Cultural Transduction and Intertextuality in Video Games: An Analysis of Three International Case Studies

Localization And Cultural Transduction

The concept of localization is used here in its “broader sense, which encapsulates any of a wide range of activities designed to adapt products to the perceived differences between local markets” (Carlson & Corliss, 2011, p. 65). Localization goes beyond translation (Bernal Merino, 2006) and aims at making a media product accepted and understood within specific cultural markets. From this perspective, localization is almost coterminous to cultural transduction.

Uribe-Jongbloed and Espinosa-Medina (2014) developed the concept of cultural transduction to provide a framework to the flow of cultural products that transcend national borders. The framework looks at a variety of elements that interplay in the design and distribution of a product from the onset in a methodical procedure with four aspects:

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  Markets: Looking at the cultural proximity or distance between the market of the original product –or where it was created – and the insertion markets (see Bicket, 2005);

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  Product: Analyzing conditions of the product, which may explain its appeal, or lack thereof, when crossing over cultural borders;

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  People: Studying the people involved in the process of recognizing, trading and modifying a product to suit specific cultural markets;

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  Process: Classifying the mechanism through which the transduction is carried out.