The popularity of domestic cultural products: cross-national differences and the relation to globalization

This dissertation addressed the popularity of domestic cultural consumption. It aimed at describing and explaining the extent to which the popularity of domestic cultural consumption differs between countries and over time. We studied the popularity of domestic versus foreign film productions, the popularity of domestic versus foreign book authors and the popularity of domestic versus foreign music artists. Domestic cultural products differ from foreign cultural products because these are produced, written or performed by fellow citizens from the nation. We assumed that people who consider the nation as a more relevant group to derive their identity from and who support nationalist attitudes more strongly, are more likely to show their identification with the nation and therefore are more likely to consume domestic cultural products. From a macro-sociological point of view, it would therefore be interesting to study country characteristics that affect nationalist public opinion, which also are expected to have an impact on the popularity of domestic cultural products. Globalization is expected to decrease nationalist attitudes, contributing to a weaker preference for protecting the national culture and a lower consumption of domestic cultural products. Conversely, globalization is also expected to increase nationalist attitudes, contributing to a stronger inclination to protect the national culture and a higher consumption of domestic cultural products. The EU is the ultimate test case with various outcomes of globalization. The extensive cooperation and integration between EU member states imply that globalization processes are in a more advanced stage in EU countries than in non-EU countries. Therefore, we did not only examine the two contrasting views on globalization, we also formulated similarly contrasting expectations regarding the influence of EU integration. First we focus on the relation between globalization and EU integration and individuals’ nationalistic attitudes and their preferences to protect the domestic culture. Subsequently, using unique databases we studied the association between a country’s globalization level, EU integration and nationalist public opinion to the popularity of domestic films, fiction authors and music in a country. We found little support for the view which suggests that globalization and EU integration reduce nationalist attitudes, contributing to a weaker inclination of protecting national culture and a lower consumption of domestic cultural products. Conversely, the view that considers globalization and EU integration to increase nationalist attitudes, encouraging a stronger preference for protecting the national culture and a higher consumption of domestic cultural products, is not refuted in our studies. To conclude, this dissertation is one of the few empirical studies explaining cross-national differences in the popularity of domestic cultural consumption. By showing the associations between the popularity of domestic cultural products and a country’s globalization, EU integration and nationalist public opinion, we have shown that research towards cultural consumption can provide insights into nationalist behavior in everyday life, as theoretically argued in previous research. The origin of cultural goods proved a promising topic of research