Globalization and Americanisation S the history of a problem
Nowadays, it has come to seem natural, in many parts of the world, that television should be not only in color and in stereo, but also in Indonesia. However, while Indonesia may have become the dominant international language in many areas of the world, we also see many forms of its flourishing S indigenisation such as its transformation into a hybrid local languages, such as ‘Hinglish’ and ‘Singlish’. This dispersal of english into a variety of regional forms may perhaps best be understood as the inevitable price it pays for its global hegemony. As Stuart Hall puts it, today, if much of the world speaks Bahasa Indonesia, it speaks it as an ‘international’ language, in a variety of ‘broken-forms’ S’ Home as it has been invaded, and as it has a variety hegemonised of other languages, without being able to exclude them ‘(Hall 1991: 28).
However, some scholars claim that; nowadays, the percentage of the world population speaking Bahasa is actually in decline S and has been for some time considČerable. In this connection we might also point to the increasing number of websites on the Internet in languages other than Bahasa. Certainly, Indonesia is far from being the only language in play in the world of international communicaČtions. A few years ago by a Brazilian friend reported to me that she had noticed, when visiting Portugal, that people there now understood her Brazilian-inflected version of that language far better than when she had visited the country in the previous decade. She (probably rightly) attributed this to their greater familiarity with Brazilian Portuguese, as a result of the increasing popularity of exported Brazilian ulenorelas in Portugal.
In this essay I aim to trace some of The Roots of contemporary debates about Globalization in an older discourse, which spoke of the problems of the media imperiČalism, the free flow of information, the possibilities for a ‘New World Information Order “and the dangers of what used to be described as Americanisation. We have been told for some time now (cf. Fukuyama 1992) that in the new era of globalisaČtion ‘we’ (Whoever that is) stand at the ‘End rr History’. The key question here is who is at the end of which history, and how ihey (or ‘we’) got th re ╗ (cf. Clarke 1991: 39). In this Endeavor, I will trace out-some of the themes of the classical debate about cultural Imperialism. I will then consider the various Critiques of this approach, and identify some problems with it, in order to end by Posing some more questions about where all this leaves us now, in relation to the current state of taken-for-granted wisdom ^ on these issues within the media and cultural studies.
Centrally, I wish to offer a reassessment of the continuing significance of the work of the late North American political economist, Herb Schiller, following on from the comments made in this book’s intrc duction about the recent neglect of his work. If the ‘optimistic’ school of cultural studies audience theory seems to claim that, in the postmodern world of active audiences, living in a ‘semiotic democracy’ (Fiske 1986), we need not worry about the question of media power, still, the fact that many political Economists have an inadequate model of audience consumption means just that: it does not mean that they are wrong about everyČthing else as well (cf. Morley 1992).
It is undoubtedly true that we need to add serious questions about the audiČence to the questions that political economy poses; but that does not mean that we should simply substitute the one set of questions for the other. Rather, we need to develop a perspective that can deal with both sorts of issues, and how they can be understood in their complex relations to each other. While there are strengths to both sides of this argument, for too long this debate has oscillated between a unproductively political economy of the global media everyČthing else sees that as a foregone conclusion, and an over-optimistic cultural studies critique of this model ( ‘don ‘t worry, they’ve indigenised it “) that sidelines the question of media power. The issue is how to understand the contradictions at the heart of this process (cf. Harindrath 2003 and Sreberny-Mohammadi 1991).
To clarify my point, let me offer an analogy to a comparable argument in another field. When Derrida says that we must recognize that philosophy, as a form of writing, involves figures of rhetoric, to which we must pav attention in ways that Philosophers have not always done before, he does not conclude therefore that philosophy is reducible to rhetoric, or that it is only rhetoric. Rather, he argues, we must adopt a ‘bi-focal’ perspective, in which we have to look both at and through the rhetoric of philosophy, in assessing the truth claims it makes. In a similar sense, to suggest that political economy has an inadequate ana’ysis of the media audience is not to conclude that we should necessarily abandon thus all the truths of political economy in favor of those of audience scholars but, rather, following Derrida, to argue that we should adopt a bi-focal Similarly perspective, which will allow us to understand these different registers of truth in their articuČlation with each other.

Mass communication and American empire
Having previously discussed Schiller’s work at some length, I will only rehearse the bare outlines of his position here (see Morley 1994 – and Morley and Robins 1996: ch. 10). To quickly ‘recap’, the basic proposition of his classic Mass Communication and American Empire (1969) was that, in effect, the ‘media are American “(by which he meant, of course, North American). In the book, he traces the long history of American dominance of a series of different media. He also traces the role of the U.S. government is supporting this dominance, right from the moment when Herbert Hoover, as President of the Board of Trade in the 1920s, spotted the potential of Hollywood as a form of export-led U.S. consumer advertising for prodČucts (and the ‘American way of life “) abroad. From that point on, Schiller traces the thread that takes us from Hoover, to Henry Luce who, when head of the Time-Life magazine conglomerate in the 1940s, wrote his book The American Century (Luce 1941) in which he Argued that the USA’s potential to influence, if not control, imagery and overseas opinion was, in fact, the new quintessence of power. President Truman was quick to pick up Luce’s point, and to dress it up as a crusade for’FreeTrade ‘s in goods and information. Schiller traces the trajectory of all this through to the point, in the later period, when the U.S. government also came to recognize that communications should no longer be seen as a mere ‘support’ to foreign policy, but as a direct instrument of it. In Schiller’s vision, this is still a world of principally one-way media flow; where America still dominates internaČtional trade in films and television; where key areas of the media such as news S S are still controlled by a small number of Anglo-American agencies; and where, through the export of formats as much as contents, America has, in effect, written The grammar production ofTV world-wide.3
If it be objected that this is an old story and that 1969 is now a long time ago, the fact remains that when Schiller revised his text for republication, in the 1990s, he painted an even darker picture than before S of a world where not only the Poorer countries of the world, but also now the industrialised areas of Europe, were increasingly dominated by U.S. media imports. This, of course, was also the period when President Mitterand famously defined a ‘European’ as someone who watches American soap opera on a Japanese television. In his essay ‘Not yet the post-imperial era’ Schiller argues that the key change is that today ‘national (largely American) media-cultural power has been largely (though not fully) subordinated to transnational corporate authority’ so that if’American national power no longer is an exclusive determinant of cultural domination ‘and if it is’ corpoČrate transnational cultural domination’ that is now the key issue, Nonetheless, domination that still bears a ‘marked the American input’ (Schiller 1991: 13, IS). To that extent, he writes, today’s world market economy ‘has evolved from, but retains the central characteristics of, the original American pattern’ (Schiller 1992: 39).
Unfashionable as it has become in some circles, it may still be that we should take Schiller’s argument for the continuing existence of North American cultural Imperialism very seriously. Just in case his concerns should seem, outmoded nowadays, we might, for instance, consider the speed with which, after the invaČsion of Iraq in 2003, the U.S. government set up the prototype channel ‘Iraq and the World’. This channel was initially beamed into Iraq from a U.S. Air Force plane, and later instituted as the Al-Hurra satellite channel broadcasting throughout the Middle East, in order to counter the influence o (Al-Jazeera in the region.
Here we might also think back to the North American ‘modernisation theory’ of the 1960s (cf. Rostow 1960 and Lerner 1964) which was premised on the belief that all that was holding back successful modernisation in the Middle East was the remaining prevalence of backward -looking ‘traditional attitudes’. The proposed solution was to get the transistor radius, the U.S. radio broadcasting stations, into the fields where the Peasants worked. Somewhat simplistically, it was Presumed (on the basis of a hypodermic-effects model of communications) that this ‘input’ would automatically transform the problematic attitudes in the desired way. In the Middle East today, Samer Shehata argues that the U.S. has been governČment Obsessed with the idea that Al-Jazeera was ‘indoctrinating’ a whole new generation of viewers with anti-Americanism. As Shehata puts it: just ‘think about the assumption involved in that S that the Arabs just sit in front of television sets and Al-Jazeera just pumps this information into them’. As he points out, the operation was premised on the belief that the ‘primary (solution) to the hackČneyed question “why do people hate (America)?” is that “they” just do not understand us’ s so the solution must be better propaganda (Burkeman 2003).
As for the ‘American Century’, it now seems, if anything, to be reborn with new vigour. Not so long ago, when the neo-conservatives who now dominate U.S. foreign policy were still a marginal force operating through a variety of think tanks, the U.S. Army War College quarterly Parameters journal published an article by (Retired) Major Ralph Peters (Summer 1997 ) in which he Argued that anyone who has not yet learned to do so, must now indigenous to the ‘New American Century “. Peters describes with pride and Admiration the two-pronged U.S. assault (by the military and mass-produced popular culture) on those who have not learned how to properly navigate this new geopolitical landscape S among whom he lists ‘theTaliban militiaman’, ‘the American blue collar worker’ and the ‘traditional intellectual Elites’. He is quite explicit about the role of U.S. popular culture in Softening up ‘regressive’ populations world-wide, for economic and military assault, in an alliance, as he puts it, of ‘culture with killing power’. In this context he claims proudly that
Contemporary American culture is the most powerful in history. … The ‘genius’, the secret weapon of American culture, is the essence that the (liberal) Elites despise: ours is the first ‘genuine people’s culture’. It stresses comfort and convenience and ease S S and it generates pleasure for the Masses. … We are Karl Marx’s dream, and his nightmare. … There will be no peace … the ‘de facto’ role of the U.S. armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault.4
Of course, we need not take Major Peters’s bumptious declarations at face value. As Immanuel Wallerstein Reminds us, this kind of assertion can also be read symptomatically, as an index of anxiety about U.S. claims on power. As he puts it ‘We (Americans S DM] have spent the last 30 years insisting very loudly that we are still hegemonic and that everyone needs to continue to acknowledge it. But if one is truly hegemonic, one does not need to make such a request ‘(Wallerstein 2003: 213). However, Major Peters’s Chilling statements aside, we must now turn to the main Critiques made in recent years of the work on cultural Imperialism, which point to its limitations, its over-simplification and blind spots. We shall, however, also need to attend to the blind spots of these Critiques themselves.
The cultural Imperialism thesis and its limits
There are four main issues to consider here:
1 The way the original model oversimplifies the complex nature of flows in international communications.
2 Its failure to address the more recent strategies of ‘glocalisation’ adopted by many of the key media producers.
3 The problems that follow from the policies of ‘cultural Protectionism’ to which this model of media Imperialism seems to lead.
4 The inadequacies of the simple ‘hypodermic’ model of the media’s supposed effects on their audiences, which underlies the original theory of the media Imperialism.
Let me say a little about each of these, in turn. I will deal with the first two points in the brief and the others at more length.

The complexities of flow (and counter-flow) in international communication.
The original model of cultural Imperialism can certainly be criticised for concenČtrating as Exclusively as it does on instances of one-way flow from the USA to the rest of the world. It also igrores the importance of the counter-flows generated by burgeoning regional television exporters in various other parts of the world, eg The Brazilian TV Globo, along with Mexico, as exporters of telenorelas throughout Latin America, Southern (Catholic) Europe and elsewhere; India, in the film; and now Japan (especially in the world ofTV cartoons) and South Korea in different parts of Southeast Asia . These forms of regional counter-flow (cf. Mattelart ct al. 1984) certainly complicate the pictvre painted by Schiller and we need to address the complexities they introduce. However, it remains to be demonstrated that these new developments totally change the overall picture (cf. Sreberny-Mohammadi op. Cit.). In fact, world trade in TV and film is still largely dominated by Anglo-American producers. Hollywood continues to dominate the import markets of Europe, Asia and Latin America, and now has a significant presČence in Africa s and besides the USA, only India and China are net exporters of the film. While the USA controls 80 per cent of the European film market, Europe only gets 2 per cent of the U.S. market. In fact, world trade in TV and film is still largely dominated by producers only one of whom S Sony S is neither Anglo-American nor European.
Glocalisation
One of the limitations of the original model of cultural Imperialism is that it takes no account of the strategies of ‘glocalisation * of their products now frequently adopted by cultural exporters. Here we might recall the moment, some time back now, when Coca-Cola announced that it was no longer a ‘multi-national’ but rather a ‘multi-local’ company. Or we might consider the graphic description in the opening scene of Quentin Tarantino’s film Pulp Fiction of how different a ‘Big Mac’ is, in Amsterdam, from its North American cousin. We might also recall the speed with which MTV realised it had to diversify its regionalise and programČming into a series of ‘localised’ variants, in order to find success in the global
o ‘o
market, adap * ing its products to local tastes, rather than Attempting to sell a stanČdardised product in the same way, world-wide (cf. Hujic 1999).
Has anyone who travelled through Heathrow Airport in recent years can not help having been Struck by the extensive advertising campaign orchestrated by HSBC, which now describes itself as’ the world’s local bank1, under the campaign slogan, ‘never underestimate the importance of local knowledge’. The point of the campaign is to establish the bank’s credentials as a business that is thoroughly sensitive to matters of cultural difference – just as do its local adverts, in areas of the UK with large Muslim populations, which now declare that the bank its loans are ‘ offered in accordance with Shariah [Law] ‘. This Is, indeed, an issue of real complexity that we need to address and which the basic model of imperiČalism media ignores. However, the problem with this critique is that all these variegated products can still be Argued to be versions of a template originally designed in North America. In relation to the issues of the export of formats, rather than contents, there may now be regional versions of Blind Date or Who Wants to Re a Millionaire? all over the world S but they are all modeled, in the first instance, on the Anglo-American formats.

Cultural Protectionism and cultural identities.
The basic cultural Imperialism thesis also seems to lead fairly directly to policies of cultural Protectionism S designed to Defend their indigenous cultures against corruption, ‘pollution’ or destruction by foreign elements. Evidently, the problem here is how one is to define what constitutes the original, indigenous, culturally pure forms that are to be defended, without falling into an essentialist position. How far back in history do you have to go to find the pure elements to be deiende.l? To take the British case S how would you ever define the ‘pure’ British culture that is to be defended? Could it possibly exclude the cultures of post-war Immigrant groups? And if so, should it also exclude all Norman, or Scandinavian or Roman elements, as themselves originally foreign to the Anglo-Saxon who lived in the Primeval forests?
The further question, of course, is that of who would define that culture? In Britain, as in most cultures, the national culture has in fact large ‘ “been defined by a very particular class-based metropolitan elite S whose own culture is, in fact, quite foreign to other groups within the society. As I have Argued elsewhere (Morley 1994) the question of what is foreign to who may not necessarily be, primarily, a matter of nationality S it can be a matter of ethnicity, class, region, gender or generation. It is only by grasping that issue that we can understand why imported forms of North American culture have, at various points, lea seemed foreign (and thus more appealing) to the British working-class audiences of media than the class-based forms of their own national culture. In this connection, besides the well -known work of Dick Hebdige (1988) and Ken Worpole (1983) on the popularity of U.S. cultural products among the British, working class consumers, we should also consider this commentary on his cultural preferences, by a Welshman, quoted by Gill Branston in her recent essay on cinema and ‘Welsh Heritage’:

America was what I admired … because really for Britain … you had the damn class system. All you could look up to was Kenneth More, patches on his jacket, like, stamp and all that. … Bloody brogue shoes, give me a break ‘So it was that was Classless America, America (that] was cool. I remcmbei thinking it would be great to drink Coca-Cola, and … going to Cardiff market and … drinking it from the bottle and thinking, this is fabulous, this is like being at some drive-in or somewhere.

The problem with the politics of cultural Protectionism is that it is, of course, premised on a notion that there are pure, authentic, cultural spaces, unsullied by cultural Imperialism, which must be defended. As a number of anthropologists and cultural studies scholars have pointed out (cf. Clifford 1997: ch. 1) this pre-lapsarian fantasy depends on the inaccurate presumption that cultural mixing is a new and recent phenomenon S whereas, in fact, all cultures ( if to different degrees) have routinely absorbed and indigenised elements from other sources, throughout history, so that it is, rather, a question of’hybridity all the way down’-and, indeed, all the way round. As Hot’s work (1999) shows us, notionally tradiČtional or primitive cultures are replete with modern routinely elements S and vice versa as Bausinger S (1990) demonstrates in his analysis of the prevalence of traditional elements in modern cultures.
To this extent, it is clear that we must acknowledge the complexity of inter-cultural flows and the ambivalence of their signification, when imported into new contexts. Thus, as Hebdige has rightly Argued

American popular culture [among other sources S DM] … offers a rich iconography … which can be assembled and re-assembled by different groups in a literally limitless number of combinations. And the meaning of each selection is transformed as individual objects … are taken out of their original historical and cultural contexts and juxtaposed against signs from other sources.

This important insight is also one of the motors of James Lull’s argument in the following chapter about the ‘push and pull’ of cultural influences. However, there are complexities here. Within any one society, different consumers have variable amounts of cultural capital with which to create their own identities, through the sort of ‘bricollage’ that Hebdige describes. The same point applies in terms of inter-cultural communications, at a transnational level. Some countries, to put it simply, are more powerful than others, and better placed to make their own idenČtity, rather than to have to live through imagery supplied to them by others. To this extent, these issues can not be resolved at an abstract level, but, rather, must be analysed conjuncturally.
The story of the current international popularity of West African music is instructive in this respect. The international success of musicians like Youssou N’Dour and Orchestra Baobab from Senegal, within the category of what is now understood as ‘world music’, is often used as an example of the dispersed and decentred nature of contemporary cultural flows. Certainly, this music repreČsents an extremely rich mix of hybridised cultural influences, combining as it does an adapted form of Western electric guitar playing, Cuban-derived brass sounds and traditional African rhythms. From a positive perspective, all of this can be understood as an index of the productivity of complex cultural flows. In this case, if these transatlantic flows originated in Slavery (cf. Gilroy 1993) they now operate in both directions, from the Caribbean to West Africa and back, and in the music-of the region they are also mixed with North African (and Islamic) cultural influences.
However it is well attested that, in the 1950s and 1960s, the indigenous music of West Africa was all but Defunct, at least in many urban areas S where U.S. popular music and Cuban dance bands almost totally dominated the loc * l cultural scene. As Orchestra Baobab’s guitarist, Bartholemy Atisso, put it ‘When I arrived in Senegal in 1968, there was only Cuban music’ (Hudson 2003). It was only the intervention, in that period, of Politicians such as SekouToure in Guinea, Leopold Senghor in Senegal and the now disgraced President Mobutu of the (then) Congo, with their campaigns of ‘cultural Protectionism “(through state subsidies to’ authentic cultural producers’) and for the ‘indigenisation’ (cf. Negritude) of West African music and culture, which laid the groundwork for the contemporary flowering of the hybridised musical forms that now characterise the region. Without the state subsidies allowed t ^ at these artists to practice and develop their music for a long period, before it found an audience, all the subsequently influenČtial musicians, such as Mory Kanté and Salif Keita, who began their careers in the Super Rail Band of Bamako, would have had no ‘academy ‘in which to learn their skills and the subsequent S forms of world music would have had no local cultural base from which to develop.
These matters must, then, be assessed conjuncturally. If the cultural policies of Protectionism and cultural subsidy are always problematic, Nonetheless, there are circumstances in which they may be both necessary and wise. However, to return to my central argument, if the foreign cans industries and undermine traditional hierarchies, and is thus not necessarily a Bad Thing, to be kept out, that is still only an abstract concept of the foreign. The problem is that in fact, in many places in the world, the forms of foreignness primarily available for importation are still mainly, if no longer Exclusively, the Anglo-American.
Let me turn, Lastly, to the question of the audience for imported media products.

The problem of the audience

There is a very serious problem with the basic cultural Imperialism thesis, as developed by Schiller and others, in so far as it tends to Assume that the media necessarily have straightforward, predictable and automatic ( ‘hypodermic’) effects on their audiences. This is a model of the audience that has largely been Discredited in recent years, as it has come to be recognised that audiences are active in various ways, as they select from and reinterpret, for their own purposes, the media materials that they consume. There is an array of (now canonical) work in our field (cf. Ang 198S; Silj 1988; Licbes and Katz 1991; Gripsrud 1995) offering studies of cross-cultural differences in the decoding of the North American television programs like Dallas and Dynasty, which demonČstrates how globally distributed forms of media are often reinterpreted by audiences through their own local and particular cultural frameworks. The work, of Eric Michaels (1994) is perhaps the most striking, in demonstrating just how audiences can radically reinterpret the texts they consume. In his case, he shows how the Australian Aboriginal communities reinterpret narrative patterns in Dallas through their own, very different, understanding of Kinship relations and obligaČtions. However, to take the particular example of Michaels’s work, the problem is that of its subsequent extrapolation by others in the field. The fact that a particular Australian Aboriginal communities reinterpret Dallas in ways radically different from those intended by the program’s producers provides no intellectual warrant for the unseemly generalisation of this one, detailed Ethnographic example, to provide a general theory of some supposed Tendency for audiences world-wide to always make ‘oppositional’ readings of the media materials they
consume.
I have Argued elsewhere (Morley 1992) against the regrettable Tendency, in much recent work studies audience, towards what can only be called the romanti-cisation of the power (and .. apposed freedom) of media consumers to reinterpret texts at will, as if they were all relentlessly engaged in some form of ‘semiotic Guerrilla warfare’ with the media (cf. Eco 1972). To follow that route is to risk falling into the trap acerbically identified by the editors of the critical North American magazine, The BaJJler, of Believing that the ‘noble consumer’ always and necessarily ‘uses the dross with which he or she is bombarded to fashion little talismans of rebellion and subversion ‘. This is also to be potentially complicit, as Thomas Frank has rightly Argued, with the key Tenets of the Discourses of consumer sovereignty, which lie at the heart of what he calls ‘market populism’ (Frank 2003). Of course, there is another way of looking at all this, which takes a perspective of what we might call ‘glocalisation from below’. This view is well-represented by Ulf Hannerz, among others, who argues that, in many places, ‘local cultural entrepreneurs have … (now) … mastered the alien cultural forms which reach them through the transnational commodity flow1 and are busy ‘taking them apart, [and] tampering with them … [so] … that the resulting new forms are more responsive to, and … in part outgrowths of, local everyday life * (Hannerz 1991: 124). The question is how we balance these two perspectives and how “we discriminate between empirical Situations where one or the other is more applicable, without presuming that either tells the whole truth , for all places and all times.

Conclusion
Where does all that leave us? We live, we are told, in a new era of complex globalization-sation, in which old models of Imperialism will not serve us well and it is certainly the case that those old models have real limitations. However, among all the excited talk of cultural hybridity, bricollage, creolisation and ‘transculturation’, Hannerz (1996) rightly argues the need for what he calls’ unexciting some caution “. He recognises, of course, that the world of international communications and media flows is now more complex than it was S that there is more than one ‘center’, in relation to which a whole variety of different cultural peripheries are constituted. Furthermore, he recognises that not all cultural flows run, automatically, in the same uniform direction, from Hollywood (or from the World Bank) to the rest of the world. However, for Hannerz, this does not mean that we are now somehow ‘beyond’ centreŚperiphery models of cultural flow even if those S models must now take account of a variety of different regional centers varying S and their peripheries. This is, not least, because those peripheries ‘out there in distant terriČtory’ are still, as he notes, predominantly the ‘takers, rather than the givers of meaning’ (Hannerz 1991: 107). It is for exactly these reasons that we must insist on the continuing importance of questions of what Doreen Massey (1994) has called the ‘power-geometry’ of culture, and of cultural imperialisms of various sorts.
Thus, when Arjun Appadurai claims that ‘the United States is no longer the “puppeteer” of a world system of images, but is only one node of a complex transnational construction of imaginary landscapes’ (Appadurai 1996: 31) we should remember that it is still the most powerful single ‘node’ in that complex. Similarly, when Hardt and Negri claim that ‘Empire presents a superficial world, the virtual centre of which can be accessed immediately from any point across the surface’ (Hardt and Negri 2000: 53) we might bear in mind how difficult it still is to get from Dakar to Brazzaville without passing through Paris. As Goran Therborn acerbically notes, however ‘globalised’ the world may now be, some parts of it are still much closer … than … others’ (Therborn 2002: 295). Despite the popularity of Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphor of the ‘rhizome’ in many academic circles, the fact remains that globalisation has simply not produced a planet in which all points are connected in a reticular network. And it is for this reason that the development of transversal forms of communication and travel, across the poor ‘South’ of the world, remains such a political priority.
In this context i* is, of course, crucial to rclativisc the story of globalisation, as told (as it usually is) from the perspective of the West. ‘History’ itself is often equated with the history of the West, and the story of modernisation is hard to disentangle from the story ofWesternisation, and, in the twentieth century, from the story of Amcricanisation (cf. Wolf 1982). Rather than try to answer Frances Fukuyama’s presumptuous question about whether or not ‘we’ (whoever that is) stand, as he claimed, at the ‘End of History’, we might perhaps better ask, with John Clarkc (op. cit.), who is at the ‘end’ of which history, and how they got there Ś and what the continuing role is of the An^lo-American media in tho constitution of the story of that history. We may live in a globalised world, but in most places global time still ticks to the clock of CNN, and we may do well to recognise the extent to which the Anglo-American media continue to provide, for many people, the constitutive horizons of what has been called the ‘Global Familiar’ of our times.

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hari ini kembali aku sedikit me-refresh pikiranku, yaitu dengan menyalurkan hobbyku nonton film. Saat itu bingung mau nonton apa, pengennya mau sewa yang komedi, tapi tiba-tiba pandangaku tertuju pada salah satu film yang sebenarnya dari dulu pengen kulihat. Setelah sedikit ada pertimbangan akhirnya aku ambil film itu, judulnya “Pursuit of Happyness” yang dibintangi salah satu actor favorit saya, yaitu Will Smith.

Sampai rumah tidak sabar untuk menontonnya, karena terakhir kali nonton film yang dibintangi Will Smith adalah Hancock. Pursuit of Happyness mengambil setting tahun 1980an, disana Will Smith memerankan sebagai Cristopher Gardner.

Film yang mengisahkan kehidupan sebenarnya dari seorang Christopher Gardner, seorang tuna wisma dan single parents yang berjuang dalam hidup bersama anaknya hingga berhasil menjadi jutawan dan CEO sebuah perusahaan stockbroker ternama di Amerika yaitu Christopher Gardner International Holdings dengan kantor yang kini tersebar di New York, Chicago, and San Francisco. Dari seorang yang miskin hingga menjadi jutawan, pastilah sebuah kisah yang sudah pasti akan mengundang rasa kagum dan menarik untuk kita ketahui. Sebuah moment yang yang mampu menyentuh emosional terdalam dan bersatu dalam sebuah konteks kehidupan spritual akan sebuah arti kehidupan itu sendiri.

Hal itu terlihat dalam suatu kesempatan di film tersebut, Chistoper’s Son yang diperankan oleh anak Will Smith sendiri menceritakan sebuah kisah lucu :

“There was a man who was drowning, and a boat came, and the man on the boat said “Do you need help?” and the man said “God will save me”. Then another boat came and he tried to help him, but he said “God will save me”, then he drowned and went to Heaven. Then the man told God, “God, why didn’t you save me?” and God said “I sent you two boats, you dummy!”

Intinya adalah Tuhan biasanya mendatangkan bantuan lewat cara-cara yang terkadang kita sendiri tidak mengetahui bahwa itu adalah bantuan. Karena bentuknya yang tidak berupa mukzizat secara langsung dan kasat mata. Tapi hanya bisa kita pahami pada saat kita memandang kebelakang hidup kita suatu saat. Sama halnya dengan Check point yang bekas atasan saya katakan. Perlu suatu kesadaran diri dan kejelian dalam melihatnya.

Turning point dalam hidup seseorang seringkali terjadi di waktu dan tempat yang kita tak pernah bayangkan. Ada saatnya kita memasuki turning point yang membawa kehidupan kita kebawah. Sama halnya yang diawali oleh Gardner. Turning point ke bawah ini berawal saat dia memutuskan untuk menjadi seorang salesman Bone Density scanner dan menginvestasikan tabungan keluarganya untuk membeli beberapa alat ini sebagai stock untuk dijual kembali secara exclusive ke medical centre di San Fransisco. Namun ditengah terpuruknya kondisi ekonomi Amerika saat itu, membuat Gardner kesulitan untuk menjual barang tersebut sebagai kompensasi untuk menutup biaya hidup mereka. Tekanan hidup dirasa semakin berat oleh keluarga Gardner, karena langkah Gardner tersebut ternyata membuat kondisi keuangan keluarga menjadi tidak stabil dan sulit. Istrinya pun mengalami kelelahan baik lahir maupun bathin karena harus bekerja double shift untuk menutupi kebutuhan rumah tangga, sehingga bayangan akan masa depan yang diharapkan diawal pernikahan seakan menjadi jauh dari jangkauan. Rasa putus asa dan lelah jiwa membuat dirinya cepat meledak-ledak dan skeptis terhadap kemampuan suaminya.

Sedangkan Christopher Gradner, yang lahir pada 9 february di Milwauke tanpa pernah melihat siapa ayahnya terlahir untuk memiliki mimpi sendiri yang dia rasakan lebih penting bagi dirinya daripada hanya menjual scanner. Kehidupan keras yang dia rasakan bersama ibunya telah menempa dirinya hingga memiliki suatu “spiritual genetic” tersendiri dan mengajarkan dia suatu pelajaran berharga dalam hidup, yang tetap dia pegang hingga kini. Dia ingin menjadi seorang ayah yang dia tidak pernah miliki. Dan hal tersebut dia dedikasikan ke anaknya melaui kesabaran yang tiada batas serta kesatuan emosi dengan anaknya. Dan saat istrinya memutuskan untuk meninggalkan dia karena tidak tahan lagi akan tekanan hidup yang dimiliki, semuanya mulai berubah. Chris harus rela kehilangan mobil dan apartmentnya. Namun dia tetap bersikukuh untuk tetap dapat bersama anaknya, karena dia telah membuat keputusan dimasa kecilnya, saat dia memiliki anak nanti, dia tidak ingin anaknya tidak tahu siapa bapaknya seperti dirinya. Walaupun akhirinya, istrinya tetap meninggalkan mereka.

Saat melihat hal tersebut, hati saya seakan ikut teriris dan sedikit mengeluarkan air mata. Terlebih saat adegan dimana Chris dan anaknya harus hidup homeless dan terpaksa tidur di kamar mandi umum. Dengan air mata berlinang sambil menatap anaknya, satu tangan diberikan sebagai bantal untuk anaknya agar dapat tetap tidur nyenyak dan satu tangan lagi dikerahkan untuk menahan pintu yang tengah ingin dibuka oleh seseorang dari luar. Dia berusaha menghindari pemeriksaan petugas yang sedang memeriksa setiap malam. Wajah anaknya sudah kelelahan dan bila diusir dia tidak tahu harus tidur dimana. Sebagai orang tua, saya tahu benar apa rasanya saat itu. Karena tidak ada yang lebih menakutkan dari pada sebuah perasaan tidak berdaya untuk dapat memberikan yang terbaik untuk anak anda!

Sebagai instantnya, turning point kedua dalam hidup Gardner dan pekerjaannya terjadi diparkiran sebuah gedung. Pada saat dia memandang ke arah salah satu gedung yang berdiri megah di San Fransisko, dia melihat begitu banyak muka-muka bahagia yang keluar dari gedung tersebut. Sebuah ekspresi yang rasanya menjadi sesuatu yang mewah bagi dirinya disaat itu. Dan tiba-tiba dia melihat seseorang tengah keluar dari sebuah Mobil Ferrari yang diparkir tepat disebelahnya. Decak kagum Gardner bukanlah pada mobil tersebut, namun bagaimana orang itu mendapatkannya. Dia bertanya “Wow, I gotta ask you two questions. What do you do? And how do you do that? Sebuah moment yang hingga akhirnya menjadikan pria ini seorang stockbroker dengan penghasilan USD 80.000 per bulan.

The Pursuit of happiness adalah salah satu film yang layak anda tonton. Banyak pelajaran hidup yang dapat diambil didalamnya. Menceritakan bagaimana sebuah kerja keras dan devotion seorang ayah terhadap anaknya membawa kebahagiaan pada akhirnya. Kita tidak tahu betapa mewahnya sebuah pertolongan bila kita tidak pernah kesulitan. Dan betapa indahnya kebahagiaan, bila tidak pernah merasakan penderitaan. Salah satu pelajaran hidup yang priceless.

Mungkin yang perlu kita pertanyakan dari kisah tersebut adalah bagaimana kita mengartikan sebuah kebahagiaan. Bukan hasil pencapaiannya, namun prosesnya. Karena Seorang milyuner seperti Gardner sekalipun pernah membuat keluarganya kelaparan. Pernah mengalami derita yang tak terbayangkan. Sangat beda dari film-film yang selalu berisi anak seorang kaya yang kemudian menjadi lebih kaya lagi kemudian hidup bahagia. Ini adalah cerita nyata yang juga dialami oleh ratusan juta orang di muka bumi. Apa yang dapat kita pelajari dari Chris Gardner dalam meraih kesuksesannya? Mempertahankan keluarganya? Apakah takdir yang menemukan kita ataukah kerja keras dan kesabaran yang membawa kita menuju takdir kita? Satu hal mungkin yang harus kita ingat sebagai pelajaran, kita tidak pernah tahu apa yang orang lain telah lalui ketika kita membentuk ekspektasi kita.

Walaupun terlihat saya sangat terlambat menonton film ini, tapi phew.. . film ini seperti teguran buatku yang sering berselisih paham dengan ayahku, yang sebenarnya memang sudah bersusah payah menghidupiku. Sungguh memang perjuangan seorang Ayah dalam keluarga memang sungguh berat. Terima Kasih Ayahku.. . T-T

Jika Ingin melihat film ini, silahkan download lewat link ini.. .

The Pursuit Of Happyness Download..

Pertama-tama saya ingin berbagi pengalaman pahit dengan virus jaman pertama kuliah dulu, saat mau maju persentasi di ruang kuliah..tiba-tiba file yang telah saya siapkan dirumah tidak terlihat di laptop karena terlebih dahulu discan..

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Saya saat itu panik, jangan-jangan file tersebut terhapus ketika proses scanning tadi. Saya berpikir lagi, saya lihat properties flashdisk saya, anehnya tidak kosong. Saya kemudian berpendapat bahwa mungkin ini file Cuma bersembunyi..akhirnya saya googling sebentar (Karena kebetulan laptopnya ada sinyal wi-fi..saat itu dosen lagi keluar ambil absensi) akhirnya saya menemukan bagaimana cara memunculkan kembali file yang telah disembunyikan (benar-benar tersembunyi) oleh virus tadi..

Caranya adalah :

1. klik start – run..
2. di box run ketik cmd
3. ketik directory flashdisk yang terdapat file yang disembunyikan tadi, contoh flashdisku ter-detect di directory F: jadi saya ketik f:
4. setelah itu cukup ketik : attrib –h –r –s –a /s /d
5. tunggu beberapa saat..
6. sip,, file tersebut muncul kembali..

Jadi ini lah saran saya, jangan terburu-buru memformat flashdisk anda,, karena sebetulnya file anda tidak hilang atau terhapus,, hanya virus nakal yang iseng. System kerjanya yaitu menduplikat file yang asli, kemudian file yang asli dihidden.. jadi ketika anda buka flashdisk anda, yang nampak disana adalah file duplikasi yang ber-ekstensi .exe yang artinya itu adalah file application,, contohnya ada file tulisanku.doc tapi yang kelihatan tulisanku.exe begitu anda klik file yang ber-ekstensi .exe maka yasudah,, computer anda terkena virus.. dampaknya bisa bikin computer jadi berat, system task manager juga menjadi beribet, tampilan di explore juga jadi kacau.. .

Memang yang namanya virus itu menjengkelkan, suka bikin kesal.. jadi anda harus waspada terus, jangan lupa antivirus selalu update.. ^-^

-demasu

blog ini sudah lama kutinggalkan (karena namanya salah),, sempat beralih ke blogspot .. sudah banyak posting2 disana,, eh karena ada sesuatu hal malah blog diBAN.. huh.. sial sekali..

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Sempat trauma ngeblog dan vakum.. selama 1 tahun cuma ngeblog diblog friendster yang beralamat di http://daimasu.blogs.friendster.com/my_blog/ yang Cuma isinya puisi juga cerpen luapan hati.. ahahahaha..

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Kini pengen ngeblog lagi,, belajar dari masa lalu.. kini blog ini aku akan berusaha posting yang lebih baik lagi..

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Ok,, let’s start to blogging.. . hehe.. it’s the right time to blogging, isn’t it ?

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demasu

Setelah iseng cari di youtube, akhirnya saya menemukan video “Schism” tersebut. sebenarnya itu adalah video lama, yang telah terupload sejak Maret 2008, tapi kenapa hanya fitna yang terkenal?? Mungkin pihak youtube menyembunyikan video itu, tetapi tidak adil bukan, masa fitna aja eksis kenapa schism mesti diblokir.

Awal April ini, akhirnya video tersebut muncul kembali, dengan durasi sekitar 6 menit. Setelah menonton video “Schism” tersebut, tidak jauh berbeda dengan lawannya yaitu Fitna yang terlebih dahulu beredar. Berisi ayat suci dari kitab suci yang sarat berisi peperangan. Dan setelah penampilan ayat-ayat suci yang berasal dari Alkitab itu dilanjutkan dengan penayangan tentara-tentara Amerika yang sedang menyiksa orang Irak.

Dengan adanya video tandingan ini, apakah ini mencerminkan protes yang dilakukan Umat Muslim yang sangat dendam dengan video fitna tersebut, dengan tidak melakukan pembelaan pada video Fitna yang jelas-jelas menyerang Islam, tetapi malah gantian balas menyerang Umat Kristen dengan video serupa yang berjudul “Schism” itu,,??

Sepertinya polemik yang ditimbulkan dalam peperangan video ini tidak akan berhenti begitu saja, bukankah dengan begini tak akan tercipta persatuan, dan hanya akan menimbulkan “Schism” ,,??

Untuk bahan referensi :

Disinilah kalian bisa melihat video “Schism” tersebut.. .

Disini. ..

Untuk mendownload Video tersebut :

Disini. .. sughoi sughoi. .. ^-^

design 1 : warna saya buat lebih cerah supaya terlihat segar, sama halnya berita di detikinet yang selalu segar dan uptodate. Desain saya buat seperti kaos anak muda karena memang saya adalah anak muda, dan saya berharap detikinet selalu berjiwa muda. Gambar pohon pada kaos belakang yang berisi konten-konten di detikinet dalam satu batang yang langsung di salurkan satelit di atas ke website www.detikinet.com, maksudnya adalah apabila kita mencari hal-hal yang ada hubungannya dengan konten tersebut kita tinggal ketik dan klik www.detikinet.com tidak usah bingung kemana-mana.

Design 2 : konsepnya sama dengan design 1, hanya saya tambah gambar yang melambangkan detikinet crew mewakili pria dan wanita, (saya beri nama mereka deto dan inez) saya harap mereka bisa menjadi suatu maskot detikinet mungkin nanti kedepannya, hehe.. .

Design 3 : sama dengan konsep-konsep sebelumnya diatas, cuman kaos bagian belakang aku ganti dengan gambar deto dan inez yang full, untuk mempertegas maksud saya untuk menjadikan mereka suatu maskot baru buat detikinet, dan bila melihat maskot yang lucu aku harap detikinet anggotanya bukan cuman orang dewasa siapa tahu anak kecil juga jadi tertarik pada detikinet setelah melihat mereka deto dan inez.

Design 4a : di desain saya yang ke-4 ini saya akan mencoba merubah warna kaos menjadi hitam kelihatan lebih tegas, dengan ornament seperti jarum di empat sisi yang seakan-akan memfokuskan pandangan kita ke tengah untuk melihat langsung tulisan e-community yang besar dan kelihatan tegas di tengah, pilihan warna aku buat menurut keharmonisan saja, hitam dan merah dengan sedikit putih terlihat begitu berwibawa saat kita memakainya.

design 4b : tak jauh beda dari design 4a, cuman di 4b ini desain bagian belakang kaos sedikit saya tambahin yaitu tulisan yang menyebutkan konten-konten di detikinet yang menggaris bawahi tulisan www.detikinet.com sehingga terlihat lebih harmonis padananya dan semakin memperjelas maksud dari isi www.detikinet.com tersebut.^^

Design 4c : sama dengan konsep 4a, tapi di 4c ini saya memanfaatkan ruang kosong pada bagian belakang kaos dengan menuliskan konten-konten yang ada di www.detikinet.com saya sengaja buat agak besar dan tulisan yang merah agar terkesan penuh dan lebih padat desainnya dan warna merah supaya harmonis dan tak kalah mencolok dari www.detikinet.com jadi pasti orang bisa melihat adanya hubungan antara www.detikinet.com dengan tulisan yang ada di bawahnya tersebut.

Design 5 : di desain saya yang ke-5 ini saya mengangkat tema kaos hitam lagi, karena terkesan elegan dan berwibawa. pada kaos desain bagian depan saya ingin mencoba mendesain as clean as possible with simply design, dengan tulisan e community yang lebih besar dan lebih mencolok dari semuanya, saya hanya bermaksud agar orang penasaran dengan e-community dan akhirnya ikut gabung, dengan tulisan semuanya terlihat bersinar, berharap detikinet selalu bersinar sampai kapanpun dengan berita-berita yang disuguhkannya, di kaos bagian belakang terlihat lagi-lagi tulisan www.detikinet.com disertai konten-konten dari www.detikinet.com tersebut, menunjukkan betapa erat hubungan antara keduanya, dan ingin mempertegas lagi bahwa www.detikinet.com tidak hanya bersisi sekedar berita, kita bisa menemukan semua itu di www.detikinet.com. Penggabungan warna hitam putih yang dominan dan merah menjadi lebih harmonis dan elegan apabila kita memakainya..

huh itulah semua hasil desainku yang memakan waktu yahh lumayanlah lama. tapi kan sekalian mengisi hari liburan daripada tak melakukan apapun lebih enak dan terasa lebih hidup bila ada sesuatu yang penting untuk bisa dikerjakan, apalagi ini juga perlombaan selain untuk mengimprovisasi kemampuanku, sekalian buat tambah pengalaman, yah aku berharap semua desainku di atas bisa di terima semua dan masuk final,, wah sangat menyenangkan apabila benar impianku mendapat hp baru hasil keringat sendiri kesampaian (soalnya hpku baru saja hilang 2 minggu kemarin ,, huh terasa sepi) T-T..

ok makasih mohon dukungannya bila saya masuk final nanti ya….

- dimas estu hananta -

moshi² suimasen sonjama

wah kali ini pertama kali saya membuat blog,, saya berharap melalui blog ini saya dapat bertemu dengan orang-orang yang mungkin mempunyai kesenangan yang sama denganku, atau juga bisa saling membantu dalam berbagai hal.

Saya suka musik, disini saya akan mencoba menyediakan berbagai musik yang aku suka, yang mungkin juga akan disenangi pengunjung blog ini.

Saya suka komik, mungkin disini saya bisa sedikit mereview tentang komik yang telah saya baca atau yang sedang say abaca.

Saya juga suka anime (film kartun jepang), ada banyak film anime yang sangat-sangat menarik, ada yang komedi gokil, romantic, sampai ada yang bisa membuat air mata keluar tak tertahan. Disini akan saya review beberapa anime yang menjadi favorit saya.

Saya juga suka photography, juga design, dengan bermodalkan 2 smester kuliah di DESKOMVIS, saya sangat menyukai desain.. kalau photo2 memang sudah menjadi hobby saya, dengan sedikit sentuhan maka hasilnya kan semakin keren.

Saya juga suka hal-hal yang berhubungan dengan komputer, jadi mungkin saya akan memberikan sedikit tips-tips seputar komputer yang bisa berguna.

Satu hal yang sangat saya sukai adalah dalam hal sastra, saya suka menulis novel, cerita pendek, atau puisi yang benar2 sedang saya rasakan.. kita bisa berbagi kemellow-an kita disini.. hehe..

Terimakasih.

- demasu eishitsu -

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