Are We TV-Hybridized Natures?

The examples of hybridization process on TV are referred to the numerous of copies of the United States-produced shows, programmes and especially serials. Such shows as “The Wheel of Fortune”, “The Price is Right”, “The Dating Game”, “The Millionaire”, “The Pop Idol” and many others are copied throughout the world and transmitted on national and local channels bringing them profit and success. These numerous successful and popular copies can be the brilliant evidence of television being a broadcast system which exists beyond national boundaries and under national state interests. Why do the American TV games, shows, performances and movies have so many international clones and are still very popular? Monaco says ’the taste for television is quite simply an undifferentiated global taste… No culture has developed forms of television that are genuinely distinct or national. This common taste has little to do with the domination of one national culture over another’. Does it mean that hybridity is associated with “global taste”? This idea is acceptable from the viewpoint that “taste” is considered to be the integral part of culture.
About 60 percent of South American TV products are United States-produced and the rest is generally hybridized: soap operas, shows, reality shows etc. The profitability of Latin American television companies demonstrates the popularity of the transmitted programmes; and that is the best proof of the ‘common taste’ of TV. The real threat of mass media hybridization can be completely eliminated by the fact that hybridized TV-products are considerably developed by each individual’s interpretation and reflect every culture and social values. The perfect example is popular American “Dallas” serial interpretation by Asian viewers who evaluated the psychological and social phenomena of the movie and are interested in its characters’ problems rather than American propaganda of lifestyle, food and clothes. Moreover, the female viewers interpreted the characters and created attitudes on emotional basis with the conclusions which sometimes were contradictory to the attitudes popular among American viewers. Next bright example is American Rambo. The Australian Aborigines interpreted Rambo as the hero who defeated the foreigners and freed native land from white invaders. American interpretation of Rambo created a negative attitude because of his personal view of rights and individualistic position.

The term hybridity is not successful for either national viewers or national TV development itself. For example, despite India and Japan are two Asian countries which have the lowest level of international programming consumption (one of the reason of such low interest is the state control under satellite transmission) their viewers’ interest to Western news and entertainment programmes is still growing. Next, Western specialists’ evolvement in the Asian TV development (they work as consultants, tutors, assistant managers etc.) has brought considerable benefit to Asian nationally developed programs and channels.

The term hybridity concerning TV is not very accurate and should be corrected if accepted at all. It should be determined as essential natural human behavior and social desire to interact and communicate with each other. So we can define the hybridity as “individual reception and interpretation of the content made by definite ethnic or social group and based on this group’s cultural background in order to create their own meaning and form their own identity”.

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