Star Trek - The Americanization of Space

Seminar paper from the year 2001 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,0, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (Seminar für Englische Philologie: Forschungs- und Lehrbereich Amerikanistik), course: The Americanization of Cultures, language: English, abstract: 'The Americanization of Cultures' is an interesting and equally important topic, but very complex as it includes many different aspects. Americanization influences nearly every sector of life, at least in most European countries. Often enough, the process of Americanization is not even noticed as such anymore. Americanization means the influence of, or the adaptation to, American values and moral ideals, to the American political system, to the American way of life, to American popular culture, and so on. Obviously, the media, and especially the medium of television, plays an important part in the process of Americanization, as American productions such as Hollywood movies, television series, soap operas, and talk shows are broadcasted in countries all over the world. As the influence of the media cannot be overestimated, I decided to analyze the science-fiction seriesStar Trek,a successful American television series that reaches a large audience in many countries.Star Trekattracts viewers from very different social background, viewers of different age, and of different nationalities. Therefore, an examination ofStar Trekas an example of American popular culture is interesting; as the series is an American production, it can be assumed that the series conveys American values and reflects the situation of the U.S. in many respects. My intention is to analyze what is American about the future described inStar Trek,what American ideals the series disseminates, what messages it conveys, and why this idea of the future not only proves to be popular in the U.S., but is a success worldwide. Of course, a distinction has to be made between the originalStar Trekseries of the 1960s, and the later seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation(1980s),Deep Space NineandStar Trek: Voyager(1990s). I will concentrate onStar Trek,the original series, andStar Trek: The Next Generation.These two series differ significantly from each other in their presentation of political and social issues. That is the reason whyStar Trekis suited for the analysis of U.S. society and the change of American values over a long period of time. To the seriesDeep Space NineandStar Trek: VoyagerI will refer only in a few sentences.