Global Media Rights and Responsibilities
Senior 6 · General and Religious Studies
Global Media Rights and Responsibilities
Lesson 3 of 3
22 min
Walk past a film kiosk in many Rwandan towns, or search Rwandan channels on YouTube, and you will find agasobanuye, "the explained one": a foreign film, from Hollywood, Bollywood or Nollywood, with a Rwandan narrator speaking over it in Kinyarwanda. The narrator translates the dialogue, explains what is happening and adds jokes and comments for a Rwandan audience. The pictures come from Los Angeles, Mumbai or Lagos; the voice, humour and meaning are local.
Is agasobanuye a sign that foreign media are taking over Rwandan culture, or that Rwandans are taking over foreign media? Your answer depends on which theory of media and culture you hold, and that is what this lesson examines.
Definition
Culture: the shared way of life of a group: its language, beliefs, values, customs, arts, dress and food, passed from one generation to the next.
Cultural globalisation: the spread of ideas, values and cultural products across the world, speeded up by global media.
Cultural imperialism: the view that powerful countries, through their media and companies, impose their culture on weaker ones.
Homogenisation: the process by which different cultures become more alike.
Hybridisation (also called glocalisation): the mixing of global and local elements to create new cultural forms.
Cultural proximity: the tendency of audiences to prefer media from their own or a similar culture, when it is available.
Soft power: a country's ability to attract and influence others through its culture, values and image rather than force or money.
Media literacy: the ability to access, analyse, evaluate and create media critically.
Cultural imperialism. In the 1960s and 1970s the American scholar Herbert Schiller argued that a flood of films, television and advertising from the United States spread its consumer values and crowded out local culture. Supporters of this view point to the dominance of a few global firms and of English online.
Hybridisation. Later researchers observed that audiences are not passive. They choose, reinterpret and remix what they receive. The sociologist Roland Robertson called this glocalisation: global forms adapted to local life. Agasobanuye is a textbook example.
Cultural proximity and contra-flow. The researcher Joseph Straubhaar found that when local programmes are available, audiences tend to prefer them. Media also flow from the South and East to the world: Nollywood, Korean pop music and drama, Latin American soap operas and Afrobeats. In a 2009 survey the UNESCO Institute for Statistics found that Nigeria produced more feature films in 2006 (872) than the United States (485), second only to India (1,091).
Figure 1 shows that the theories describe different outcomes, and that all three can happen in one country at the same time. The useful question is not "Do media change culture?" but "Which outcome, for which people, and why?"
| Aspect of culture | Possible positive influence | Possible negative influence |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Young people learn English, French and Kiswahili for study and work; Kinyarwanda content reaches the diaspora | Some children hear more foreign language on screens than Kinyarwanda at home, weakening proverbs and idioms |
| Values | Campaigns spread values such as gender equality, children's rights and hygiene | Programmes may glamorise violence, alcohol or disrespect for elders |
| Arts and music | Rwandan artists reach world audiences; old songs and dances are recorded and preserved | Local styles may be copied out of fashion and lost |
| Consumption | People learn about new products, services and opportunities | Advertising encourages spending beyond one's means and a throwaway culture |
| Body image | Health programmes promote exercise and good nutrition | Edited images set unrealistic standards of beauty, damaging self-esteem |
| Identity and image | Countries tell their own story to the world (soft power) | A "single story" of a country, such as poverty or war only, becomes a stereotype |
Rwandan case: telling your own story. Media can shape how a culture is seen as well as what it does. In 2018 the Rwanda Development Board (RDB) began a "Visit Rwanda" sponsorship with Arsenal Football Club, putting the country's name on a shirt sleeve watched by millions each week, and later with Paris Saint-Germain. The aim was soft power: to replace an outdated image with one of tourism, conservation and investment. Critics in some countries questioned the cost; RDB pointed to growth in tourism revenue. Either way, the example shows that culture and identity are now negotiated through global media.
Worked example: analysing data on media and culture
A class survey (illustrative data) asked 40 S6 students which language they mostly used to watch or listen to entertainment.
| Main language of entertainment | Students |
|---|---|
| English | 18 |
| Kinyarwanda (including agasobanuye) | 14 |
| Kiswahili | 5 |
| French | 3 |
Step 1, calculate. English: . Kinyarwanda: . Kiswahili: . French: .
Step 2, interpret. English leads, but more than a third choose Kinyarwanda, much of it foreign film narrated locally. This supports hybridisation and cultural proximity as much as homogenisation.
Step 3, judge the evidence. One class of 40 is a small sample from one school; it cannot represent all Rwandan youth. A sound conclusion is cautious and names the data a better study would need, such as a national sample across rural and urban areas.
Tip
Name the theory, then test it. For "Assess the influence of media on culture", state one theory (for example, cultural imperialism), give evidence for it, give evidence against it from another theory (hybridisation or contra-flow), and end with a judgement that names who is affected most.
Warning
Avoid "all foreign media are bad". Examiners reward balance. Foreign media also bring education, languages and new art forms, and Rwandans are active choosers and remixers, not empty vessels.
Important
Discuss. Is agasobanuye a threat to Rwandan culture or a creative expression of it? Consider who earns money from it, what language it uses, what values the original films carry and the rights of the original film-makers.
TED: "The danger of a single story", Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (about 19 minutes). Listen for how the books and media she met as a child shaped what she thought stories could be about, and for her point about who has the power to tell a people's story.
Practice
Further reading
Sources and credits
Written by Ganzaa: Figure 1, the tables, the survey example (illustrative data) and the exercises. This lesson adapts CC BY-SA material and is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
