Same country, different culture.

Say the phrase World Wide Web and many things would come to mind.
Blogs (like this), news, social networks, internet chat-rooms, online gaming, marketplace, job search, grocery shopping, photo-editing, Skype, meetings, the list of convenience it has brought to our lives is inexhaustible.
Yet, mention WWW and people would think "vices" as well. After all, the world wide web is free for all - people of all ages, race or religion..as long as you have a computer and internet access that is. We have long heard of the easy access to pornography, the dangers of the internet chat-room, people dying from gaming day and night without food or sleep, another endless list that comes with the boon of the internet.

However, putting good and bad aside, the internet has definitely brought globalisation to a whole new level! World Wide Web as the name suggests has almost erased all national boundaries and most importantly brought about cultural imperialism.




Just take a look at the youtube (another one of those famous www inventions!) video above. I know you must be laughing, but in your opinion, do you think such behaviour would have been laughed at generations before us? Yes, an example of cultural imperialism is as such. The kind of information that the youths are being exposed to inadvertently effects the culture of our generation today. From our lifestyles to our beliefs, we have been largely influenced especially by the West. (Think Hollywood fashion trends and how premarital sex is glorified in MTVs.) Slowly we do see the youths of today are moving away from the jaded traditions of our elders to embrace such cultures.

Then there's also the people who swoon over the Japanese culture. This would never have been encouraged in the past (especially thanks to WWII in Singapore!). The availibility of Jap anime and being able to travel around the world without having to leave our seats has just contributed to this craze. Examples of the jap culture seen in Singapore would be Cosplay, japanese fasion and a rather large number of students taking up the Japanese language, just to name a few.


Cultural Imperialism usually happens because the more countries like the US have a vast mass media market that penetrates even the WWW thus dominating the scene of the media market. Whether this phonomena is good or bad, it really depends.

Mass Media Terror

I remember on that fateful day in 2001, my house phone rang at around 11pm. We hardly ever received calls from anyone, let alone at 11pm at night. It turned out that it was my from my auntie living in New York. She had called to tell us of her encounter: She was on her way to work via the Subway when she felt prompted to drop of the train before she had reached her intended station. The next moment after alighting, she heard news of the collapse of the buildings where she worked at. She worked at the World Trade Center.

Yes, I am talking about the September 11 attacks - one of the worst known terrorist attacks in the world.

Frankly, I didn't give it much thought when I heard about the terrorist attack that night. Other than being slightly shocked and relieved that my auntie was safe, the whole idea of terrorist attacks was relatively unknown to me. I slept soundly that night. However, the next day, the newspaper fronts were splashed with the photos of the burning buildings, photos of New Yorkers in anguish. Not just one article, but countless articles giving a step-by-step account of the incident, discussions on who was the mastermind behind the attack, interviews on the victims, etc. I heard it on the radio..the sounds of the plane crashing into the steel building, hearing the screams of horror. I remember rushing home from school and plonking myself in front of the tele..I saw footage of people jumping out of the windows of the 110 floors skyscraper, the planes crashing into the North and South tower, heard the final recorded phone calls of the passengers on the plane. I learnt about the effect on the US economy and finally understood the meaning of terrorist attacks. It truly haunted me. The world declared a fight against the terrorists behind 911.

I wouldn't have known the magnitude of this event if not for the mass media, even though I had heard it first hand from my aunt. Even the aliens on Mars would have known about this world-changing event. Thus is the effect of mass media on us today, or what we would call the Agenda Setting Function.


The media raises the importance of certain issues/topics to the public by repeatedly reporting or emphasizing on on them, to fulfill their media agendas. In this case, creating the awareness against the true dangers of terrorism and rallying the world against Afganistan/Iraq. How we evaluate certain issues are also to a certain extent based on the views presented by the mass media. Do you ever recall questioning how accurate was the media's reflection of the whole September 11 attacks, or simply accepting that what the headlines on the newspapers had reported was entirely true? We have often been "primed" by the media into thinking in a certain way, especially if that is part of the media agenda (e.g. the mass media being controlled by a government).
Everyday, we are exposed to so much information from the media, each from their own sources. And it seems for majority of us, we let ourselves get steered by the media and their views. Are we victims of mass media?