Comments on: Parochialism and cultural export… or why Titanic is France’s best-grossing film

By: download titanic

download titanic — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 17:44:57 +0000

Excellent post. As Alaa pointed out though, consider the metrics we get on box office successes and dvd sales lob-sided.
Much like iTunes affected the music industry (in a good way), there are movie download sites where you can legally download movies. Some of the more known ones included Real’s Superpass and Cinemanow.

All these sites and services have a growing number of customers but to this date their numbers are still not factored in into any official sales counts.

On a more personal note, this is the first time I’ve seen your blog. My wife is from Ghana (Sekondi-Takorati) and we’re actually going to visit Ghana next spring/summer, I’m going to keep an eye on this blog and flip through the archives!

By: links for 2008-09-16 « andrew golis

links for 2008-09-16 « andrew golis — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:33:34 +0000

[...] …My heart’s in Accra » Parochialism and cultural export… or why Titanic is France’s best-gr… Interesting post from Ethan on cultural importing and exporting as a measure of homophily and xenophilia. (tags: xenophilia homophily ethan.zuckerman new.media mapping metrics movies) [...]

By: Putting numbers on Russia’s cultural openness | Window on the Media

Putting numbers on Russia’s cultural openness | Window on the Media — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:37:58 +0000

[...] Zuckerman recently posted on how commerce in cultural goods can be used as a proxy for xenophilia. He writes that cultural imports are a key factor in cultural openness and that those who consume [...]

By: Alaa

Alaa — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 18:31:40 +0000

the culture export/import map is way more complex than this, for instance in Egypt bollywood and hollywood audiences come from different socio-economic backgrounds.

we’ll also need a better metric, the highest grossing film might not nessecarily be the most watched one things like piracy, cheaper tickets and what’s shown on tv have to be taken into consideration.

did you know turkish soap operas are THE BIG THING in the arab world these days?

By: ismael

ismael — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 05:15:08 +0000

Just a comment about US cinema exports to the rest of the World and, specifically, to Europe.

It is my guess that (and you pictured it perfectly here “Explosions and chase scenes translate easily; complex character development, witty banter, multilayered plots – not so much.”) most Europeans would think of US films as entertainment and of French, German or Spanish films as culture.

So, though I like your approach, I believe that some distinction should be made about Hollywood being more an industry than a culture/artistic cluster.

Yes, the question rises quickly: and why did it become such a powerful industry? ;)