The purported decline of American media on the global market, the appearance of lingual/cultural markets and the rise of new media centres have put the debate of cultural homogenization vs. heterogenization in a new light. This paper examines the role of culture as it is reflected in the way viewing preferences feed back into production decisions that lead to the transformation of imported media genre, using the transformation of reality television in Greater China as an example. It is argued that there is a need to go beyond the either-or conceptual framework and thus to see cultural and economic, and media and audience power as moving forces rather than
as dualistic dichotomies with a linear, predetermined relation.
