GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Global Media, Music & the Future (W4-P5) Sp17

Some of Crother's Emerging Developments especially relevant to music

• Social Media
• Social networking will continue to be a platform for the spread of information, products, cultural styles, and political and social change around the world."
• "The YouTube-ification of entertainment is likely to expand."
• Fragmegration
• "Challenges to American movies, music, and television programs will arise for a variety of economic, political, and cultural reasons, leading to new alliances seeking to limit the effects of American popular culture within their communities."
• "American popular culture may facilitate the emergence of a global culture, at least to a limited extent."
• "Increased exposure to American popular culture will encourage the development of hybrid forms that have value to local cultures."
• North-South
• Cultural integration is more likely within and among components of the Global North* than it is within and among the Global South*, thereby deepening the gap between north and south.

*North–South Divide: a the "broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide. Generally, definitions of the Global North include North America, Western Europe and developed parts of East Asia. The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia including the Middle East" (Wikipedia).


"OSCEmap 2005". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.



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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Measuring the Spread of American Music (W4-P4) Sp17

So, if American music contains American values and if said music may cause changes in the cultures of other countries, then just how widespread is American music?

How would you measure how widespread?  What evidence would you give?

Ways to Assess the Preeminence of American Music in World Entertainment

1. "A review of the top-selling albums of all time suggests the dominance of American music, for example. As of November 2011, there were twenty-seven albums that had sold at least fifteen million copies worldwide, and sixteen were the product of undeniably American acts. The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits is tied with Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the number one selling album of all time, at twenty-nine million sales."
2. "Similar evidence for American music prominence can be found in considering the individual artists and groups in terms of their certified global record sales. The most successful musical act of all time, for example, is not American: it is The Beatles, with 177 million album sales in their history."  However most other top selling artists and groups are American.
3. "The dominance of American rock, country, and hip-hop is perhaps most evident in the direct linkage of music and television created in 1981 with the formation of the cable network MTV, Music Television. In their endless search for venues... An idea this profitable was sure to spread, and spread it did. Just ten years after its creation, MTV was available in 201 million households in seventy-seven countries ranging from Australia to Brazil to Hong Kong. MTV Europe grew from 3 million households in 1988 to 14 million in 1991 and then 37 million in 1992."

How else would you measure the spread of American music?  What evidence would you give?

International Billboard Charts (limited access)
Spotify Charts



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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
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GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: American Culture in Country, Rock and Hip-Hop (W4-P3) Sp17

According to Crothers the first step in understanding the effects that American popular culture artifacts may have on other cultures is to identify the American cultural values in the artifacts.

What is the culture hidden in the popular music genres. Crothers covers three prominent American music genres: country, rock and hip-hop and also identifies the cultural values in the music.

Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?


Country Music




"Country has long prided itself on reflecting the lives of real people, particularly working-class, rural Americans. Country’s topics have chronicled the struggles of the individual as he or she tries to make it in a dead-end job, in a difficult marriage, or even through addiction to drugs or alcohol."

"Additionally, country regularly sings the virtues of hard work, traditional love, the glory of a loving family, and unabashed patriotism. The real America, country seems to say, is the America in which people struggle but take responsibility for their personal fates. Americans fight for their honor and dignity as ends all their own."


Rock Music





"At its heart were energy, excitement, and rebellion. Rock musicians tapped into their fans’ adolescent dreams".

"Rock, after all, expresses rebellion, energy, and individualism—as do teenagers. The causality seemed self-evident: children who were once compliant and sweet."


Hip-Hop Music




"If country celebrated traditional values and patriotism, and rock and roll energized the ambitions of a generation to change the world, hip-hop expressed the anger and frustration of a long-repressed community that had many grievances in what it described as a racist America."

"Hip-hop also reflected a raw form of street sexuality in which suggestive language was common. Other performers offered explicit accounts of their sexual desires and fantasies."



Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?  What would you change or add?  Support your argument.

So, if we can agree that "hidden" in the music are certain American cultural values, then so what?  Why is that important?  What's this have to do with the effects thing discussed earlier?

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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Crothers' Key Concepts (W4-P2) Sp17

Crother's Key Concepts

In Crothers' 2012 book, Globalization and American Popular Culture, the author explores the "ways that American movies, music, and television programs shape and are shaped by contemporary globalization."


It is important for Americans to study this topic because "it is through these artifacts (and many others) that the rest of the world sees American values and lifestyles."  Or put more poetically: "[W]hat people are likely to see of America and what they are likely to know about America will be filtered through the lens of American popular culture."

So, it is through these artifacts that the world understands American culture.  However, this is not the only reason it is important to study this topic.

More importantly, what effect do these American cultural artifacts have on the cultures other countries?

In the book Crothers defines culture as "the root values, ideas, assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes that members of particular communities generally share in an unexamined, automatic way."

"Among the many things that cultures teach their members are normative standards of evaluation—of dress, food, behavior, attitudes, ideas, and many other things."


---

Early on in the book Crothers covers some additional key concepts: popular culture, globalization and fragmegration.

Crothers discusses popular culture, but does not give a succinct definition, so we go to another source for our definition here:

pop[ular] culture:  "commercial culture based on popular taste: fashion, music, and the iconography of pop culture offered the perfect medium for profit (Oxford Dictionary).

With this given definition, how would you describe American popular culture?
Make special note of music.


---

Similarly, for a succinct definition of globablization, we will need to head to an outside source.

globalization: "the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale" (Oxford Dictionary).

"A combination of economic, political, and cultural factors promote globalization by
(1) making it possible to create new and increased ties among people, social networks, and ideas that span traditional nation-state boundaries;
(2) linking people in new ways, making it possible for work or travel or shopping or other activities to take place twenty-four hours a day around the world;
(3) advancing the speed of communication and the expectation of instantaneous contact, in effect making global events and issues local ones as well; and
(4) shaping and reshaping individuals’ ideas and identities as they are exposed to this increasingly complex world" (Crothers, 2012).

---
Crothers draws on James Rosenau's work.

Rosenau coined the term fragmegration "to describe the integration-fragmentation dynamic that shapes globalization today. Fragmentation and integration occur at the same time, profoundly shaping the dynamics of globalization."

At the same time the process of globalization brings the world together and pushes it apart.
Really?  How?  Explain.

How does music fit in here?


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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Mr. Worldwide (W4-P1) Sp17

Pitbull - International Love ft. Chris Brown


"I've been to countries and cities I can't pronounce
And the places on the globe I didn't know existed
In Romania, she pulled me to the side and told me
'Pit, you can have me and my sister'

In Lebanon, yeah, the women are bomb
And in Greece, you've guessed it, the women are sweet
Spinned [Been?] all around the world but I ain't gon' lie
There's nothing like Miami's heat"

Just how worldly is Mr. Worldwide?   Planet Pit World Tour
Just how international was International Love?  The song

How widespread is American music in other countries around the world?

Would you consider Pitbull's music American music?

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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Global Media, Music & the Future (W4-P5) Sp16

Some of Crother's Emerging Developments especially relevant to music

• Social Media
• Social networking will continue to be a platform for the spread of information, products, cultural styles, and political and social change around the world."
• "The YouTube-ification of entertainment is likely to expand."
• Fragmegration
• "Challenges to American movies, music, and television programs will arise for a variety of economic, political, and cultural reasons, leading to new alliances seeking to limit the effects of American popular culture within their communities."
• "American popular culture may facilitate the emergence of a global culture, at least to a limited extent."
• "Increased exposure to American popular culture will encourage the development of hybrid forms that have value to local cultures."
• North-South
• Cultural integration is more likely within and among components of the Global North* than it is within and among the Global South*, thereby deepening the gap between north and south.

*North–South Divide: a the "broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide. Generally, definitions of the Global North include North America, Western Europe and developed parts of East Asia. The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia including the Middle East" (Wikipedia).


"OSCEmap 2005". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.




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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Measuring the Spread of American Music (W4-P4) Sp16

So, if American music contains American values and if said music may cause changes in the cultures of other countries, then just how widespread is American music?

How would you measure how widespread?  What evidence would you give?

Ways to Assess the Preeminence of American Music in World Entertainment

1. "A review of the top-selling albums of all time suggests the dominance of American music, for example. As of November 2011, there were twenty-seven albums that had sold at least fifteen million copies worldwide, and sixteen were the product of undeniably American acts. The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits is tied with Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the number one selling album of all time, at twenty-nine million sales."
2. "Similar evidence for American music prominence can be found in considering the individual artists and groups in terms of their certified global record sales. The most successful musical act of all time, for example, is not American: it is The Beatles, with 177 million album sales in their history."  However most other top selling artists and groups are American.
3. "The dominance of American rock, country, and hip-hop is perhaps most evident in the direct linkage of music and television created in 1981 with the formation of the cable network MTV, Music Television. In their endless search for venues... An idea this profitable was sure to spread, and spread it did. Just ten years after its creation, MTV was available in 201 million households in seventy-seven countries ranging from Australia to Brazil to Hong Kong. MTV Europe grew from 3 million households in 1988 to 14 million in 1991 and then 37 million in 1992."

How else would you measure the spread of American music?  What evidence would you give?

International Charts (Billboard)


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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: American Culture in Country, Rock and Hip-Hop (W4-P3) Sp16

According to Crothers the first step in understanding the effects that American popular culture artifacts may have on other cultures is to identify the American cultural values in the artifacts.

What is the culture hidden in the popular music genres. Crothers covers three prominent American music genres: country, rock and hip-hop and also identifies the cultural values in the music.

Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?


Country Music




"Country has long prided itself on reflecting the lives of real people, particularly working-class, rural Americans. Country’s topics have chronicled the struggles of the individual as he or she tries to make it in a dead-end job, in a difficult marriage, or even through addiction to drugs or alcohol."

"Additionally, country regularly sings the virtues of hard work, traditional love, the glory of a loving family, and unabashed patriotism. The real America, country seems to say, is the America in which people struggle but take responsibility for their personal fates. Americans fight for their honor and dignity as ends all their own."


Rock Music





"At its heart were energy, excitement, and rebellion. Rock musicians tapped into their fans’ adolescent dreams".

"Rock, after all, expresses rebellion, energy, and individualism—as do teenagers. The causality seemed self-evident: children who were once compliant and sweet."


Hip-Hop Music




"If country celebrated traditional values and patriotism, and rock and roll energized the ambitions of a generation to change the world, hip-hop expressed the anger and frustration of a long-repressed community that had many grievances in what it described as a racist America."

"Hip-hop also reflected a raw form of street sexuality in which suggestive language was common. Other performers offered explicit accounts of their sexual desires and fantasies."



Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?  What would you change or add?  Support your argument.

So, if we can agree that "hidden" in the music are certain American cultural values, then so what?  Why is that important?  What's this have to do with the effects thing discussed earlier?

Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Crothers' Key Concepts (W4-P2) Sp16

Crother's Key Concepts

In Crothers' 2012 book, Globalization and American Popular Culture, the author explores the "ways that American movies, music, and television programs shape and are shaped by contemporary globalization."


It is important for Americans to study this topic because "it is through these artifacts (and many others) that the rest of the world sees American values and lifestyles."  Or put more poetically: "[W]hat people are likely to see of America and what they are likely to know about America will be filtered through the lens of American popular culture."

So, it is through these artifacts that the world understands American culture.  However, this is not the only reason it is important to study this topic.

More importantly, what effect do these American cultural artifacts have on the cultures other countries?

In the book Crothers defines culture as "the root values, ideas, assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes that members of particular communities generally share in an unexamined, automatic way."

"Among the many things that cultures teach their members are normative standards of evaluation—of dress, food, behavior, attitudes, ideas, and many other things."


---

Early on in the book Crothers covers some additional key concepts: popular culture, globalization and fragmegration.

Crothers discusses popular culture, but does not give a succinct definition, so we go to another source for our definition here:

pop[ular] culture:  "commercial culture based on popular taste: fashion, music, and the iconography of pop culture offered the perfect medium for profit (Oxford Dictionary).

With this given definition, how would you describe American popular culture?
Make special note of music.


---

Similarly, for a succinct definition of globablization, we will need to head to an outside source.

globalization: "the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale" (Oxford Dictionary).

"A combination of economic, political, and cultural factors promote globalization by
(1) making it possible to create new and increased ties among people, social networks, and ideas that span traditional nation-state boundaries;
(2) linking people in new ways, making it possible for work or travel or shopping or other activities to take place twenty-four hours a day around the world;
(3) advancing the speed of communication and the expectation of instantaneous contact, in effect making global events and issues local ones as well; and
(4) shaping and reshaping individuals’ ideas and identities as they are exposed to this increasingly complex world" (Crothers, 2012).

---
Crothers draws on James Rosenau's work.

Rosenau coined the term fragmegration "to describe the integration-fragmentation dynamic that shapes globalization today. Fragmentation and integration occur at the same time, profoundly shaping the dynamics of globalization."

At the same time the process of globalization brings the world together and pushes it apart.
Really?  How?  Explain.

How does music fit in here?

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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Mr. Worldwide (W4-P1) Sp16

Pitbull - International Love ft. Chris Brown


"I've been to countries and cities I can't pronounce
And the places on the globe I didn't know existed
In Romania, she pulled me to the side and told me
'Pit, you can have me and my sister'

In Lebanon, yeah, the women are bomb
And in Greece, you've guessed it, the women are sweet
Spinned [Been?] all around the world but I ain't gon' lie
There's nothing like Miami's heat"

Just how worldly is Mr. Worldwide?   Planet Pit World Tour
Just how international was International Love?  The song

How widespread is American music in other countries around the world?
Would you consider Pitbull's music American music?

Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Global Media, Music & the Future (W4-P5) Sp15

Global Media, Music and the Future

Some of Crother's Emerging Developments especially relevant to music

• The global demand for other American products, like clothing styles and brands, restaurants and sports, is also likely to grow over time.
• Social networking will continue to be a platform for the spread of information, products, cultural styles, and political and social change around the world.
• The YouTube-ification of entertainment is likely to expand.
• Challenges to American movies, music, and television programs will arise for a variety of economic, political, and cultural reasons, leading to new alliances seeking to limit the effects of American popular culture within their communities.
• Increased exposure to American popular culture will encourage the development of hybrid forms that have value to local cultures.
• American popular culture may facilitate the emergence of a global culture, at least to a limited extent.
• Cultural integration is more likely within and among components of the Global North* than it is within and among the Global South*, thereby deepening the gap between north and south.
• Resistance to the spread of American popular culture, whether organized by states or by citizens, is likely to be hard.
• Nothing is inevitable about globalization and American popular culture.

*North–South Divide: a the "broadly considered a socio-economic and political divide. Generally, definitions of the Global North include North America, Western Europe and developed parts of East Asia. The Global South is made up of Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia including the Middle East" (Wikipedia).


"OSCEmap 2005". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.


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Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Measuring the Spread of American Music (W4-P4) Sp15

So, if American music contains American values and if said music may cause changes in the cultures of other countries, then just how widespread is American music?

How would you measure how widespread?  What evidence would you give?

Ways to Assess the Preeminence of American Music in World Entertainment

1. "A review of the top-selling albums of all time suggests the dominance of American music, for example. As of November 2011, there were twenty-seven albums that had sold at least fifteen million copies worldwide, and sixteen were the product of undeniably American acts. The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits is tied with Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the number one selling album of all time, at twenty-nine million sales."
2. "Similar evidence for American music prominence can be found in considering the individual artists and groups in terms of their certified global record sales. The most successful musical act of all time, for example, is not American: it is The Beatles, with 177 million album sales in their history."  However most other top selling artists and groups are American.
3. "The dominance of American rock, country, and hip-hop is perhaps most evident in the direct linkage of music and television created in 1981 with the formation of the cable network MTV, Music Television. In their endless search for venues... An idea this profitable was sure to spread, and spread it did. Just ten years after its creation, MTV was available in 201 million households in seventy-seven countries ranging from Australia to Brazil to Hong Kong. MTV Europe grew from 3 million households in 1988 to 14 million in 1991 and then 37 million in 1992."

How else would you measure the spread of American music?  What evidence would you give?

International Charts (Billboard)


Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: American Culture in Country, Rock and Hip-Hop (W4-P3) Sp15

According to Crothers the first step in understanding the effects that American popular culture artifacts may have on other cultures is to identify the American cultural values in the artifacts.

What is the culture hidden in the popular music genres. Crothers covers three prominent American music genres: country, rock and hip-hop and also identifies the cultural values in the music.

Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?

Country Music

"Country has long prided itself on reflecting the lives of real people, particularly working-class, rural Americans. Country’s topics have chronicled the struggles of the individual as he or she tries to make it in a dead-end job, in a difficult marriage, or even through addiction to drugs or alcohol."


"Additionally, country regularly sings the virtues of hard work, traditional love, the glory of a loving family, and unabashed patriotism. The real America, country seems to say, is the America in which people struggle but take responsibility for their personal fates. Americans fight for their honor and dignity as ends all their own."


Rock Music

"At its heart were energy, excitement, and rebellion. Rock musicians tapped into their fans’ adolescent dreams".

"Rock, after all, expresses rebellion, energy, and individualism—as do teenagers. The causality seemed self-evident: children who were once compliant and sweet."


Hip-Hop Music

"If country celebrated traditional values and patriotism, and rock and roll energized the ambitions of a generation to change the world, hip-hop expressed the anger and frustration of a long-repressed community that had many grievances in what it described as a racist America."

"Hip-hop also reflected a raw form of street sexuality in which suggestive language was common. Other performers offered explicit accounts of their sexual desires and fantasies."



Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?  What would you change or add?  Support your argument.

So, if we can agree that "hidden" in the music are certain American cultural values, then so what?  Why is that important?  What's this have to do with the effects thing discussed earlier?



Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Crothers' Key Concepts (W4-P2) Sp15

Crother's Key Concepts

In Crothers' 2012 book, Globalization and American Popular Culture, the author explores the "ways that American movies, music, and television programs shape and are shaped by contemporary globalization."


It is important for Americans to study this topic because "it is through these artifacts (and many others) that the rest of the world sees American values and lifestyles."  Or put more poetically: "[W]hat people are likely to see of America and what they are likely to know about America will be filtered through the lens of American popular culture."

So, it is through these artifacts that the world understands American culture.  However, this is not the only reason it is important to study this topic.

More importantly, what effect do these American cultural artifacts have on the cultures other countries?

In the book Crothers defines culture as "the root values, ideas, assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes that members of particular communities generally share in an unexamined, automatic way."

"Among the many things that cultures teach their members are normative standards of evaluation—of dress, food, behavior, attitudes, ideas, and many other things."


---

Early on in the book Crothers covers some additional key concepts: popular culture, globalization and fragmegration.

Crothers discusses popular culture, but does not give a succinct definition, so we go to another source for our definition here:

pop[ular] culture:  "commercial culture based on popular taste: fashion, music, and the iconography of pop culture offered the perfect medium for profit (Oxford Dictionary).

With this given definition, how would you describe American popular culture?
Make special note of music.


---

Similarly, for a succinct definition of globablization, we will need to head to an outside source.

globalization: "the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale" (Oxford Dictionary).

"A combination of economic, political, and cultural factors promote globalization by
(1) making it possible to create new and increased ties among people, social networks, and ideas that span traditional nation-state boundaries;
(2) linking people in new ways, making it possible for work or travel or shopping or other activities to take place twenty-four hours a day around the world;
(3) advancing the speed of communication and the expectation of instantaneous contact, in effect making global events and issues local ones as well; and
(4) shaping and reshaping individuals’ ideas and identities as they are exposed to this increasingly complex world" (Crothers, 2012).

---
Crothers draws on James Rosenau's work.

Rosenau coined the term fragmegration "to describe the integration-fragmentation dynamic that shapes globalization today. Fragmentation and integration occur at the same time, profoundly shaping the dynamics of globalization."

At the same time the process of globalization brings the world together and pushes it apart.
Really?  How?  Explain.

How does music fit in here?


Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Mr. Worldwide (W4-P1) Sp15

Pitbull - International Love ft. Chris Brown


"I've been to countries and cities I can't pronounce
And the places on the globe I didn't know existed
In Romania, she pulled me to the side and told me
'Pit, you can have me and my sister'

In Lebanon, yeah, the women are bomb
And in Greece, you've guessed it, the women are sweet
Spinned [Been?] all around the world but I ain't gon' lie
There's nothing like Miami's heat"

Just how worldly is Mr. Worldwide?   Planet Pit World Tour
Just how international was International Love?  The song

How widespread is American music in other countries around the world?
Would you consider Pitbull's music American music?


Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Global Media, Music & the Future (U3-P5) Sp14

Global Media, Music and the Future

Crother's Emerging Developments especially relevant to music

• The global demand for other American products, like clothing styles and brands, restaurants and sports, is also likely to grow over time.
• Social networking will continue to be a platform for the spread of information, products, cultural styles, and political and social change around the world.
• The YouTube-ification of entertainment is likely to expand.
• Challenges to American movies, music, and television programs will arise for a variety of economic, political, and cultural reasons, leading to new alliances seeking to limit the effects of American popular culture within their communities.
• Increased exposure to American popular culture will encourage the development of hybrid forms that have value to local cultures.
• Just as other cultures can adopt and integrate American programming, American culture can adapt and integrate entertainment forms originated elsewhere.
• Pop cultural interchanges can create economic and cultural bonds among people that may not be represented by political institutions.
• American popular culture may facilitate the emergence of a global culture, at least to a limited extent.
• Cultural integration is more likely within and among components of the Global North than it is within and among the Global South, thereby deepening the gap between north and south.
• Resistance to the spread of American popular culture, whether organized by states or by citizens, is likely to be hard.
• Nothing is inevitable about globalization and American popular culture.

Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Measuring the Spread of American Music (U3-P4) Sp14

So, if American music contains American values and if said music may cause changes in the cultures of other countries, then just how widespread is American music?

How would you measure how widespread?  What evidence would you give?

Ways to Assess the Preeminence of American Music in World Entertainment

1. "A review of the top-selling albums of all time suggests the dominance of American music, for example. As of November 2011, there were twenty-seven albums that had sold at least fifteen million copies worldwide, and sixteen were the product of undeniably American acts. The Eagles’ Their Greatest Hits is tied with Michael Jackson’s Thriller for the number one selling album of all time, at twenty-nine million sales."
2. "Similar evidence for American music prominence can be found in considering the individual artists and groups in terms of their certified global record sales. The most successful musical act of all time, for example, is not American: it is The Beatles, with 177 million album sales in their history."  However most other top selling artists and groups are American.
3. "The dominance of American rock, country, and hip-hop is perhaps most evident in the direct linkage of music and television created in 1981 with the formation of the cable network MTV, Music Television. In their endless search for venues... An idea this profitable was sure to spread, and spread it did. Just ten years after its creation, MTV was available in 201 million households in seventy-seven countries ranging from Australia to Brazil to Hong Kong. MTV Europe grew from 3 million households in 1988 to 14 million in 1991 and then 37 million in 1992."

How else would you measure the spread of American music?  What evidence would you give?

International Charts (Billboard)




Share this post with others. See the Twitter, Facebook and other buttons below.
Please follow, add, friend or subscribe to help support this blog.
See more about me at my web site WilliamHartPhD.com.

GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: American Culture in Country, Rock and Hip-Hop (U3-P3) Sp14

According to Crothers the first step in understanding the effects that American popular culture artifacts may have on other cultures is to identify the American cultural values in the artifacts.

What is the culture hidden in the popular music genres. Crothers covers three prominent American music genres: country, rock and hip-hop and also identifies the cultural values in the music.


Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?

Country Music

"Country has long prided itself on reflecting the lives of real people, particularly working-class, rural Americans. Country’s topics have chronicled the struggles of the individual as he or she tries to make it in a dead-end job, in a difficult marriage, or even through addiction to drugs or alcohol."


"Additionally, country regularly sings the virtues of hard work, traditional love, the glory of a loving family, and unabashed patriotism. The real America, country seems to say, is the America in which people struggle but take responsibility for their personal fates. Americans fight for their honor and dignity as ends all their own."


Rock Music

"At its heart were energy, excitement, and rebellion. Rock musicians tapped into their fans’ adolescent dreams".

"Rock, after all, expresses rebellion, energy, and individualism—as do teenagers. The causality seemed self-evident: children who were once compliant and sweet."


Hip-Hop Music

"If country celebrated traditional values and patriotism, and rock and roll energized the ambitions of a generation to change the world, hip-hop expressed the anger and frustration of a long-repressed community that had many grievances in what it described as a racist America."

"Hip-hop also reflected a raw form of street sexuality in which suggestive language was common. Other performers offered explicit accounts of their sexual desires and fantasies."




Do you agree with Crothers' analysis?  What would you change or add?  Support your argument.

So, if we can agree that "hidden" in the music are certain American cultural values, then so what?  Why is that important?  What's this have to do with the effects thing discussed earlier?



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GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Crothers' Key Concepts (U3-P2) Sp14

Crother's Key Concepts

In Crothers' 2012 book, Globalization and American Popular Culture, the author explores the "ways that American movies, music, and television programs shape and are shaped by contemporary globalization."


It is important for Americans to study this topic because "it is through these artifacts (and many others) that the rest of the world sees American values and lifestyles."  Or put more poetically: "[W]hat people are likely to see of America and what they are likely to know about America will be filtered through the lens of American popular culture."

So, it is through these artifacts that the world understands American culture.  However, this is not the only reason it is important to study this topic.

More importantly, what effect do these American cultural artifacts have on the cultures other countries?

In the book Crothers defines culture as "the root values, ideas, assumptions, behaviors, and attitudes that members of particular communities generally share in an unexamined, automatic way."

"Among the many things that cultures teach their members are normative standards of evaluation—of dress, food, behavior, attitudes, ideas, and many other things."


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Early on in the book Crothers covers some additional key concepts: popular culture, globalization and fragmegration.

Crothers discusses popular culture, but does not give a succinct definition, so we go to another source for our definition here:

pop[ular] culture:  "commercial culture based on popular taste: fashion, music, and the iconography of pop culture offered the perfect medium for profit (Oxford Dictionary).

With this given definition, how would you describe American popular culture?
Make special note of music.


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Similarly, for a succinct definition of globablization, we will need to head to an outside source.

globalization: "the process by which businesses or other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale" (Oxford Dictionary).

"A combination of economic, political, and cultural factors promote globalization by
(1) making it possible to create new and increased ties among people, social networks, and ideas that span traditional nation-state boundaries;
(2) linking people in new ways, making it possible for work or travel or shopping or other activities to take place twenty-four hours a day around the world;
(3) advancing the speed of communication and the expectation of instantaneous contact, in effect making global events and issues local ones as well; and
(4) shaping and reshaping individuals’ ideas and identities as they are exposed to this increasingly complex world" (Crothers, 2012).

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Crothers draws on James Rosenau's work.

Rosenau coined the term fragmegration "to describe the integration-fragmentation dynamic that shapes globalization today. Fragmentation and integration occur at the same time, profoundly shaping the dynamics of globalization."

At the same time the process of globalization brings the world together and pushes it apart.
Really?  How?  Explain.

How does music fit in here?



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GlobalMedia: Music, MTV & Global Media: Mr. Worldwide (U3-P1) Sp14

Pitbull - International Love ft. Chris Brown


"I've been to countries and cities I can't pronounce
And the places on the globe I didn't know existed
In Romania, she pulled me to the side and told me
'Pit, you can have me and my sister'

In Lebanon, yeah, the women are bomb
And in Greece, you've guessed it, the women are sweet
Spinned [Been?] all around the world but I ain't gon' lie
There's nothing like Miami's heat"

Just how worldly is Mr. Worldwide?   Planet Pit World Tour
Just how international was International Love?  The song

How widespread is American music in other countries around the world?
Would you consider Pitbull's music American music?



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