Americanization
From Freepedia
Americanization is the term used for the influence the United States of America has on the culture of other countries, substituting local culture with something of an American culture. When encountered unwillingly or perforce, it has a negative connotation; when sought voluntarily, it has a positive connotation.
One of the principal reasons for this is the U.S.' highly visible global brands (for example, McDonald's) and widely distributed media output.
Americanization can also refer to the process of immigrants to the United States becoming American. This process often involves learning American English and adjusting to American culture, customs, and dress. See also assimilation.
In Sweden, there is a humourous expression stating that it is the most Americanized country in the world (and USA is number two).
Arthur Koestler described this process as "coca-colonisation" in his book The Lotus and the Robot.
In American media, the term is used negatively to describe the censoring and editing of a foreign show or movie that is brought over to U.S. stations that are done to make the show or movie better understood and more appropriate for American audiences, usually to such an extent that very little - if any - evidence of the media's true origin remains.
Companies that deal with Japanese Anime are considered by some as being the worst offenders of Americanization due to established fanbases made via importation of DVD's a/or obtaining bootlegs or downloading fansubs off the internet. American Cartoon companies like 4Kids, Nelvana, FUNimation, and TOKYOPOP, are the more notorious examples, where their translation of Japanese Anime often is as small as simple name changes (Riceballs turned into Doughnuts as an example of item changes; Itsuki to Iggy as an example of name changes) to extreme edits where entire episodes are dismantled for content and time constraints (One Piece has so far recieved the worst of the Americanization from changes in the theme song to entire re-writes of storyarcs). In many cases, the content, which would be considered "okay" to Japanese children (example: The Haremu no Jutsu (Harem Jutsu) in Naruto) would not be okay under FCC rules in the USA for US Children and would have to be edited to fit a more "Americanized" market (in many cases, kids as the target audiance).
On a completely different level, Spike TV's Americanization of Takeshi's Castle into MXC would not be seen as a gross form of Americanization, due to the low fanbase of the original TV series.
