Page 41 - Communication Theory and Research

McQuail(EJC)-3281-03.qxd 8/16/2005 11:58 AM Page 30

30 Communication Theory & Research
article, to the export and import of media artefacts from the print, music,
graphic, audiovisual and information industries.
Simply stated, then, ‘Global Cultural Homogeneity’ infers that the consump-
tion of the same popular material and media products, be they Swarzenegger,
Cheers, Pepsi, Big Macs, Disney Worlds, clothes, cars or architectural fashions,
creates a metaculture whose collective identity is based on shared patterns of
consumption, be these built on choice, emulation or manipulation.
Moreover, this myth has its nation-state and regional variants. Claims of
‘national cultural integrity’ or of ‘regional cultural authenticity’ (as manifest in,
respectively, Canadian broadcasting policy goals or the EC Television Directive)
typify attempts to protect or promote a national or regional collective identity
based on notions of shared citizenship or sovereignty. (This notion, in the case of
the EC, is under threat of extinction before it is ever realized owing to the rising
pressure for wider membership.)
In fact, neither ‘Global Cultural Homogeneity’ nor its national or regional vari-
ants, fit the emerging conflict models of the nation state, or the exclusionary
imperatives of ethnic or regional entities. The first evokes a seamless web of arte-
fact and tradition that does less than justice to the rich, global patchwork that
exists, while the goals of the latter two fly in the face of dramatic, and sometimes
bloody, evidence of repluralization. Paradoxically, we witness an antifederalist
ethos competing with a resurgent regional economic protectionism in the EC, the
North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the proposed South-East Asia
trading bloc.
Consequently, either this myth presumes that it is possible to argue the exis-
tence of a global cultural economy that ignores the counter pull of localism and
the rich traditions of variance, or it assumes, wrongly, that cultural identities are
contained within political borders or are conferred on a transhistorical world
society basis by an ethic of consumption (or exploitation). [...]

The Myth of ‘Saving Planet Earth’

If globalization as an historical process only emerged fully formed in the 1980s,
now, in the 1990s, ideas about planetary interdependence embrace an ecological
dimension. The one-world, Gaia, philosophy at the heart of ‘Saving Planet Earth’
links culture and economy to perceptions of a world ecosystem and its pro-
tection. Not only are we enjoined to ‘think globally and act locally’, but also to
realize that eco-crises such as ‘global warming require the rise of the global
politician, buttressed by a global citizenry, whose vision extends for decades’
(O’Riordan, 1990).
The utopian ideas embedded in this myth are transcultural and synchronic,
displaying the power of myth to reinvent itself across space and time. In fact
‘Saving Planet Earth’ combines ancient (and sometimes sacred) beliefs about
man’s intimate relation to nature with modern ideas of eco-activism. Narratives
about the environmentalist project to rescue the planet from self-destruction,
echo archaic myths of the ‘eternal return’, and such sentiments, according to