continued: "Reconsidering cultural imperialism theory" by Livingston A. White
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Tables / References

A comparison of cultural imperialism theory and other theories of mass media
Baran and Davis (2000) give an overview of mass communication theories indicating that they can be classified into three broad categories:

1. microscopic theories that focus on the everyday life of average people who possess the ability to process information - for example, uses and gratifications, active audience theory, and reception studies;
2. middle range theories that support the limited effects perspective of the media by explaining narrow domains of action - for example, information flow theory, diffusion theory, and mass entertainment theory; and
3. macroscopic theories that are more concerned with media's social role and their impact on culture and society - for example, cultural studies theory, social construction of reality, and neomarxism.

In this taxonomy of mass media theories, cultural imperialism falls within the category of macroscopic theories in that it attempts to offer a systematic explanation of media's role in the exchange of information between countries and their (i.e., the media) subsequent impact on the indigenous cultures of those countries. As each type of theory has a different focus, an effective comparison can be achieved by comparing cultural imperialism with those theories that have the same focus.

The criteria for evaluating theories--scope, precision, testability and utility--have been used in the following comparison of cultural imperialism and other macroscopic theories. These criteria have been suggested for evaluating mainly social scientific theories. However, even though cultural imperialism is considered mainly a critical theory, these criteria can still be used as cultural imperialism has been applied in social scientific research. Using these criteria, one can understand why cultural imperialism has been subjected to much criticism.

Although the theory--arguably--has broad scope as it attempts to cover a lot of the phenomenon related to relationships between nations, therein lies part of the theory's shortcoming. According to Fejes (1981), the theory is almost a "pseudo-concept, something which can be used to explain everything in general about media in developing countries and hence nothing in particular" (p. 282). This is further complicated by the fact that the theory lacks precisely defined constructs and propositions which makes it highly challenging to test the theory. With these inadequacies related to precision and testability, one can infer that the theory does not have much utility either. At best, the theory is descriptive and does not have much explanatory or predictive power.

Scope. Compared to other macroscopic theories of mass communication, one may conclude that cultural imperialism has broad scope. It has generated a lot of academic discourse. It has been used not only in the field of communication but also in other areas such as international relations, anthropology, education, sciences, history, literature, and sports. But this is not sufficient evidence to support the view that cultural imperialism may have broad scope. Like neomarxism, cultural imperialism is very specific to the time period in which it was being proposed. The Frankfurt School of neomarxism, for example, offers an explanation and critique of society and media that are particular to the time period, the early 1900s, in which it was proposed. Cultural imperialism, also, is probably very applicable to the time in which it was proposed, the 1970s; with the advent of advanced communication technologies that allow for a multi-directional as opposed to a uni-directional flow of information between countries, cultural imperialism is no longer a useful framework for explaining the same phenomena that it was applied to in the 1970s.

In this sense, it has limited scope as it cannot be used to explain media relations between nations at different points in time. Even though some may argue that it can still be applied to some situations today as the media of some periphery countries are even now dominated by Western transnational media corporations, the theory does not hold true in all situations. There are periphery countries such as Brazil, India, Mexico (Sinclair, Jacka, and Cunningham, 1996) that have media that are not dominated by foreign media organizations. Again, this proves that cultural imperialism does not have a broad scope. Other macroscopic theories such as symbolic interactionism and social construction of reality have more scope than cultural imperialism as they can be applied in different time periods across various cultural settings with different geographical backgrounds to describe and explain how a particular society create meaning and eventually their culture through the use of signs and symbols.

Precision. Cultural imperialism is not as precise as other theories in mass communication. The constructs of the theory are treated as primitive terms, that is, they are accepted as commonly understood or as given (Chaffee, 1991, p. 7). The proposition of the theory that one country's media dominate another can be interpreted as being operative in that some direction of influence is implied--the flow of information is one way from one country to the next. But this one-way flow of information is no longer predominant as advanced technologies have impacted the flow of information. The theory's proposition, therefore, needs redefinition.

Cultural imperialism has been loosely defined to serve the purpose of various scholars who have used it as a framework for their research. Like cultural imperialism, most of the other macroscopic theories of mass media, in particular the critical ones, lack precise definitions. However, one will realize that this is typical of critical theories of mass media. One of the proponents of neomarxism, Theodor Adorno, actually felt that by establishing definitions, "thinking would be in accordance with traditional thought; that organizing things according to rigid concepts is alien to dialectical thought" (Tar, 1977, p. 156). While this kind of thinking may be characteristic of critical theories, a lack of precision does not help in theory building. Not being precise and clear on what one is discussing will only lead to useless academic endeavor. Scholarly attempts to build further knowledge--the goal of science--becomes a confusing dialogue that is far from progressive. If discourse among researchers in this field is to be more fruitful, proponents of cultural imperialism must adhere to a model for applying the theory. By doing this, much effort will be saved from arguing over definitions and more attention can be given to research producing substance and evidence.

Testability. Based on the theory's lack of precision, one could argue that the theory is not very testable. However, it has been subjected to testing like other theories of mass communication. Some researchers, in particular quantitative scholars have actually operationalized cultural imperialism. In suggesting that the existence of cultural imperialism can be determined by (1) the unidirectional flow of information and (2) the small number of source countries for media products, Boyd-Barrett (1977) has in fact proposed a definition that is more conducive to empirical testing than are other ideologically based definitions of cultural imperialism. In this light, one can think of ways in which to test the theory and as has been illustrated earlier in this paper, although the theory is largely critical, quantitative tests have been employed to refute the theory's propositions. Other critical theories, such as neomarxism, have not been subjected to such social scientific, quantitative testing. Cultural imperialism therefore can be considered a more easily testable macroscopic theory despite its lack of clearly defined concepts.

Utility. Based on the fact that cultural imperialism has low scope and low precision, the theory does not have much utility. The purpose of a theory is not only to describe, but also to predict, control, and explain phenomena. The more these purposes are fulfilled by the theory, the more useful the theory would be. Even though cultural imperialism has been used in many disciplines as a framework for academic inquiry, the theory only operates at the descriptive level and does not have much explanative or predictive power.

One could, of course, argue that the reason why cultural imperialism has been used in so many areas is that the theory - in comparison to other macroscopic theories, such as neomarxism and social construction of reality - is useful in the sense that its main proposition that media from Western nations dominate media in Third World countries is easy to understand. This can be and has been used to explain why the cultures of some Third World societies, for example, reflect Western cultures. While this may be true, one has to read between the lines and interpret what the theorists are trying to say, as in most of the literature, the theorists engage in rhetoric and emotional debates. Rarely do you find any of the cultural imperialism authors outlining in a clear manner every aspect of the phenomena that the theory attempts to describe.

A theory that is deemed to be good must possess certain fundamental parts including a clearly stated concept; a dictionary of definitions for the various constructs; at least one proposition that specifies relationships among the constructs; a calculus that operationalizes the constructs; and a model or a graphic representation to illustrate the main ideas of the proposition. Of all these various parts, cultural imperialism only contains concepts that are vaguely defined and a proposition that only becomes apparent after analyzing the writings of the theorists.

Conclusion
A theory has been defined as a set of interrelated concepts, definitions, and statements that present a systematic view of a phenomenon by specifying relationships among the concepts with the purpose of explaining the phenomenon (Kerlinger, 1973). The theory of cultural imperialism was developed in the 1970s to explain the media situation as it existed at that time. The nature of media (i.e., print, radio and television), at that time, promoted a one-way, top-down transmission system from dominant country to dominated country that theoretically gave rise to a passive audience and a powerful media (Sengupta and Frith, 1997). Advanced media, that are becoming widely available in the form of telecommunications, computers, and satellite technology, provide for greater interaction between sender and receiver than has ever before been possible. Therefore, the cultural imperialism argument that has been framed in terms of center nations with power over disempowered periphery nations must be reevaluated as the advanced media slowly penetrate into developing nations. TBS

References
Tables:
Various definitions of cultural imperialism
A list of authors who have written on cultural imperialism