years that certain sports,including baseball and basketball, have taken off. Today, players from theUS National Basketball Association (NBA) are recognised worldwidebecause of a slick marketing campaign that has sold the game and theirfaces on everything from caps to bubble-gum packets. (See the box ‘Sport:Just Another Fashion?’.) As a result, Australia has created its ownAustralian Basketball Federation (ABF) and has had some success inpromoting players, such as Luke Longley and Andrew Gaze, to the US‘major league’. Like sponsorship deals, the ‘buying’ and ‘selling’ of playershas become big business and not only in basketball. Once again, culturalintegration through economic activity is at work here.

The merchandising associated with sport is also another readily identi-fiable indicator of cultural integration. Australian teenagers, in commonwith their peers around the world, wear clothing and caps emblazoned withthe names, logos and colours of American basketball and football teams.

• In 1995, when the ‘Super League’ warthreatened to destroy the Australian RugbyLeague (ARL), the fight was not really aboutsalaries or the rationalisation of clubs, butabout who controlled the rights to televise thegame via free-to-air and pay television.

• News Corp. now effectively controls RugbyLeague through its 50% stake in the ARL. It alsohas the exclusive rights to broadcast matchesfor the next 25 years. News Ltd used itsinfluence to have the competition reduced tojust 14 teams.

• The official National Rugby League web site canbe found at www.nrl.com.au; the officialAustralian Football League web site can befound at www.afl.com.au; and the official RugbyUnion web site is www.rugbyheaven.com.

D I D Y O U K N O W ?

During the 1990s a barrage ofAmerican sports marketing sawAustralian teenagers adopt a newpantheon of sporting heroes withnames like Shaq O’Neil, DenissRodman and Michael Jordan.

The American basketball,baseball and ice hockey leaguesaggressively marketed their gamesthrough licensed sportswearranges and trading card collections.At the height of the mania, thegiant entertainment company Time Warner released Space Jam, a film based on Nike shoecommercials and starring BugsBunny and Michael Jordan—yetanother demonstration of the

growing relationship betweenentertainment and advertising.

In Australia, backyardbasketball hoops became ascommon as the Hills Hoist.Skateboards and in-line skatesbecame popular recreationalpursuits and helped determine thetype of clothing that teenagersdefined as fashionable. For manyolder Australians, the reversedbaseball cap became a symbol ofAmerican cultural domination.Despite these trends, Americansports have made little headway insecuring commercial televisioncoverage in Australia. This can bepartly explained by the response of

SPORT: JUST ANOTHER FASHION?Australian sporting organisations.They now aggressively promotetheir own teams and sportingheroes using techniques perfectedin the United States.

ACTIVITIES1 Working in groups, brainstorm

the impact of American sportsmarketing on Australianteenagers. Share the key pointsof your group’s discussion.

2 Discuss the reasons whyAmerican sports have madelittle headway in securingcommercial television coveragein Australia.

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Australian sport is increasinglydominated by the three Ms: multi-nationals, marketers and managers.Tradition, loyalty and communityheritage count for little. Sport isnow a product to be sold like anyother.

Players are bought and sold on the transfer market and havebeen transformed into humanbillboards. They carry advertisingon their clothing and sportingequipment. Shane Warne wears a gold Nike swoosh in his ear.Sporting personalities often have anumber of corporate sponsorships,and product-endorsementagreements are negotiated by theirmanagement team.

Naming rights to stadiums arefor sale together with their playingsurface, now decorated withcorporate logos that appear inperfect perspective on televisionscreens. Media companies haveeven experimented with ‘virtual’advertising—the advertiser’s

message being temporarily‘projected’ onto any surface,including spectators.

Whole sporting events have been‘hijacked’ by large corporations.Nothing is sacred. The MelbourneCup is now the Fosters MelbourneCup. In 2001 it will become the LionNathan Melbourne Cup. Cricket’shistoric Sheffield Shield has beenreplaced by the Pura Milk Cup. We also have the Ansett Cup(Australian Rules), The LouisVuitton Cup (sailing), theMercantile Mutual Cup (one-daycricket) and the Ford AustralianOpen Tennis, and so on.

One outcome of this process is ahuge increase in what critics havelabelled ‘visual pollution’. Sportingteams have become advertisingbillboards and the playerssalespeople of everything from soft drinks to mobile phones. (Seefigure 2.4.10.) Sydney-to-Hobartyachts are floating billboards, withno name other than that of the

AUSTRALIAN SPORT: IS NOTHING SACRED?corporate sponsor—a strategy that ensures maximum exposure of the sponsor’s name and product.

It is not only the sportingpersonalities that can be hired,bought and sold. Clubs too are nowa product. They can be created to fita corporate vision and they can bedestroyed when they no longer fitinto a marketing strategy (RugbyLeague’s Perth Reds, AdelaideRams and Hunter Mariners, forexample). In Rugby League, manyolder, community based clubs havebeen compelled to merge. If theyfail to comply with the newcorporate vision they are forcedfrom the competition.

Two important factors are atplay in this process:1 Demographic change. Larger

disposable incomes, shorterworking weeks, earlierretirement, longer lifeexpectancy and healthierlifestyles have boosted theglobal demand for sport.

2 The communicationsrevolution. The ever moresophisticated television coverage has made top sport—and the advertising, sponsorship and marketing that accompany it—available to a wider audience. The future of sport is closely

linked to that of the global medianetworks. (See pages 291–4.)Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (anAustralian listed company), whichalready owns the US Dodgersbaseball team, recently tried to takeover Manchester United, England’stop soccer club.

The amount of money involvedis huge. Australia’s top sports-people now command million-dollar contracts.

1 Outline the role of sport in definingthe Australian image.

2 How has the role of sport changed inAustralian society?

3 Explain how Australian sport hasbeen influenced by the sport of othercountries.


Figure 2.4.10 Sydney’s Cronulla Sharks have over 150 corporate sponsors, including Pepsi,Toyota, Carlton and United and FOX8.

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