Assessing the Impact of United States Mass Media on Croatian Cultural Identities
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University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 5-2014 Assessing the Impact of United States mass media on Croatian cultural identities Iveta Imre University of Tennessee - Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Mass Communication Commons Recommended Citation Imre, Iveta, "Assessing the Impact of United States mass media on Croatian cultural identities. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2014. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/2701 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Iveta Imre entitled "Assessing the Impact of United States mass media on Croatian cultural identities." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Communication and Information. Norman Swan, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Candace White, Charles Maland, Nicholas Geidner Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Assessing the Impact of United States mass media on Croatian cultural identities A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Iveta Imre May 2014 Copyright © 2014 by Iveta Imre All rights reserved. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First, I want to thank my chair, Dr. Sam Swan, for supporting me with this research. His guidance and advice helped me to successfully see this project to the end. My other committee members, Dr. Candance White, Dr. Nicholas Geidner, and Dr. Charles Maland also provided much insight, and I am grateful for their willingness to serve on my dissertation committee. I am thankful to my brother and my parents for believing in me and supporting me unconditionally. My brother helped me transcribe hours of focus group discussions, my mother made sure data collection went smoothly by driving me to numerous locations around Zagreb and baking delicacies for focus group participants, and my father provided emotional and financial support. Without them this project would not have been completed successfully and in such a timely manner. I also want to thank my dearest friends T. Casey Barickman who spent hours with me in the library and who supported me throughout the research process, and Viktoria Car and Tena Perisin who supported my data collection in Croatia. I also appreciate all my friends, colleagues and professors who have been by my side throughout my academic career. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the university students in Croatia who participated in this research. iii ABSTRACT Researchers throughout the decades have been interested in understanding how global communications coming from the West affect different cultures around the world. Many have raised concerns about the impact of American media on unique national cultures. The main purpose of this study was to understand how exposure to American television influences cultural identities and values of young people in Croatia, one of the new democracies of post-Communist Eastern Europe. This was accomplished in two parts. First part of this study sought to test the relationship between watching American television and adopting American values following a cognitive functional theory of television's socialization effects developed by Tan, Nelson, Dong, and Tan (1997). Survey was distributed to a sample of 487 undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Zagreb in Croatia. The second part of the study aimed to further understand the meaning of Croatian youth’s experiences when they come in contact with foreign media and how they view their cultural identities. A total of 26 undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Zagreb participated in 5 focus groups. Results indicate that American television programs do not influence Croatian values as much as Croatian culture. While the survey participants accepted only five American values out of 16 measured, the focus group participants, on the other hand, described how American influences could be seen in everyday life in Croatia. However, as the results of this study show, exposing foreign cultures to American television programs hardly leads to cultural homogenization based on Western values. Instead, these cultural encounters lead to cultural hybridity, an emergence of a new form of culture comprised, on one hand, of old, iv well established Croatian cultural elements, and on the other hand newer, accepted or assimilated Western cultural elements. Key words: Global communication, cultural identities, Croatia, Western values v TABLE OF CONTENT Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 1 Purpose of the study .......................................................................................................................................... 3 Background ............................................................................................................................................................ 6 Croatia ..........................................................................................................................................................................6 Media in Croatia ......................................................................................................................................................8 The global rise of American media exports .............................................................................................. 11 Identity ...................................................................................................................................................................... 14 Collective identity ................................................................................................................................................. 15 Cultural identity .................................................................................................................................................... 16 Cultural identities and value systems ......................................................................................................... 17 Definition of terms ........................................................................................................................................... 18 Chapter 2 Literature Review ............................................................................................................ 20 Cultural identities and value systems in Eastern Europe ................................................................ 20 Cultural identity and value system in Croatia ...................................................................................... 22 The impact of U.S. media on foreign cultures ....................................................................................... 26 Cultural imperialism ........................................................................................................................................... 27 Cultivation theory ................................................................................................................................................ 30 The impact of U.S. media on young people ............................................................................................... 34 Literature review summary ......................................................................................................................... 37 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................................................. 39 Hypothesis and research questions .............................................................................................................. 41 Chapter 3 Methodology ...................................................................................................................... 44 Research design ................................................................................................................................................ 44 Survey.................................................................................................................................................................... 45 Participants and procedure ............................................................................................................................. 45 Measures ................................................................................................................................................................... 46 Data analysis .......................................................................................................................................................... 48 Focus groups ......................................................................................................................................................