Fabricating the absolute fake: America in contemporary pop culture

The pageantry of Oprah Winfrey's talk show, the Coca-Cola empire, Michael Jackson's turn from the King of Pop into an iconic global recluse: American pop culture - Hollywood cinema, television, pop music - dominates the rest of the world through its hegemonic presence. Does that make everyone a hybridized American, or do these elements find mediation within the other cultures that consume them? Fa…