ABSTRACT
The concept of cultural transfer through global capitalism has historically been studied through discourses of cultural imperialism, international communication, and diffusionist modernization (Tomlinson 1999; Stevenson 1992). These early linear theses have recently been replaced by a proliferation of studies on cultural globalization, which propose more dialectic and multifaceted cultural exchanges between “the West and the rest.” These recent studies emphasize the domestication, glocalization, and transculturation of dominant western cultural forms (such as Hollywood movies and transnational news) that have been appropriated in foreign countries (Chan 2002; Cohen 2002; Robertson 1995). In turn, global to local cultural exchanges are seen as one of the many global consequences perpetrated by western modernity (Giddens 1990); this is the concept of multiple modernities, a concept arguing that western modernity has been appropriated in foreign countries in various different forms (Eisenstadt 2000). Supporting these general arguments of cultural multiplicity are specific case studies of Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Korea, Hong Kong, and China—they are seen as alternative cases of capitalist modernity that highlight unevenness, contradictions, contingencies, and contextual differences (Berger 1988; Ma and Zhang 2011; Rofel 1999; Yeh 2000).
