Media can be any tool or outlet capable of forming communication or conveying information (ECPS, n.d.). Media can educate, inform, and entertain through news and analysis in the press (GDNet, 2011). Given this nature, the media plays a critical role in facilitating social change and shaping public opinion and attitudes. Research and data have shown how the media reinforces stereotypes, especially on issues of gender, religion, and culture. Media culture revolves around the intersection of various societies, and cultural appropriation may take place in the process. Cultural appropriation occurs when someone adopts characteristics from a community without having a genuine connection to it (Lenard & Balint, 2019). For instance, whitewashing in movies has been a recurring issue, where white actors are cast to play characters of colour (Aditya, 2021). This can erase authentic representation and reinforce the idea that whiteness is the default standard of beauty or relatability. This practice not only sidelines talented actors from marginalized communities but also distorts cultural stories and histories for the sake of mainstream comfort and profit. This article aims to provide critical reviews on the two core readings, as well as focus on the cultural appropriation in the media.

Cultural appropriation in media is often a result produced through the systems that construct identity in the first place (Marzal & Kafri, 2025). Grossberg et al. (2006) give us a structural cultural study on how identities are made in and through media industries, while Nakamura shows how race is specifically produced in digital environments. Both pieces are essential and complementary to help us understand how appropriation happens and why it keeps reproducing harm. According to Grossberg and colleagues, identity is not a fixed concept but an outcome of cultural practices and power relations. Since media systems are deeply tied to capitalism, media industries decide which identities are marketable and which become marginalized. This suggests that identity formation is both ideological and industrial. According to Hall (1973), meanings depend on power and context. When a film making company casts a white actor for people of colour, such as Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, they’re encoding those choices with dominant meaning. It reflects and reproduces the cultural ideology that whiteness is neutral and profitable. Audiences, however, don’t receive the message the same way. Having white actors play other races in films is often done in ways that mock people of colour. As Guy Aoki notes in BBC Culture’s article When White Actors Play Other Races, “The upshot of that is you are basically telling the audience, ‘Don’t take Asian people seriously.’” Audiences from marginalized backgrounds often decode such representations oppositionally, identifying them as acts of cultural dominance. Bell hooks further extends this argument that cultural difference itself becomes eroticized and consumable under capitalism. Cultural appropriation then happens when the dominant groups borrow from marginalized cultures because it seems sellable. The people behind them usually remain unseen. Most people mistake cultural appropriation with cultural appreciation, where the latter includes learning and honouring a culture that’s not one’s own (Nilisha Williams, 2025). Appreciation often involves permission, while appropriation ignores the deeper meaning and profits from it, as noted by Grossberg et al. (2006).

In Nakamura’s approach to identity tourism, she discusses how racial meanings migrate and how they are manipulated online. She uses examples such as avatars, chatrooms, and gaming to show that cyberspace reproduces existing hierarchies even as it creates new forms of racialized representation. If someone can put on a racialized look digitally without social consequences or historical responsibility, marginalized cultures become even easier to mimic while the lived realities behind them stay ignored. Cultural characteristics become an accessory for celebrities and mainstream media to attract public attention. Similar examples can frequently be found on social media. In 2013, Katy Perry dressed up like a geisha, appropriating Japanese culture in the process. In 2014, she did it again, wearing cornrows in her music video. Celebrity endorsement and placement reflect a commodity explicitly with the purpose of having the product recognized, admired, and consumed (Rojek, 2001). The problem with cultural appropriation in media isn’t about what celebrities have done, but the attitude they’ve shown towards it. Justin Bieber has worn dreadlocks on multiple occasions, despite facing significant backlash each time. He has shown little acknowledgment of why the style is considered inappropriate when worn by non-black people. This repetition suggests a refusal to engage with criticism or even understand its cultural weight. Likewise, Katy Perry had also admitted in the podcast after her controversy that she would never understand the meanings behind her actions until someone made it clear to her. This highlights how the main cultural resources are supplied to the market overwhelmingly by the commercial cultural industries and media for profit (Guins & Cruz, 2005). Media shape our worldviews and values (Kellner, 2011). People’s cultural backgrounds influence their choice of what and how they view most of the meanings of images they access (Sturken & Cartwright, 2004). When a public figure adopts elements from marginalised cultures without understanding or acknowledging the significance, it reinforces power imbalance and perpetuates stereotypes. In doing so, they reduce the complexity of culture into an oriented, oversimplified image stripped of its original context or meaning. Such appropriation can benefit the appropriator financially by creating discourse and therefore increasing the popularity of their actions, while offering little to no recognition to the original community (Matthes, 2019). Moreover, social media further amplifies this dynamic, encouraging trends that favour surface level adoption over genuine understanding. This type of behaviour sends a message to audiences that cultural symbols can be commodified and consumed without respect. Consequently, media consumers must develop critical awareness to distinguish between genuine cultural exchange and exploitative appropriation.

As digital globalization accelerates, a promising field for future research is exploring how marginalized cultures actively resist digital colonialism (Nothias, 2025) through the same platforms that facilitate it, such as social media, to reclaim narrative authority. As both the readings were written before social media explodes, this view highlights how marginalized cultures can actively respond, showing appropriation as a mutual interaction instead of just one group taking advantage from another (Ilyés, 2025). Future research should also look at the financial side of these exchanges, examining who benefits and who is left out in the mainstream media. As cultural symbols move faster than ever, scholars need to see appropriation not just as theft, but as a cycle where power, profit, and participation constantly interact.

References

Aditya, R. P. (2021, October). Decoding the politics of Hollywood whitewashing through M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. Offscreen, 25(9–10).

Cruz, A. G. B., Seo, Y., & Scaraboto, D. (2024). Between cultural appreciation and cultural appropriation: Self-authorizing the consumption of cultural difference. Journal of Consumer Research, 50(5), 962–984.

ECPS. (n.d.). Media. Populism Studies.

GDNet. (2011). Top tips – Research communication: Using media to communicate research outputs. Global Development Network.

Grossberg, L., Wartella, E., Whitney, C., & Wise, J. M. (2006). Producing identities. In L. Grossberg, E. Wartella, C. Whitney, & J. M. Wise (Eds.), MediaMaking: Mass media in a popular culture (pp. 205–234). Sage.

Guins, R., & Cruz, O. (Eds.). (2005). Popular culture: A reader. Sage. Hall, S. (1997). Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices. Sage.

Han, H. C. (Sandrine). (2019). Moving from cultural appropriation to cultural appreciation. Art Education, 72(2), 8–13.

Hooks, b. (1992). Black looks: Race and representation. South End Press. Kellner, D. (2011). Cultural studies, multiculturalism, and media culture. In G. Dines & J. M. Humez (Eds.), Gender, race, and class in media: A critical reader (pp. 7–18). Sage.

Ilyés, E. (2025, February 27). Digital colonialism: How social media enables new violations of cultural rights. OpenGlobalRights.

Kellner, D. (2011). Cultural studies, multiculturalism, and media culture. In G. Dines & J. M. Humez (Eds.), Gender, race, and class in media: A critical reader (pp. 7–18). Sage.

Komic, R. (2015, October 6). When white actors play other races. BBC Culture.

Lampen, C. (2021, April 27). Justin Bieber once again criticized for wearing dreadlocks. The Cut.

Lenard, P. T., & Balint, P. (2019). What is (the wrong of) cultural appropriation? Ethnicities, 20(2), 331–352.

Marzal, N., & Kafri, S. (2025). Culture appropriation in popular media: A critical analysis of globalization and identity. Asian Journal of Media and Culture, 1(1), 57 73.

Matthes, E. H. (2019). Cultural appropriation and oppression. Philosophical Studies, 176(4), 1003–1013.

Nakamura, L. (2008). Cyberrace. PMLA, 123(5), 1673–1682.

Nothias, T. (2025). An intellectual history of digital colonialism. Journal of Communication. Advance online publication.

Rojek, C. (2001). Celebrity. Reaktion Books.

Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. Pantheon Books.

Sturken, M., & Cartwright, L. (2004). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. Oxford University Press.

Veresiu, E., & Giesler, M. (2018). Beyond acculturation: Multiculturalism and the institutional shaping of an ethnic consumer subject. Journal of Consumer Research, 45(3), 553–570.

Young, J. O., & Brunk, C. G. (2009). The ethics of cultural appropriation. Wiley Blackwell.