Cultural imperialism through hollywood cinematic media on pakistani youth

Abstract

Cinematic media is a very powerful tool, used by developed countries in the modern world, with a deliberate purpose to transmit their cultural legacy by projecting a variety of attractive features to influence the minds of youth. This study aims to scrutinize the impact of Hollywood cinematic media on Pakistani youth. The theoretical framework applied in this study is based on the Theory of Cultural Imperialism, propounded by Her Herbert Schiller in 1973. The theory postulates that the Western media has a strong effect on the Third World countries by imposing on them Western cultural standards and hence are destroying their own cultures. The study is quantitative based on a mixed survey, which consists of close-ended questions along with the opinions of the respondents. SPSS is used to compute the obtained data. The findings demonstrate that the Hollywood movies leave a significant impact on Pakistani youth, since they are prominently engrossed to the lifestyle of American culture. The study suggests that it is responsibility of Pakistani people and media authorities to pay serious heed to control such movies, which prove to be serious threat to their own cultural values.