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Here in English speaking Canada, American pop culture runs rampant. From radio, to TV or movies, everything is from the US (or nearly everything). Majority of talented Canadian entertainers simply move to the US as a default career choice and probably "visit" Canada a couple of times a year.
But Canada never had a strong national culture and identity.
What about Europe? Is there any European country where you don't see as many McDonalds and Starbucks, and American pop music and TV series are limited in their influence and local cultural content still remains strong? For example, do young Spaniards listen to Laday Gaga etc more than Spanish singers? Do French people enjoy French movies more than Hollywood Blockbusters (all that summer garbage)? Do the Italian still take price in domest culture rather than think everything American is "cool" and fashionable?
I am not European but spend a lot of time there and watch things fairly closely.
As you might expect, nowhere is near the level of Americanization as you have in English-speaking Canada.
Still as you would expect, the most Americanized places are the UK and Ireland because of the language commonality.
American stuff is all over the place in these two countries and in many aspects of culture it shares the space with national or local stuff almost as kind of ''co-mainstream''. But it's still different from Anglo-Canada in that it doesn't nearly totally supplant national and local stuff on many fronts.
Once you are on the continent once again it is very present but I would say the trend is that the further south you go, the less present and even dominant American stuff becomes.
Although all countries have pretty strong domestic cultures, for example on the radio in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders in Belgium, etc. you will find the airwaves strongly dominated by music in English (mainly but not exclusively in English) and not in the national language. So except for the ad breaks and weather and traffic there is not much difference between listening to the radio in Toronto and listening to it in Hamburg or Oslo. Strangely enough.
Once you get into France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, the airwaves become more shared between music in English and music in the national language. In some cases music from the country itself has a bigger share of airtime than "international" music in English does.
When it comes to movies, in my observation (could be wrong) France has one of the strongest national cinemas with market share for domestic movies between 25-50% depending on the year.
In most other countries the big screens are mostly American although there is room for movies from the country itself and also movies from other countries to become successes as well. A movie from France might become a hit in Germany or Sweden, for example.
TV tends to be dominated by national productions (which is not to say a range of US stuff is not available everywhere - it is) except for UK and Ireland where as I said the space is "shared" with a much wider range of American stuff. You might get this a bit more in the Nordics and the Netherlands where people have high levels of English proficiency. American reality shows have been aired as is in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and the Nordics (with subtitles in the latter countries) but generally in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal they do not do this but air their own versions instead.
I am not European but spend a lot of time there and watch things fairly closely.
As you might expect, nowhere is near the level of Americanization as you have in English-speaking Canada.
Still as you would expect, the most Americanized places are the UK and Ireland because of the language commonality.
American stuff is all over the place in these two countries and in many aspects of culture it shares the space with national or local stuff almost as kind of ''co-mainstream''. But it's still different from Anglo-Canada in that it doesn't nearly totally supplant national and local stuff on many fronts.
Once you are on the continent once again it is very present but I would say the trend is that the further south you go, the less present and even dominant American stuff becomes.
Although all countries have pretty strong domestic cultures, for example on the radio in the Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Germany, Flanders in Belgium, etc. you will find the airwaves strongly dominated by music in English (mainly but not exclusively in English) and not in the national language. So except for the ad breaks and weather and traffic there is not much difference between listening to the radio in Toronto and listening to it in Hamburg or Oslo. Strangely enough.
Once you get into France, Spain, Italy and Portugal, the airwaves become more shared between music in English and music in the national language. In some cases music from the country itself has a bigger share of airtime than "international" music in English does.
When it comes to movies, in my observation (could be wrong) France has one of the strongest national cinemas with market share for domestic movies between 25-50% depending on the year.
In most other countries the big screens are mostly American although there is room for movies from the country itself and also movies from other countries to become successes as well. A movie from France might become a hit in Germany or Sweden, for example.
TV tends to be dominated by national productions (which is not to say a range of US stuff is not available everywhere - it is) except for UK and Ireland where as I said the space is "shared" with a much wider range of American stuff. You might get this a bit more in the Nordics and the Netherlands where people have high levels of English proficiency. American reality shows have been aired as is in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands and the Nordics (with subtitles in the latter countries) but generally in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal they do not do this but air their own versions instead.
Very clear and correct . Vraiment tres impressionnante .
I think it is time for Americans to demand a better culture, and expand theirs to include the best of other countries.
I am sick of it; that is, older wiser cultures being destroyed by the equivalent of teenage hooligans.
There needs to be respect for others ,if the States is not to implode in, on herself .
Very clear and correct . Vraiment tres impressionnante .
Speaking from Italy, I strongly agree that Acajack made an impressively accurate post.
To sum it up, in Italy the music scene is shared between Italian and English songs, the visual stuff (movies, TV series) is slightly dominated by American productions, but in this case I am not bothered because U.S. movies and TV series are simply of better quality than local ones.
But the one area where American culture will never ever prevail is food, and thankfully so. We have quite a few McDonalds in Italy, but they are attended by foreign immigrants and some youngsters only: no adult Italian in his right mind would ever consider a BigMac menu to be a desirable or even reasonable meal option
But the one area where American culture will never ever prevail is food, and thankfully so. We have quite a few McDonalds in Italy, but they are attended by foreign immigrants and some youngsters only: no adult Italian in his right mind would ever consider a BigMac menu to be a desirable or even reasonable meal option
No country with any slightly sophisticated history of cuisine, including the poorest ones, would replace their diet with highly primitive and boring hamburgers, hotdogs, salad and utterly dry and tasteless chicken breast, beef and turkey. The urge of putting good meat between two pieces of bread to make it a burger in America is simply fascinating.
That being said, it is funny that almost all English speaking countries have a lacklustre food culture (I mean in terms of local food, not international): UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand.
I think Russia is the only "European" country that can stay out of influence of American pop culture thanks to very large Russian speaking world and post Soviet space
I think Russia is the only "European" country that can stay out of influence of American pop culture thanks to very large Russian speaking world and post Soviet space
But about TV shows, and some years cinema, I think the majority of the cultural products consumed here are French-speaking.
Most countries have strong national productions, they just have a really hard time to export them compared to the US. We could generalize saying smaller a nation is, more the population is consuming imported cultural products.
Location: Omaha Nebraska and dreamland when I am sleeping
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better question:
except for Ireland and UK singers, why are americans so close-minded towards European music.
Outside Ireland and UK folks , u are a 1 hit wonder singer if ur lucky in the states if ur from anywhere in Europe.
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