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This paper shows how theories of cultural globalization, which emerged at the end of the 1980s from a convergence in Anglo-Saxon academia between cultural studies, sociology and anthropology, have broken new ground in studies on the effects of media internationalization. Drawing on some of the founding texts of globalization theory, we trace back the main shifts in emphasis in the analyses they offer. We note the contributions of these theories to an understanding of the processes involved in appropriating transnational flows, and also underline their limitations, before concluding that political economy perspectives need to be brought into analyses of transnational processes if they are to be understood in all their complexity.