T here are many ways of looking at culture and the globalization of

T here are many ways of looking at culture and the globalization of

television. This last chapter looks at the aspect of culture that is the individual and collective synthesis of identity in interaction with media, par­ ticularly television. The movement from traditional local life to modern interaction with mass media has produced identities that are already multi­ layered with elements that are local, regional (subnational but larger than the very local), supranational, based on cultural-linguistic regions, and national (Anderson, 1983). In this study, I argue that television viewers

around the world continue to strongly reflect these layers or aspects of iden­ tity while many also acquire new layers of identity that are transnational, or global. In this chapter, I examine the relationship between processes of hybridization of identity and culture over time and the buildup, mainte­ nance, and even defense of various layers of multilayered identities. These

layers of identity are articulated with media, such as television, but not in a

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This chapter was written with the participation, research, and conceptual understanding of Antonio La Pastina (Texas A&M University), Viviana

Rojas (University of Texas at San Antonio), and Martha Fuentes-Bautista and Juan Pinon (University of Texas at Austin).

222 Chapter 9 simple sense of being primarily influenced by television. Some layers of

identity, such as those religious traditionalists hold, may actively resist many of the ideas most television channels carry.

Many people suppose that identities are rapidly globalizing. In this chapter, however, I argue, based on an analysis of in-depth interviews in

Salvador (Bahia) and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and among Latinos in Austin, Texas, that the proportion of people whose identity is deeply globalized is actually quite small, that the traditional layers of identity at the local, subnational regional, and national levels are still the strongest for many people, with

supranational or transnational cultural-linguistic regions rapidly becoming important for some cultures and some people.

These cultural-geographic levels of identity emerge as primary for almost all people, I found in my interviews, but other levels of identity emerge strongly for most people, as well. At a broad collective level, attention has focused for years on television viewing and identities framed by language and culture (Sinclair et al., 1 996; Straubhaar & Duarte, 1 997; Wilkinson,

1 995). However, this volume has also focused considerable attention on social class, particularly in Bourdieu's ( 1984) sense of cultural capital, dis­

cussed in Chapter 8. I have also found strong layers of identity that guide viewing and interpreting of television in gender, ethnicity, age, and religion,

among others. This chapter will focus on place, culture/language, and class as foci for multiple identifications and television viewing by audiences; these are the elements that emerged as fundamental in my interviews, as well as in

a review of the evolving literature. I will examine the others more briefly as well. I recognize that these levels of identity are in large part structured for people by powerful institutions. Governments use schooling, maps, borders,

and other forms of discourse to teach people to think in terms of cultural geography. A variety of economic forces structure people's positions in terms of class, economic, and cultural capital. Powerful cultural industries and many other social structures reinforce senses of cultural geography, class, gender, ethnicity, age, and religion. However, individual and group agency and action also construct and · change these forces over time.