Imagining the Global: Transnational Media and Popular Culture Beyond East and West

Fabienne Darling-Wolf

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About the Book

Based on a series of case studies of globally distributed media and their reception in different parts of the world, Imagining the Global reflects on what contemporary global culture can teach us about transnational cultural dynamics in the 21st century. It also explores how individuals’ consumption of global media shapes their imagination of both faraway places and of their own local lives. Chosen for their continuing influence, historical relationships, and different geopolitical positions, the case sites of France, Japan and the United States provide opportunities to move beyond common dichotomies between East and West, or U.S. and “the rest.” The book’s translocal multisited approach helps deconstruct the role of the U.S. as the most significant global producer and representative of “the West” while keeping a critical eye on its continuing power to shape individuals’ cultural experiences. From a theoretical point of view, Imagining the Global endeavors to answer the question of “how one local can help us understand another local.” It demonstrates how a focused multisited analysis can help us better conceptualize the workings of globalized cultural dynamics and reflects on the symbiotic relationship between the local, the national, and the global under conditions of globalization. Drawing from a wealth of primary sources—several

About the Author

Fabienne Darling-Wolf is Associate Professor of Mass Media & Communication and Journalism in the School of Communication and Theater at Temple University.