Page 155 - CULTURE IN THE COMMUNICATION AGE

JAMES LULL

the public spaces’ (García Canclini 1995: 13). In García Canclini’s view, this
development suggests that ‘we should ask ourselves if through consumption
we are not making something that sustains, nurtures, and to a certain point
constructs a new way to be citizens’ (García Canclini 1995: 27).
Néstor García Canclini’s argument does not proceed uncritically and it does
not simply accede symbolic power to Mexico’s wealthy and powerful neighbor
to the North (García Canclini 1995; 1999). To the contrary, he has proposed a
radical revision of Mexican (and Latin American) public cultural policy to
downplay the high culture aspects, and connect more with the ‘common cul-
ture’ through development of national popular culture, a policy recommenda-
tion that has also been made in England (Willis 1990) and other countries. In
many ways, the privatization of public media in Mexico and elsewhere has
actually accomplished what García Canclini has encouraged the public agen-
cies to do. We see the same tendencies in the Internet world. Most govern-
ments have been unable to supply their citizens with high technology and
Internet access, so business has taken over that opportunity and turned it into a
commercial venture. For instance, Brazil’s banks, corporations, and Internet
service providers now provide free (but heavily commercialized) access to the
Internet. Yahoo and Hotmail from the USA offer free email and Internet access
services (also loaded up with commercials, of course) to an international
clientele.
The conclusion that the global market seems to be today’s best source of
symbolic inspiration understandably makes sensitive observers uncomfortable.
But what are the superior alternatives? Even the French sociologist Pierre
Bourdieu, who has been casting around desperately lately for some alternative
to what he considers to be the destructive effects of globalization and the
commercialization of media and information, can only unconvincingly retreat
to the tired idea that state institutions, political parties, and labor unions will
somehow rescue and resurrect the ‘public interest’ from the ‘tyranny’ of the
market (Bourdieu 1998). Unfortunately, the ability of any nation-state or other
entity to do so is seriously limited not only by the conceptual impracticality
of such an idea but also by the technical impossibility of managing global
technology. Every new form of communications technology accelerates and
intensifies the transnational influence, and makes cultural supervision by any
regulative body increasingly less viable.
Furthermore, while it is tempting to point at McDonald’s, Blockbuster,
Sony, rock and rap, Nokia, shopping malls, Coca-Cola, designer jeans, Disney,
Honda, the National Basketball Association, and other highly visible globalized
cultural themes frequently considered to be negative, homogenizing, Western-
izing forces, many other types of symbolic representation circulate widely too.
What started out as a distinctly American cultural phenomenon, the Internet,
has given tremendous visibility, convenience, and power to various cultural and
language groups almost everywhere. While the Internet should not be under-
stood simply as a magical, technological generator of cultural democracy, the

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