Cultural imperialism is treated as the central critical concept in a number of related disourses: the debate about 'Media Imperialism'; the discourse of national cultural identity; the critique of multinational capitalism and the critique of cultural modernity. Analysis of these various discourses reveals major problems in the way in which the idea of cultural — as distinect from economic or political — imperialism is forrmulated. deals with issues ranging from the ideological effects of imported cultural products, to the process of cultural homogenization, to the nature of cultural autonomy. The author suggests that the critical discourses of cultural imperialism are bext understood, not in terms of natural cultures, but as protests against the rise of global cultural modernity.