Does the centre periphery model of information flow remain valid in the digital age

1 DOES THE CENTRE-PERIPHERY MODEL OF INFORMATION FLOW REMAIN VALID IN THE DIGITAL AGE? YOU SHOULD SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENT WITH AT LEAST ONE CASE STUDY/EXAMPLE FROM ASIAN MEDIA In cultural studies, the center – periphery (CP) model of information flow is used to describe culture and media imperialism, and most commonly to visualize the relationship between the West and other regions of the world Culture and media imperialism, as defined by John Tomlinson, is the unidirectional flow of culture from the dominant to the dominated (Parks & Kumar 2002) However, in the digital age when things are changing quickly as more people get access to the Internet, the model is not always true A critical difference between traditional and new media, represented by the Internet, is that the consumers are no longer passive (Jenkins 2006) This means the flow of information is no longer predictable and everyone can be a media consumer and a creator at the same time Within new media, video games are a topic that generated many news, discussions and user-generated contents Similar to social networks, music and other forms of digital media, video games are influenced by various factors such as culture, economy or even politics To evaluate whether the CP model remains valid in the digital age, the essay will analyze these case studies of Japanese video games The analysis is divided into parts: Japanese cultural influence, Japanese cultural barrier and the cultural development created by new media, with the focus on Japanese video games as they play a big part in developing the gaming industry and culture Naturally, these games have significant effects on the flow of information in the digital age Many newspaper articles today mention the influence of Japanese culture worldwide, with the most common forms being manga and anime Almost everyone recognize that manga differs from comic and anime differs from cartoon, despite not being able to tell the exact differences Besides, Japanese food, spiritual ethics, pop culture and even TV dramas are slowly making their ways around the globe (Huang 2009) This leads to an increased number of foreigners studying Japanese, with million around the world in 2013 (Japan Foundation 2013) Video games are no exception During the 1980s, despite being a leader in the American game industry, Atari Corporation entered a crisis after a series of bad decisions This paved the way for Kyoto-based Nintendo to dominate the U.S market with their own home console, the NES (Aoyama & Izushi 2003) With superior technology, reasonable price and high quality games, Nintendo quickly took the lead before Sega and Sony joined in The Japanese gaming industry then observed a competition known as the “console war” between Nintendo, Sega and Sony until 2001 with Sega being out of the way and Microsoft entered the console market with the Xbox Consequently, even when competing with the America-based Microsoft, it is obvious that the console gaming market is still dominated by Japanese giants Nintendo and Sony (Aoyama & Izushi 2003) Moreover, Japan’s domination in the gaming industry is not limited to the U.S or other Western countries Chen (2013) reported significant influence from Japanese video games in Taiwan and similarly Ng (2001) provided a similar game culture development in Singapore This is unsurprising considering that the Japanese game companies had lead the market thanks to technology advancement, reasonable price and high quality game selections (Cox 2006) Therefore, if culture and media imperialism is viewed as the influence from the West to other parts of the world, the case of Japan shows a new perspective as it has created a form of soft power that influences not only the West but also the whole world Huang (2009) concluded that “Westernization” and “Japanization” coexist and require a balance, thereby suggesting a different approach compared to the CP model Japan’s cultural influence can be considered surprising given the historical context According to Laemmerhirt (2013), before World War II, there were only minor cultural exchanges between Japan and the West, with the most significant one being the interest in Japanese art by Western artists in the 1860s (Consalvo 2007) This might be the push for future cultural exchanges between both sides Japan’s cultural development only became notable after the country lost the war and fell into US control Despite being exposed to westernization, Japanese people actively adopted Western culture but retained their traditions According to Youichi Ito, “culture imperialism only occurs when people in recipient countries feel compelled to accept the exporters’ standardized values injected into the cultural products” (Huang 2009) Consequently, Japan successes in keeping its cultural traditions intact while assimilating Western knowledge and technology, which results in the modern Japanese society’s hybrid culture of tradition and modernnity (Laemmerhirt 2013) This hybrid culture, while being unique, can be a challenge at the same time While Japanese people produce creative and inspiring content in various fields from technology to manga and anime, there is a clear lack of understanding towards the West and foreigners in general Debito (2015) outlined many cases of Japan being conservative in its relationship with foreigners living in the country Even in the successful Japanese gaming industry, many developers expressed their concerns about the confusing Western market and demand (Zagal 2013) They claimed the difference in design ideology is too great that making video games for the West has become too risky (Byford 2014) It should be noted that most Japanese firms would focus first on the domestic market, which strongly favor local products (Inafune 2011) As a result, Japanese video games must be localized to reach the U.S and other foreign markets (O’Hagan 2009) Nonetheless, localization has never been an easy job as Japan and the U.S are different in a myriad of ways Obstacles lie not only in the major contrasts between the Japanese and the English languages but also the cultural standards and context of the receiving side as they might prevent overseas gamers from understanding Japanese games (Pelletier-Gagnon 2011) In a nutshell, the barrier that separates insular Japan from the rest of the world creates the country’s unique culture that influences the world, but also serves as an obstacle for both sides to overcome While the CP model implies an unidirectional flow, the case of Japan appears to be much more complicated As aforementioned, information flow in traditional media is often described as one-way In the digital age, however, new trends may develop beyond the producer’s vision Who knows that retro games from the 80s and 90s could pull millions of views and subsribes today thanks to user-generated contents? On Youtube, JonTron and AVGN, the two retro channels with millions of subscribers, have videos that mostly focus on classic games These surprising figures are not the result of support from the companies that created those games since young people today aren’t familiar with them Nevertheless, user-generated contents have developed a longlasting scene for future development Beside Youtube, there are fan sites, art competitions and even tournaments worldwide for these games To break through the culture barrier, fans even hack or modify these games either for their own entertainment or for improving the playing experience for everyone (Huntemann & Aslinger 2012), although this often leads to conflicts between fans and industry people over the process of Transfiguration (Pelletier-Gagnon 2011) Despite claims from Japanese developers about the difficulty in developing games for the West, the series Dark Souls by Tokyo-based FROM Software unexpectedly become very popular in recent years with barely any advertisement The game is known for being extremely unforgiving in both gameplay and narration, and is obviously not a friendly option towards the majority of casual gamers Yet it sold over million copies over 2015 (Purchese 2015) excluding their third game in the series and the standalones, which are also very successful New media does not only fuel the development of the video gaming community but also the industry itself Indie games created by small, independent developers have been growing strong in the West, mostly adopted the style of retro video games as they are cheap to make and familiar with casual gamers (Indie Game 2012) Many companies such as Square Enix conduct cross-culture game development (Consalvo 2006) to make it appealing to both Japanese and overseas fans This including buying Western game studios and making movies based on video games like Hitman or the Resident Evil series The results are mixed and it would take a while for the industry to evaluate the potential of global media culture (Consalvo 2006) In conclusion, the case of Japanese video games proves that the CP model of information flow does not apply in the digital age It is not clear whether or not there is a “center” of power dominance as there exist a balanced power struggle between the West and Japan, and even South Korea and China The unidirectional flow is no longer valid as cultural barriers exist Lastly, new media introduce many unpredictable changes from inside the medium itself regardless of the information flow between cultures Word count: 1471 REFERENCES Aoyama, Y & Izushi, H 2003, ‘Hardware gimmick or cultural innovation? 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In conclusion, the case of Japanese video games proves that the CP model of information flow does not apply in the digital age It is not clear whether or not there is a “center” of power dominance... Japanese video games as they play a big part in developing the gaming industry and culture Naturally, these games have significant effects on the flow of information in the digital age Many newspaper.. .DOES THE CENTRE-PERIPHERY MODEL OF INFORMATION FLOW REMAIN VALID IN THE DIGITAL AGE? YOU SHOULD SUPPORT YOUR ARGUMENT WITH AT LEAST ONE CASE STUDY/EXAMPLE FROM ASIAN MEDIA In cultural