Japanese popular culture and Eastern media societies Case Study

Japanese popular culture and Eastern media societies - Case Study Example To a large extent though, Japanese influence has been to a larger extent that the others. The indigenous culture is not without American influence. On the contrary, some components of the American popular culture that can be regarded as the global culture have been modified by East Asian flavors to form a culture that is globalized and indigenous to the region at the same time. The proliferation of Japanese culture in the East Asian countries reflects an uneven influence. The fact that the Japanese culture has a greater reach that the rest of the region ´s indigenous cultures depicts Japanese imperialism (Iwabuchi 2001, pp. 12). During the early years of Japanese visual industry, most of the products were imports from Hollywood. However, the country realized that the best way forward was to indigenize and localize American popular culture by interpreting the American ideas to fit the Japanese context. Due to the cultural proximity, Japanese products found an audience within the other East Asia countries who could largely relate their own culture with that of the Japanese culture albeit with much influence from the more superior American culture, which other societies consider modern and hence use it as a measure of their own culture against modernity. Since Japan ´s influence came from the indigenization of the western ideals, there is a consciousness that the rest of the East Asian societies could do the same. Therefore, Japanese culture remains dominant due to the realization that its greatest strength is the influence of the western ideals and their localization into the indigenous context. The greatest weapon that the Japanese influence employs is the depiction of their culture as being superior. This leaves the consumer of a product like a TV drama craving to be part of the dream that is depicted in the drama. As such, people who