Globalization and the Media: A Critical Evaluation of Dependency and Cultural Imperialism Theories with a Focus on China's Influence in Africa

Globalization and Media
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Question 4: Discuss and critically evaluate theories of dependency and cultural
imperialism. Has investment by China reduced or increased dependency? Provide
examples of China’s influence in a country of your choice.
Globalization refers to the operating of a business on an international level. In simple
words, when a business interacts with its customers across the boundaries it is considered as
Globalization. Media is the method through which Globalization communicates with all over the
world. The media can be anything from newspapers to internet to TV and magazines etc. In this
essay the theories of dependency and cultural imperialism will be evaluated by considering
various factors affecting them. Their critical evaluation by other authors will also be discussed.
By considering globalization it will be evaluated whether China has succeeded in reducing its
dependency on the world or it has failed. China's growing influence on Africa and regions will
also be analyzed.
Globalization is movement or exchange of raw materials, labor, finance, information,
skills, capital and technologies in all over the globe. It gives a business, customers from across
the demographic boundaries. Some of which cannot be physically moved such as information
and skills. For that we need media as Globalization cannot be practiced without media. Media
can be in many forms like TV, internet, social media, magazines and books, articles, and
newspapers (Krätke, 2017).
Dependency theories are used as a method to analyse and evaluate the economic
inequalities between the underdeveloped economies and developed economies. Dependency
theories are used to understand the economic underdevelopment that points out the existing
elements imposed by the economical order and global order. Underdeveloped economies are
socially and technically backward and lacks growth in all aspects of life (Ghosh, 2019).
Generally the raw materials and labors offered by those economies are cheap in the world
market. Then these cheap resources are given to developed economies which transforms these
resources into finished products. Then the underdeveloped economies buy these finished
products at high prices which decreases their capital that could have been used to upgrade their
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own production system. This creates an endless cycle which extends the differences between rich
and poor economies in the world economy. Dependency theories focus on external elements of
an economy and their role in development of that economy. It focuses on the economies as
individuals and their part in supply of raw materials and cheap markets and cheap labor for
production of finished material from developed countries. The uneven relationship between those
developed and underdeveloped economies is considered as major factor that contributes to
inferior economic development. While Dependency theory focused on external elements of a
society, the World System theory considers the part of internal forces in economic development
as well. World System theory explains the relationship between economies by taking internal and
external elements to present the disadvantages faced by some of those economies in global
system. It presents the unjustified and unequal positions in which economies had found
themselves (Lisimba-Furbell and Alpha, 2020). The theorists of Dependency focused on asking
questions that why this injustice and inequalities exists in the first place. Their main concern was
to acknowledge the reasons for those inequalities. The research is based on highly modern
economies. It also indicates that research is done for the purpose of receiving benefits by
underdeveloped economies to invent their interests. The dependency condition provided the
technological choices.
Dependency theories and Neo-Marxist theories: Dependency theory have caused
controversies quite often and one of them constructed Marxism concepts. A critical viewpoint
towards the modernization theory found a strong factor in the conceptual approaches that creates
Marxism. It explains the issue of inequality to blame it on the developed economies. It arises in
the Third World. The developed countries were rich while Third World countries were poor, they
had bad health states and developed countries had good health states. There were major
differences like starvation, less education, less military power, less wealth in Third World
countries and in Developed countries it was high education, rich wealth, tremendous military and
huge food resources. The researches concentrated on these factors to find out the reasons and
causes of these inequalities to resolve these inequality issues. Many countries till now have bared
the effects (positive and negative) of dependency on them (Arce, 2018).
During the 1650-1900, European countries and Britain gained dependency on the other countries.
They used their worthier Military system to do that. It created a system in which they exported
the wealthier natural resources from the countries like Africa to their lands. The outcome was the
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