Cultural Imperialism, also known as Cultural Colonialism, is the practice of promoting and imposing a 'stronger' culture over a comparatively 'weaker' culture. Usually, a politically powerful nation maintains an unequal relationship over a weaker or less powerful nation using cultural aspects of imperialism.

Cultural Imperialism may take various forms (e.g. ideology, attitude, policy, military action etc.) that ultimately reinforces cultural hegemony. While doing so, cultural imperialism attains a set of features, or characteristics, based on the dimension it operates in. If we evaluate, we will find the following attributes of contemporary cultural colonialism that are distinct from past practices in several senses:

• It is aimed at creating and controlling mass audiences, not just converting elites.
• The mass media is used to exploit the audiences.
• Contemporary cultural imperialism is simultaneously global in scope and homogenizing in its impact. This eases the way for the imperialists to mystify the symbols, goals and interests of the imperial powers in the pretense of universalism.
• The imperial powers are exploiting people and even nations using the mass media as instruments of cultural imperialism. This is most often done through delivering imperial state interests as 'news' or 'entertainment'.
• Contemporary imperialism projects political interests through non-imperial subjects. Interests of such powerful and dominant nations are tactfully packed into news and entertainment programs including non-political and often powerless characters. Films are a great example of this function; powerful ideologies are imposed on mass audiences in the form of entertainment through telling entertaining stories most often involving non-political protagonists.
• Although the world seems to dwell in a far premise than the imperial powers have been promising for centuries to ensure, this failure is carefully cast away by creating the necessity for them to be in control for much longer. One example is, the world is in chaos and what especially the news programs show the mass audiences is that the global leaders are necessary to control the miseries and the violence taking place around the world to finally establish peace. Exploiting this illusion of peace, the imperialists are actually imposing and exploiting the so-called free market while hiding the viciousness of capitalism.
• By using cultural colonialism, the stronger nations are paralyzing valuable collective responses by destroying national identities along with the substantive socio-economic contents of the weaker nations. As we see, aspects of cultural imperialism are restlessly promoting the cult of 'modernity' as conformity with external symbols to rupture the solidarity of comparatively weaker communities around the world. Also, familial and social bonds are attacked and personalities are reshaped according to the dictates of media messages in the name of promoting individualistic ideology, or 'individuality'. The mass media are used most often to achieve these goals of the imperial powers.
• Also, the media are always used to achieve a 'collective amnesia' about the devastations created by the Western and pro-Western countries; the media, by both news and entertainment, always show the world the violence performed against the Western and pro-Western ideologies, but the violence of the Western and pro-Western countries across the globe is seldom addressed - especially as violence at all. The mass media always cover up the violence the West are performing to exploit the free market.

Useful Readings

Hamm, Bernd & Smandych, Russell Charles (2005). Cultural imperialism: essays on the political economy of cultural domination. Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series. University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-1-55111-707-2.
Lechner, Frank & Boli, John (2012). The Globalization Reader. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-65563-4.
Petras, James (2000). Cultural Imperialism in the Late 20th Century. Global Policy Forum. February 2000. [https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/154/25597.html] Retrieved on 25.07.2020.
Foucault, Michel (1979). "Truth and Power" in Faubion, James D. (ed.) Essential Works of Foucault, Volume 3: Power New York: The New Press.
Foucault, Michel (1978). "Governmentality" in Faubion, James D. (ed.) Essential Works of Foucault, Volume 3: Power New York: The New Press.
Saïd, Edward. 1978. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books.
Saïd, Edward. 1993. Culture and Imperialism New York: Pantheon Books.
Salwen, Michael B. (March 1991). "Cultural imperialism: A media effects approach". Critical Studies in Media Communication. 8 (1): 29–38. doi:10.1080/15295039109366778.
Sayre, Shay & King, Cynthia (2010). Entertainment and Society: Influences, Impacts, and Innovations (2nd ed.). Oxon, New York: Routledge. p. 31. ISBN 978-0-415-99806-2.
Schiller, Herbert I. (1976). Communication and cultural domination. International Arts and Sciences Press, 901 North Broadway, White Plains, New York 10603. pp. 9–10. ISBN 978-0-87332-079-5.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (1988). "Can the Subaltern Speak" Archived 5 January 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
Tomlinson, John (1991). Cultural imperialism: a critical introduction (illustrated, reprint ed.). Continuum International Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-8264-5013-5.
wa Thiongo, N. (1986). Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. London: James Curry.
White, Livingston A (2001). "Reconsidering Cultural Imperialism Theory" Transnational Broadcasting Studies no.6 Spring/Summer 2001.
Young, Robert (1990). White Mythologies: Writing History and the West, New York & London: Routledge.