The Jeremiad Over Journalism

2.1.2 Assimilation
The most prominent example of an assimilationist view, meaning a relationship close to
―negotiating among equals,‖ is provided by Richard Pells in a study of relations between the United
States and Europe. 62 Due to the limited focus on Americanization processes in Denmark during the
1990‘s the only example of ―assimilationist‖ Americanization research in a Danish context is
provided by the American journalist and author Nancy Graham Holm, who for a number of years
taught at the Danish School of Journalism (DJH).
Pells 1997
In his study Not Like Us: How Europeans Have Loved, Hated, and Transformed American Culture
Since World War II, American Studies professor Richard Pells traces the American cultural impact
on Europe primarily after World War II. Pells‘ focus on Europe is important, since a host of other
studies in the same vein focus more narrowly on American influence on one specific locality. Pells‘
book is an interesting dialectic exercise where the author spends a lot of space and energy on
arguing American influence, but still finds examples to counterbalance the original claims of
influence. Despite convincingly arguing that the United States‘ government played an active role in
promoting American influence on both the cultural, political, and economic levels, Pells
nevertheless concludes that ―Americanization‖ is myth.
Through a chronological and thematic approach, and with the a vast focus on culture, Pells depicts
how Europeans and Americans thought about each other before World War II, and how Americans
have influenced Europe after 1945; aided greatly be the European immigrants who arrived in the
United States in the 1930s and 1940s.
Pells‘ impressive overview of cultural initiatives takes the reader from the Marshall Plan, to the
Fulbright Program, the ascendancy of American Studies and the role of the United States
Information Agency in shaping opinions around Europe. Also the American media‘s prominent role
in post-War Europe is explored. Pells demonstrates how the American idea of journalism was more
or less forced upon Germany and played an inspirational role in other countries.
62 Richard Kuisel, "Debating Americanization: The Case of France," in Global America? The Cultural Consequences of
Globalization, ed. Ulrich Beck, Natan Sznaider, and Rainer Winter (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003). Page
98.
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