American culture
The birth and rise of the United States of America (USA) marked the course of world history, because it has been the apogee of an economic and political model based on science and its technological applications, accompanied by a particular form of life, a very unique relationship of each citizen with himself, with others and with the surrounding world that is inspired by the idea of “progress”.
After gaining independence from Great Britain, the US experienced accelerated economic growth during the 19th and 20th centuries. Technological tools facilitated work and home tasks, improved the “quality of life,” and the personal satisfaction of many citizens.
The development of culture in the US has been crossed by many countries. Initially, the most dominant influences were English and German traditions with their sporadic and successive arrivals of migrants.
According to the cartography carried out by Colin Woodard in his book American Nations, in the US there are twelve regional cultures based on the characteristics of the original settlers. This is the characterization he proposes:
| Denomination | Settlements and colonies | Characteristics | Geographic territory |
| Yankeedom | East Anglian Puritans and their descendants. | Strong sense of community, valuing education, citizen participation in government, and assimilation of outsiders. | New England, much of New York State, and much of the industrial Midwest, including Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. |
| New Holland | Dutch before being expelled by the British. | He inherited the capitalist, cosmopolitan and tolerant culture implanted by the Dutch in New York. Today, the region is a center for global trade. | Metropolitan area of New York, New Jersey and part of Connecticut. |
| Middlelands | British Quakers. | welcoming middle-class society of outsiders, seat of the culture of the “American Heartland.” It is a diverse and pacifist culture. | Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, northern Indiana, northern Illinois, northern Missouri, and southern New Jersey. |
| Tide | Built by the English gentry. | In its colonial beginnings, it was a society with feudal remnants of the British metropolis and that adopted the slavery of African Americans. Aristocratic culture that values authority and tradition. | Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Here is the federal capital, Washington DC |
| Greater Appalachia | British from war-torn lands in Ireland, Scotland and northern England. | It is the most warlike region in the United States, with a strong “warrior culture.” | The Appalachians encompass parts of Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, southern Missouri, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and northern Texas. |
| Deep South | Established by English slavers from Barbados, it was conceived as a West Indies-style slave society. | Very rigid social structure, and opposed the North in the Civil War and adopted segregationist policies against African Americans. | Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, northern Florida and eastern Texas. |
| The North | A Mexican-American border region, it is “a place apart” from the rest of the United States. | Value independence, self-reliance, and hard work above all else. | Parts of Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and California. |
| West Coast | Inhabitants of New England and Appalachia. | Hybrid of “Yankee utopianism and Appalachian self-expression and exploitation.” | The coast of California, Oregon and Washington. |
| Wild West | Last region to be colonized, also called the “conservative west”. | There are many films, paintings and music that portray cowboy culture and the “conquest of the Wild West.” | Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Nevada, northern Arizona, northern New Mexico, parts of Kansas and Nebraska, interior regions of Washington, Oregon and California. |
| New France | Colonized by the French. | New Orleans, Louisiana.
In a broad sense, it includes Canadian territory, mainly the province of Quebec. |
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| First Nations | North American indigenous peoples. | First Nations enjoy sovereignty on indigenous reserves. They occupy the most hostile climate and the largest territory on the North American continent. | Much of its territory crosses the US and reaches Canada and Alaska. |
| Spanish Caribbean | Spanish colonization region. | An impressive history of its own and a different culture from El Norte. | South Florida. |
Source: Colin Woodard, 2011, American Nations, ISBN 978-0143122029, Penguin Books.
Likewise, throughout the 20th century, the autonomy of African Americans and the search for ““American Dream” by Hispanic American populations enriched their exuberance and cultural originality.
The North American dream or American dream is, without a doubt, one of the ideas, images or values that have guided US culture. It can be summarized as the search and realization of a life project, self-determination, growth and individual exaltation without apparent barriers. According to this idea, the US territories and their national conditions are conducive to anyone who wants to “fulfill themselves” to do so through work and money.
The propagation and dissemination of American cultural archetypes (some manifested in pop culture) began to be evident with the emergence of photography (1830), radio (1897), cinematography (1895) and, later, television (1926). ).
The strengthening of journalism and advertising, as consolidated professions with full meaning for advanced industrial societies, was magnified and touched enormous population masses at a national and international level, thanks to technical and technological development.
A large part of North American capital was invested in audiovisual production of varied themes and the design of powerful advertising campaigns with the capacity to further boost profits.
Creating a global culture
How does a singular, geographically delimited event have repercussions throughout the world? How can something created thousands of miles away cause great upheaval on the other side of the world?
Invention, continuous improvement and innovation for the optimization of technologies has been one of the axes of great impact in the global cultural changes of the last century.
The access that ordinary people have had to these communication and social interaction technologies has created what has been called “cultural globalization.” That is, a “set of ways of life, customs, knowledge and degree of artistic, scientific, and industrial development, at a given time.”
But what is circulating today on the radio, television and, with more intensity and force since the Covid-19 pandemic, on the internet? What circulates are audio and video creations that contain images and sometimes narrations. These audiovisual compositions have reached a privileged level as guides or advisors for people about their realities.
These assemblages of image and sound have become “the narrators” or “relators” of reality, of what is valued or rejected, of what is good or bad, of what is appreciated or not, of the human passions and desire.
It will always be nebulous to express what it is that circulates in audiovisual productions, what is identifiable is the statistics and metrics behind the so-called cultural industries in the US and that has permeated the world for decades.
For example, according to data from the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies, in 2021, as shown in the following image, artistic and cultural companies of all sizes generated more than one trillion dollars to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). national.
In addition, it is known that growth has been increasing every year, for example, from 2020 to 2021 the growth of this sector was 4% above GDP, as shown in the following image. In this sense, the creative industries also contain an important workforce for the North American country.
“Americanization” of culture
Finally, it is interesting to see the comparison of percentages of profits and jobs that creative industries have worldwide.
As seen in the following graph, North America is third in number of profits and jobs after Asia and Europe. This is significant considering that North America is fundamentally a single country. That is, almost only the US is at the level of hundreds of countries on the other two major continents.
The predominance of American audiovisual cultural diffusion in the life and relationships of world citizens has allowed us to conclude that North American culture is one of the hegemonic cultures of the world. Its cinema and music, to mention two artistic sectors, have reached almost every corner of the world.
The way of telling stories and projecting aesthetics has confirmed the US as the power that leads the world. Establishing itself as a power also means maintaining its cultural production. This is why China, beyond its unmatched economic and infrastructure growth, has not yet profoundly touched distant nations or continents such as Europe or America with its culture.
For the social scientist José Vidal-Beneyto, “the commercial policy of the United States, extended to its foreign cultural policy, has the purpose of making the american way of life the common culture of the world.
In the same sense, for cultural researcher María Ester Vela, “cultural globalization, contrary to what might be assumed, does not consist of promoting access to culture for the entire population of the planet in order to allow its free expression and evolution, cultural globalization is Americanization, the sale of american-way-of-life that spreads through advertising and consumption.”
On the other hand, there is a saying that clearly defines American culture and is currently shared by the majority of urban citizens in the world:
“The American gets up from a bed invented in Persia, with his robe invented in the Middle East, wears slippers created in Văn Lang (modern Vietnam), has breakfast pancakes invented in Greece, he wears a French tie; and a suit invented in England, he rides in his automobile invented in France and Germany, he eats Italian pizza for lunch, he continually looks at his Swiss watch; he comes home to eat Mexican food; “He puts on his American Indian moccasins, and finally goes to bed thanking a Judeo-Christian God for American greatness.”
Next week we will conclude this review with a journey from television to digital journalism and the future of this global culture.
