My Extended Culture Reflection

If I were asked the question, ‘what is my culture?’ the most obvious answer would be Australian. I was born in Australia and have lived here my whole life. But can our culture or background really be defined that easily? I personally believe that a persons culture is not as simple as stating where they were born or grew up. Our culture is not represented by the definition of what nationality we are. A persons’ culture is a make up of many different aspects of their life, to create their own individual self. I believe my culture is a mixture of my family and their background along with the people I have met along the way throughout my life. Along with these aspects there are also other factors such as the media that have shaped my ‘culture,’ to be what it is today.

Initially reflecting on my own culture, yes I am Australian, my mother and father are Australian, but continue further down past generations and my grandmother is from England. There has never been a distinct moment where I would say that I am British or celebrate British culture other than when I was nine years old. This was when my grandmother took my family over to England, to visit the town where she grew up. Being nine years old I appreciated the chance to travel overseas and experience a different way of life compared to the past nine years I had lived in Australia. But that being nine there was only so much appreciation I could have at the time. Looking back and reflecting on my background, I wish I could have appreciated the experience more and have a greater understanding of my past families background and culture.  

But this only greatly affects me, because there is only so much of ones culture that can be defined by their DNA. If my culture was only defined as Australian, and my life could only be lived by Australian culture, there wouldn’t be much excitement or variation throughout the days. There is no distinct aspect of my life that has defined me as being Australian, or that I would say is ‘Australian culture.’ Maybe the odd occasion where dinner is meat and three veg or I call my friends ‘mate’.  Even aspects of Australian culture that we take pride in such as the pavlova or lamington are taken from other cultures originally.  The pavlova was even named after a Russian ballet dancer, Anna Matveyevna Pavlova. (Stradley L, 2004) This dish is also widely debated whether it first originated in New Zealand or Australia.

But with many aspects of cultural flow, because of globalization, there doesn’t need to be one distinct dish that we classify as our own. Because of cultural flow and the widespread of technology and the media, we are able to take different aspects of other cultures cuisines and make them our own. Take for example the Italian’s pizza. In Australia today we even have our own ‘Aussie’ topping. Throughout other ethnicities, there is still able to be a little bit of Australian culture presented in the dish. Just like my culture can’t be defined as ‘Australian,’ I believe neither can the cuisine and food that we eat. 

This reflection also got me remembering a girl I used to go to school with in high school, in particularly a speech she once gave which was about her being ‘a culture clash.’ In appearance you would automatically say she was Chinese. When she first came to school in prep, all she could speak was mandarin. But by the time she was a couple of year older she was fluent in English, being one of the smartest English students, studying English and literature in year twelve. Amongst being able to speak English and mandarin, she also learnt Japanese and studied it in year twelve. It wasn’t until year ten when she went on exchange to Germany and adapted their culture as well into her everyday life, that you could say she was an extreme culture clash. Ask her the question, what is you culture? And I’m pretty sure she would have a handful of answers. 

There are many factors that have made not simply my culture just Australian, but many cultures around the world not just one. Firstly with the large ‘migration or dispersion of people, known as Diaspora (ALC215 Study Guide, Topic 3 P1),’ people have been able to move themselves and their culture from their home country to other countries. ‘Members of diasporic communities tend to hold on to a their sense of history,’(Sun 2002:131) sharing their culture and different aspects of their history amongst themselves but also with the countries they now live in.

Without the immigration of people to other countries, and spreading their culture we would live in a completely different world, a world of isolation and the inability to accept others. I definitely couldn’t imagine Melbourne without the array of different cultures the city has to offer. Take a drive around Melbourne. Start off in Springvale or Clayton and you get the widely celebrated Asian communities. Their Asian traditions, such as food and lifestyle are sprawled throughout these suburbs. Only metres away from your average Australian supermarket there is an Asian supermarket. And it is not just the Asian community that shop in these places, you get a wide variety of ethnicity celebrating this culture. Similarly drive down to Oakleigh, which is only five minutes away and you are greeted with a completely different way of life compared to Clayton.  Oakleigh is commonly known for its great Greek community. Walk the streets of Oakleigh and you are welcomed with an array of coffee shops or green grocers, where the loudest noise heard is the sound of the Greek language. ‘Over 80% of businesses are Greek owned’ (Katsikis Z, 2012).

Along with this factor, there are many others, such as Social Media and technology. With the ever-growing phenomenon of reality television, many different cultures now have a reality television show dedicated to them. Last night I could swap through channels to experience the culture of ‘the gypsy way of life’ on the show ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding,’ to then switch over to watch a show dedicated to the Amish community. Even watching parts of these shows it was apparent that technology and the media has greatly affected some of these communities. A line that stood out from ‘My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding,’ was about describing how the travelers dressed. ‘Traveller’s are influenced by Internet and outside life nowadays,’(TheCobraUk, 2011). So even as much as cultures or societies try to stay true to their history and beliefs, because of different media and social media forms it is harder to keep these traditions in today’s society. 

Reflecting on my culture today, I guess you could say I am a bit of everything. I might appear Australian on the surface, but the clothes I wear, the food I eat, the places I visit and people I interact with each offer me with a taste of different customs. It definitely would be hard to imagine a life where I was only one culture and not submerged in a variety of different cultures daily.

References:

Katsikis Z, Marco Polo Publications, 2012, Greeks of Melbourne, retrieved online 1^st October, 2012

http://www.travelroads.com/article/id_1060

Srivastava S, Warren B, Moore C, 2012, ALC215 Study Guide Topic 3 P1

Stradley L, 2004, Pavlova, retrieved online October 2^nd, 2012

<http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/Cakes/Pavlova.htm>

Sun, 2002:131, Referenced in Week 5 Lecture by Chris Moore, 2012

TheCobraUk, 2011, My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, retrieved online October 3^rd, 2012

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOVw-iOCrr8&feature=relmfu>

Week 8: My Persona

What is so fascinating about reading or hearing about a celebrity’s life? Why do we go on gossip sites or flick through tabloid magazines every now and again?

To me, I think what makes it fascinating is because through all the glitz and glamour of these celebrity’s, beneath all that there is something about them that makes them seem human. Headlines like ‘Stars Without Make up’ or ‘Celebrity Goes To The Supermarket’ changes their once perceived persona.

Firstly, what is persona? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as ‘the aspect of someone’s character that is presented to or perceived by others’ (Oxford Dictionaries, 2010). Just like celebrity’s, we all have many persona’s that we put on throughout our everyday lives.

For me I am not only a student, but a sister, daughter, friend, colleague, the list goes on. And for each persona that I play I present myself differently for each. For my friends, I present myself casually, I interact with them in person along with through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter even Instagram. But for each social media site I also adapt a different persona. On Twitter I tend to write more pointless things than what I would on Facebook. On Facebook I am also only friends with a selection of family members, not my mum or dad.

My blog for this subject also takes on a completely different persona from my other social media sites. I would never write this formal, about these topics all the time for my Facebook friends, because like my tweets, I know most of them probably couldn’t care less.

References:

persona, Oxford Dictionaries, April 2010, Oxford University Press, retrieved online September 1 2012,

< http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/persona >

Week 7

This week’s lecture briefly mentioned Asians, and how they are quite group orientated. ‘The idea of Asians being group orientated (as opposed to individualistic) is often put forward as a key aspect of Asians values.’(Birch et al, 2001) It got me thinking about my association with people of different cultures throughout my life and whether this plays into the belief whether Asian’s are or aren’t group orientated.

From year 7-12 I went to a school that was very multi-cultural. In year 11, for VCE, every year always got a small group of international students, predominately from China. These students tended to stick together. When they were in a group they only spoke to each other in their native tongue, not English. Yes, if you spoke to them outside their ‘group,’ you could communicate with them, but they rarely made the effort to break away from the other Asian’s in the school.

I understand that coming from another country it would be hard to associate with a different culture and if there was someone else similar to you, you would automatically relate to them. But if I were in the same position I ‘d want to break away from what I knew and experience something different. 

Contrasting these students, in year 10 we also had a few Japanese exchange students study for a few terms. Yes, in the beginning these students tended to stick together. But as they became more comfortable at the school and with the other students we were able to get to know them and become friends with them as individuals, not as ‘the Japanese students.’ 

References: 

 Birch, D, Schirato, T & Srivastava, S 2001, Asia: cultural politics in the global age, Allen and Unwin, Sydney.

Week 6: The Twittersphere

The idea of the Public Sphere has come a long way since the development and popularity of the Internet. According to Habermas, the idea of a public sphere is that of a body of "private persons" assembled to discuss matters of "public concern" or "common interest." (Fraser, 1990) Before the Internet this discussion generally took place in public places such as coffee houses or pubs. Now with access to a range of technology and social media there are new terms such as ‘Blogosphere’ and ‘Twittersphere’ that are now being used.

The ‘Twittersphere,’ is defined as postings made on the social networking site Twitter, considered collectively: the Twittersphere was abuzz when the story first broke (Oxford University Press, 2012)

When using Twitter there are many ways you can make your voice heard. From hash tagging words, people can link your tweets to that of similar ones with the same words or terms hash tagged. You can also @ other peoples Twitter accounts, which links you to that person’s profile.

With the wide use of Twitter, other than its initial purpose where most people used it for their most boring thoughts, the Twittersphere shares many comparable concepts to that of the Public Sphere. People are able to make their opinions and voices heard and link them to others who share the same opinions. 

Now even the media have hopped on board the vast popularity of the Twitter. Newsreaders now tell you to @ them when reading the news, or to hash tag certain current events.  It has even been said that some breaking news stories firstly break in the Twittersphere before they become more widely known.

References:

Oxford University Press, 2012,  ‘Twittersphere,’ retrieved online August 20, 2012

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/Twittersphere

Fraser N, 1990, Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy, Social Text, No. 25/26 (1990), pp. 56-80,  retrieved online August 20,  Duke University Press

<http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/466240?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101160198951>

Week 5: My Culture Reflection

Reflecting on this week’s topic, ‘Making Cultures,’ it got me thinking about my own background and culture. Being born and raised in Australia, I am primarily Australian, but my Grandma was originally born and raised in England before she moved here. When I was nine years old I was lucky enough to be taken overseas to visit where my Grandma was raised, in Glossop, England.  I was able to get an insight into the life my Grandma once lived and the different culture that was overseas in England. But being nine I wasn’t truly able to appreciate this as much as I would now.

I still remember after visiting England I became fascinated about the history of the royal family, about the wide variety of stories and history that came along with them. But that fascination soon wore off a few weeks after returning home back in Australia.

Apart from this small insight into my family’s background and culture outside of Australia my family hasn’t played a huge role in celebrating our culture, but I don’t blame them.  Comparing Australian culture to that of my friends who are Sri Lankan or Indian, we don’t have many traditional dresses or music that we can widely celebrate as much as those cultures do.

It gets me thinking about when is Australian culture shown. Through the media we can look at advertising, in particularly Qantas.  They went from the great national pride advert of ‘I still call Australia Home,’ to an advertisement that hardly even reflects Australia or Australian culture. Maybe it’s time we start embracing the Australian culture more than we do.

Old Qantas Advertisement

New Qantas Advertisement

From watching the new advertisement out of context you wouldn’t have even known it was promoting and advertising Australia

References:

1998 Qantas TVC-Australia Home I, 1998, Youtube, Qantas, 14 September 2006, retrieved August 14 2012, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbGuqmaDgL>

Qantas, New Television Commercial- You're the reason we fly, 2012, Youtube, Qantas, 30 July 2012, retrieved August 14 2012, < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FnJu11bvUY>

Week 4: The Global Village Debate

When thinking about the topic of the global media landscape, it gets me wondering about ‘McLuhan’s idea of a “global village,” where people of the world would be brought closer together as they made their voices heard.’(Croteau et al, 2012, pg325)  There is much debate about this notion and whether or not the rise of electronic media has made us more global and therefore created a global village.  

There are many aspects of media that you could say bring us together globally. With the Olympics going on at the moment, we are able to watch events as they happen live in England, on our televisions in Australia, as many other countries are able to do too. We are also connected globally, as mentioned in previous blog posts, with the Internet. These are all positive aspects of electronic media that connect us and make the idea of the “global village” more of a reality.

But with these positives, there are also negatives. As an Australian, I am lucky to be able to have access to these new electronic media forms. At this moment I am able to sit on my laptop, which is connected to the Internet, with my phone next to me. I can also hear the television that is on in the next room. Many western societies take for granted the easy access they have to technology. Non-western societies don’t have as easy access to these types of technologies. If some societies aren’t able to use the Internet or watch events such as the Olympics, are we truly globally connected, or is it only the Westernised countries that are?  

 Croteau D, Hoynes W, Milan S, 2012, Media/Society, SAGE, California

Week 3Americanised Television

When it comes to media the first things many of us think of are television, radio and film. These media forms are usually considered as the ‘dominant media.’ ‘This huge market for media forms includes a diverse range of people from most social and economic groups.’ (Steven, P 2003)

This got me thinking especially about television and the global effect it has on us.  I don’t have Foxtel so if I want to watch many of the television shows that air in America I either have to wait for them to be released months later on free to air television or I can easily access them on the Internet. Because of the Internet I am able to view many television shows from around the world, days after they were aired in their country.

America is one of the more dominant countries when it comes to television and the shows they air. From comedies, to reality shows there is an endless list of the types of shows you can watch that come from America. But even with the endless amount of variety they have they, most of these shows are just Americanised versions of shows from other countries. America can’t enjoy certain shows from other countries, they have to recreate them.  The one example that comes to mind is when America tried to redo Kath and Kim. They tried to take Australian humour and translate it to their audience. This was not received well, especially in Australia and the show didn’t last long. If they had given the original a chance it might’ve been a different response.

Reference

 Steven, P 2003, ‘Political economy: the howling, brawling, global market place’, The no-nonsense guide to the global media, New Internationalist, Oxford, pp. 37–59