Cultural Globalization PDF

CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. Is the spread of the culture, customs, or ideas of a place or a people to the rest of the world. CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION...

CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION refers to the transmission of ideas, meanings and values around the world in such a way as to extend and intensify social relations. Is the spread of the culture, customs, or ideas of a place or a people to the rest of the world. CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION Sociologists define culture as “all the products of a society that are created over time and shared. These products may be tangible or intangible,” belonging to the material or nonmaterial dimensions of culture, respectively According to sociologist George Herbert Mead, it is through this interactive relationship between the human mind and culture that both our selves and society have evolved over time T H E O R GLOBALIZATION I E S  G L O B A L I Z 4 THEORIES A T I O N  HOMOGENIETY Refers to the increasing sameness in the world as cultural inputs, economic factors and political orientations of societies expand to create common practices, same economies and similar forms of government. Ex. Cultural Imperialism, The Melting Pot HOMOGENIETY Criticisms Threat to local culture. -the dominant culture isn’t “pure” it reflects the influences from other cultures. Ex. Western music, food, fashion, etc. Losing some aspects of each individual culture. Ex. dying languages, the loss of music, dances, MCDONALDIZATION McDonaldization of society is a phenomenon that occurs when society, its institutions, and its organizations are adapted to have the same characteristics that are found in fast-food chains. The process by which Western Societies are dominated by the principles of fast-food restaurants (George Ritzer, 1993). MCDONALDIZATION Efficiency- entails a managerial focus on minimizing the time required to complete individual tasks as well as that required to complete the whole operation or process of production and distribution. Calculability is a focus on quantifiable objectives (counting things) rather than subjective ones (evaluation of quality). MCDONALDIZATION Predictability and standardization - are found in repetitive and routinized production or service delivery processes and in the consistent output of products or experiences that are identical or close to it (predictability of the consumer experience). Control -within McDonaldization is wielded by management to ensure that workers appear and act the same on a moment-to-moment and daily basis. It also refers to the use of robots and technology to reduce or replace human employees wherever possible. MCDONALDIZATION Ritzer asserts that these characteristics are not only observable in production, work, and in the consumer experience, but that their defining presence in these areas has a ripple effect on all aspects of social life. McDonaldization affects our values, preferences, goals, and worldviews, our identities, and our social relationships. Further, sociologists recognize that McDonaldization is a global phenomenon, driven by Western corporations, the economic power and cultural dominance of the West, and as such it leads to a global homogenization of economic and social life  GLOBAL FLOWS OF MEDIA Characterized as Media Imperialism. The mass media are rather seen today to be playing a key role in enhancing globalization, facilitating cultural exchange and multiple flows of information and image between countries through international news broadcasts, television programming, new technologies, film, and music. This trans-border flow of media content has been argued to introduce western media products to developing countries, contributing to the decline in traditional values and promote values associated with capitalism.  GLOBAL FLOWS OF MEDIA Criticisms Western cultures have infiltrated developing countries to the extent that the indigenous cultures are near extinct, due to their inability to withstand the pressure from the western ones. As a result, the progressive phenomenon has caused a grave blow to the developing nations. They argued that people from developing countries hardly see anything good in their locally made artifacts, and would prefer to buy imported foreign goods. The most affected aspect of the erosion of values is language. They argued that parents in developing countries do not teach their children their mother tongue; instead English, French and Chinese are the preferred and frequently spoken languages (Philipson, 2005; Brock-Utne, 2013; Maduagwu, 2003). The bottom line is that globalization has eroded the culture of developing countries, who hitherto had a rich culture. HETEROGENEITY Pertains to the creation of various cultural practices, new economies, and political groups because of the interaction of elements from different societies in the world. Heterogeneity in culture is associated with cultural hybridization. A more specific concept is “glocalization” coined by Roland Robertson in 1992. To him, as global forces interact with local factors or a specific geographic area, the “glocal” is being produced.  CULTURAL DIFFERENTIALISM Emphasizes the fact cultures are essentially different and are only superficially affected by global flows. The interaction of cultures is deemed to contain potential for “Catastrophic collision”. Samuel Huntington’s theory on the clash of the civilizations proposed in 1996 best exemplifies this approach. CULTURAL HYBRIDIZATION The integration of local and global cultures (Czetkovich and Keller, 1997). Globalization is considered to be a creative process which gives rise to hybrid entities that are not reducible to either the global or the local. A key concept is “glocalization” or the interpenetration of the global and local resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas (Giulianotti and Robertson, 2007). Another key concept is Arjun Appadurai’s “scapes” in 1996, where global flows involve people, technology, finance, political images, and media and the disjuncture between them, which lead to the creation of cultural hybrids. CULTURAL CONVERGENCE Stresses homogeneity introduced by globalization. Cultures are deemed to be radically altered by strong flaws, while cultural imperialism happens when one culture imposes itself on and tends to destroy at least parts of another culture. One important critique of cultural imperialism is John Tomlinson’s idea of “deterritorialization” of culture. Deterritorialization means that it is much more difficult to tie culture to a specific geographic point of origin.