Teresa's questions

1-All the articles pose that the approaches that see globalization as a phenomenon driven only by political or economic forces, as westernization, as imperialism, as domination are too simplistic. Can we conclude that nowadays there is a consensus over a more complex approach to globalization, with positive and negative aspects, homogenization, but also appropriation and differentiation?

2- Appadurai asserts that the Phillipine afinity for American music is a testimony to the global culture of the hyperreal… that Filipinos look back to a world they have never lost… they have nostalgia without memory. Similary to what David posed, I disagree with Appadurai's argument. Those American songs are not associated with American realities, but became associated with Filipino realities. This idea is reinforced by Sreberny’s argument that diverse audiences bring their own interpretative frameworks and sets of meaning. Can we conclude that nostalgias do not depend on the original but on the interpretative framework given by the receptors?

3- Although it is true that globalization is too complex to be described by binary models (center-periphery; consumer-producer, etc), the model proposed by Appadurai makes sense but it is merely descriptive and fails to predict or reveal an underlying order as the previous models did. Perhaps, a more interesting and useful model would predict what are the factors that create nodes of influence (U.S., Japan, Brazil, etc)?

4- How do we explain a world increasingly globalized in terms of finance, media, and migration but where different nations are fighting to become and be recognized as distinct identities (e.g., indigenous people, quebec) ? On a similar note, can we think about media as agents of sameness but also differentiation? Media create a common language but also allows to see the differences between each other.

5- Sreberny argues that when a culture gets in contact with Western culture industries (BTW, what do they mean by western cultures? American culture? Culture from developed countries?), there is fear of hybridization, that the “authenticity” of a culture is damaged or undermined. Why is there such a fear? What is “authentic”? Society and culture are constantly evolving and being negotiated, therefore, perhaps what we once believed as authentic, it wasn’t such. Perhaps, it was the product of a mix with other cultures.