“Communicating America,” Validating Turkey

Year 1999, Issue: 10, 0 - 0, 01.10.1999

Laurence Raw

Abstract

The topic of this year’s seminar—“Communicating America: Media, Culture and Nation in the Age of Information” Cappadocia, October 1999 —aimed to focus on Americanization, its relationship to globalization, and what the implications of this might be for the future of American Studies in Turkey. The plenary speaker, Richard J. Pells University of Texas at Austin , had already published widely on the subject; in a 1993 article, he contended that “nationalism has continued to flourish in Europe, in spite of the American intrusion, and cultural idiosyncrasies remain indigenous to each country regardless of transmissions from abroad” “American Culture Abroad: The European Experience since 1945” 82 . In another article published four years later, he suggested that “Europeans have adapted American popular culture to their own needs, tastes and traditions” “The Local and Global Loyalties of Europeans and Americans” B5 .

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