M uch current globalization research looks at the spatial or geographic

extension of change across the world, driven by technology and eco nomics. How do those global forces interact with the structures, cultures, and tendencies already present? Sometimes, fascination with globalization leads scholars to overestimate its force relative to other historical forces already in play (Ferguson, 1 992). Other views argue that the synthesis or hybridization over time of local historical forces and new international or

global forces is the fundamental aspect of globalization (Kraidy, 2005; Nederveen Pieterse, 2004).

In this chapter, I focus first on the already ongoing historical patterns of culture, social structure, and economy into which global change arrives. The new forces expanding across space meet older forces developed locally across time. According to Giddens ( 1991), Robertson ( 1 995), and others, globalization has both a spatial and a temporal dimension. Social structures that have been taken for granted for centuries in many places-for example, the nation-state-are nevertheless built over much earlier social structures: kingdoms, empires, and flows of people, ideas, and technologies. Nederveen Pieterse (2004) noted, "We come to see nation states as a grid [emphasis in the original] that has been temporarily superimposed upon a deeper and ongoing stratum of human migrations and diasporas" (p. 34).

32 Chapter 2

Second, I focus in this chapter on hybridization and multiple layers and flows of culture. Television works at a variety of levels, including global, regional, national, and local. I particularly examine the roots of geocul tural and transnational cultural-linguistic markets in prenational and colonial history. However, defining culture at all these levels is the process of hybri

dization. In many ways, this is the most fundamental and enduring of the processes that surround world television. Most of the cultures that produce or receive world television reflect centuries or more of mixing and synthe

sizing together a variety of local and foreign cultural forces. Hybridization is key to understanding the historical dimension of glo balization. I build here on Nederveen Pieterse (2004), who argued that in the long run (longue duree), which is to say historically and over time, global ization essentially is hybridity. This reflects a perspective based in two sets

of theory. First, culture is viewed as one of the forces that helps structure society, placing boundaries, creating resources, and setting patterns that guide social actors (Giddens, 1 984; Williams, 1 980). Second, a gradual process of cultural construction of society over time is posited (Berger & Luckmann, 1 967), particularly the cultural and social construction or shap ing of how technologies are actually implemented (Dutton, 1 999).

Specifically, cultures have evolved historically at several levels. Historically, local cultures come first. In many times and places, local culture in a village or an extended family was all that people knew. And local cul

ture is still important to almost everyone; even those who spend a lot of time traveling live in neighborhoods somewhere, and usually cherish local music,

restaurants, pubs, coffeehouses, or other aspects of the local life. Next to arrive are subnational regional cultures, which were the dominant force in many eras, often persisting as tribal cultures that subsume a number of

localities or as religious, ethnic, or linguistic minorities that give a state or province a distinct identity; for example, Catalonia within Spain, Kerala or

Tamil Nadu within India, or Quebec within Canada. These cultures and identities seem to be resurging in importance, as subnational conflicts in areas like the former Yugoslavia reflect. In fact, the forces of identity for mation linked to those cultures are often more powerful than the collective identities of the nations that have tried to subsume them, as the experience of the former Yugoslavia also reflects. In other places, the nation survives, but long-standing local identities drive the rising importance of television systems at the state level, as in India since the 1 990s (Kumar, 2006).

Coming third historically are larger transnational cultural-linguistic regions, which take in several current nations (Wilkinson, 1995). Some of these are geographically defined, contiguous geocultural regions, like greater China or the Arabic-speaking world, which share borders, history, language,

Hybridization and the Roots of Markets 33 and often religions, government traditions, and so on. Such regions often

historically precede the nations that have been subsequently carved out of them. In many ways, these regions continue to evolve cultural conditions to which nations or more recent global actors must respond. The common Spanish heritage of most of Latin America creates conditions for a cultural linguistic market, and both national television powers, such as Televisa of Mexico, or global ones, such as Rupert Murdoch's communications empire (partnered with Televisa in Sky Latin America), must respond. Similarly, the combined heritage of Arabic language and development within the Islamic religion and culture(s) created a cultural-linguistic market within which Al

Jazeera or Orbit can operate. Beside these kinds of geocultural spaces, there are also geographically disconnected, transnational cultural-linguistic mar kets, connected by language, colonial cultural heritages, inherited philo sophical and administrative traditions, and so on but not necessarily by ethnicity, religion, or regional culture; an example is all the places that speak English as a first language.

Fourth on the time line are national cultures, asserted by some nation states since early recorded history (China or Egypt), by several since the end

of the Middle Ages in Europe, and by many former colonies after World War II. Much has been written about how globalization challenges and reduces the powers of the nation-state. However, my empirical research, described in Chapter 7, indicates that most broadcast television is still produced and watched at the national level, even as the other levels, such as local or global, make slow inroads into national primacy over television. In fact, production and viewing of television seem to be increasing faster at the national level than at the others, as smaller and poorer nations begin to make more of their own television.

Fifth in line are transnational institutions, companies, and flows of people (as migrants), media products, religions, and values. These act across the borders of a world that has been dominated since 1 945 by many nation

states. Their importance comes both from the continuance of prenational geocultural forces, such as the languages and cultures of greater China, and

from new entities that see the need or opportunity to address people across national borders, which often seem artificial. These new entities include non profit or nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), for example, the regional human rights groups in Asia or Eastern Europe, and companies that see an opportunity for new business, for example, Indian businessmen who broad cast television via satellite back to India from Singapore to get around national restrictions on commercial channels.

Finally come global actors and flows of technology, finance, and culture. There are even increasing indications of a global culture, per se. oarticularlv

34 Chapter 2 when focused specifically on areas such as global consumer culture or global

youth culture. More often, however, global technologies, resources, and ways of doing things are combined with cultures and forces from other levels, in what Robertson ( 1 995) calls glocalization and others call hybridity

(Canclini, 1 995).

M uch current globalization research looks at the spatial or geographic