American TV in Sweden (1/3)
March 31, 2008 – 9:14 pmCultural exchange is a big thing in our contemporary political and educational world. But it’s awfully unbalanced a lot of the time. When I studied in Sweden, I had the opportunity to survey some Swedish students about their views on the effects of American popular media on Sweden.
An unbearably cute moose in the front of a souvenir shop on Queen’s Street in Stockholm. Can you make out the sign that reads, ‘Please do not touch me. I might bite you.’?
As there is surprisingly little written on the topic of cultural exchange between the United States and Sweden, which is in itself a reason to suspect the equal balance of this so-called cultural exchange, I surveyed the Swedish students on American media products such as books, magazines, movies, and TV shows, but every response received spoke only of TV shows having the most obvious impact on Swedish life.
The Swedish students have had lots to say about this cultural exchange, but first please allow me to indulge in discussing a book written by Norman Daniel, a British scholar. The book, The Cultural Barrier, explores the problems of cultural exchange and the effects it has had on cultures all over the world, East and West.
Written in 1975, it is slightly out-dated now, but it is very likely that the same concepts still apply. Of course, this was written before such global events as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the advent of the European Union, Tiananmen Square, and 9/11, but it was written in a time after the two World Wars, when the entire world was trying to work together to build a new world together.
That task undoubtedly entailed crossing cultural barriers, which might very well be the namesake of the book itself. The very first chapter of the book is called “Conditions of Cultural Exchange,” perfect to serve as a basis for whether or not there is true cultural exchange between the United States and Sweden.
In this chapter, Daniel discusses which products, tangible or intangible, can be transferred from one culture to another without cultural exchange. For example, techniques involving the composition of electronic devices can be transferred between cultures without the recipient people borrowing from the culture of the originator culture. Some products, however, like movies, are “culture bound,” as Daniel calls it, meaning that these products cannot cross the line between cultures without cultural borrowing occurring.
Later on in the chapter, he gives a concrete example of potential cultural exchange and all the problems that come along with it. The example he gives is that of a student studying abroad and being faced with the difficult task of adapting to the new culture while maintaining the old. Often times, an imbalance occurs, usually in the form of the student comparing the cultures too much, being too critical or unaccepting. Sometimes, it happens that the student assimilates so much to the new culture that the old is replaced by the new.
In any of these cases, the cultural exchange is flawed. As Daniel puts it, “The best communication will always be achieved on a basis of perfect reciprocity.” By “communication,” he means the kind of communication that is inherently charged with the duty of cultural exchange, and the word “perfect” deserves specific attention. Daniel expects that to be successful cultural exchange must occur with immaculate results, with neither country acting, whether consciously or subconsciously, as a cultural imperialist.
Admittedly, he concedes that perfect reciprocity is nearly impossibly difficult, commenting that “in the meantime, while equal exchange, which is the same as true exchange, is often not feasible, we are forced to think and speak instead in terms of two-way traffic. Two-way traffic is the nearest we come to exchange.”
These are some of his last words in the introductory chapter. By “in the meantime,” I gather that he means in the meantime of our attempt to find a way to achieve perfect reciprocity in cultural exchange, which is obviously not going to happen any time soon. Under Daniel’s definition, we can settle for cultural exchange as two-way cultural traffic, however imbalanced it may be.
