Globalisation and Popular Culture

Globalisation Key Assumptions:

• Refers to increasing interconnectedness of all the countries in the world - existing in areas such as economics and business, politics, technology and culture.
• Globalists can be divided into:
• Hyper globalists (overwhelmingly positive features of globalisation in contemporary systems)
• Pessimistic globalists (see globalisation as a damaging and dangerous process).
• Other globalists argue whether it actually exists, and those who question the extent to which it is inevitable and irreversible. Lechner and Boli (2005) argue that increasingly we can talk about a global culture.

Strinati (1995):

• Media today is a global industry that promotes (advertising and promotion) other global industries.
• Creates a global culture.
• Due to the internet, but also television channels, media content genuinely can be transmitted, almost everywhere in the world.

McLuhan (1962):

• Wrote about a global village - idea that, through global communications, we have neighbours all around the world.
• No longer always need a filter or gatekeeper of a professional media production to hear what’s going on on the other side of the world.
• New media allows us to hear things instantly, and from the source.

The internet has influenced this development (as said by Flew). Developed the extent to which we understand a shared global culture. Our social values are becoming more and more global rather than national. New media increasingly offers a global outlook rather than focusing on just a nation’s issues.

Cultural Imperialism:

Sociologists, including Fenton, have suggested that the globalisation of the media has led to cultural imperialism: the Western world dominating the rest of the world through the media and the marketing of its own cultural products. It is suggested this happens in a number of ways:

• Global Conglomerates - Companies combine various business interests and operate on an international level. Eg. owning businesses across different countries. Allows large media companies to dominate the media market.
• However, they don’t need to, in order to reach the audience. Eg. media companies make films and programmes viewed all around the world. Due to the aggressive marketing and distribution, this allows the companies to completely dominate media production in the world. McBride (1980) suggests this deluge of Western-created media changes the culture and values of countries elsewhere in the world.
• Advertising - The internet in particular has revolutionised how products are marketed around the world. New media companies can pay for expensive marketing packages that dominate what people see and read on an everyday basis, all over the world. Companies like Coca-Cola and McDonalds are everywhere. The term ‘cocacolanisation’ was developed in the post-war period, describing the way American movies and music helped to fuel the sale of Coca-Cola around the world, spreading American hegemony with it. Ritzer wrote about ‘McDonaldisation’ - a concept that suggests that one impact of globalisation is the world is becoming more-and-more like McDonalds: standardised and low-skilled.
• Cultural Homogenisation - Idea that local cultures are killed by globalisation, and the whole world becomes the same, with the same shops, films, television programmes and brands. Expressed by Klein (2000).
• Ideas suggest globalisation of media and culture is effectively and simply Americanisation.

Cultural Hybridisation

Postmodernists (and other sociologists) argue that the pessimistic globalist view of media is too bleak. Suggest that culture moves in multidirectional flaws (not just from West to East). Eg. Bollywood films - not only popular in India; they have also influenced Western culture too (film techniques and Bollywood actors).

Sreberny-Mohammadi (1996) points out that, as well as India, South America has a strong media industry.

By hybridisation, sociologists mean that local cultures, global cultures, and alternative cultures have mixed - creating something called hybrid culture. Optimistic hyperglobalist view sees cultural globalisation as a force for good; contributes to society.

Ritzer’s McDonaldisation can be criticised, as McDonalds in different countries sell different meals according to local culture and tradition.

Cultural hybridisation is sometimes suggested as a halfway house between the idea of cultural divergence (Huntington: ‘clash of civilisations; entrenching of mutually exclusive and incompatible regional cultures) and cultural convergence (cultural homogenisation - world becoming effectively the same).

Idea of cultural divergence/clash of civilisations can be seen as a criticism of cultural homogenisation: while Western culture is dominant in many ways, there is a strong resistance to this in some places, with a revival of fundamentalism and nationalism. One aspect of these sorts of movements is often to reject Western media. However, they also increasingly use new media technology to spread their message and organise their campaigns. Eg. ISIS made significant use of YouTube and Twitter to recruit people to their terrorist movement.

 Evaluation (AO3):

• Curran: Postmodernist and Pluralist hyperglobalists fail to take into account economics and inequality in their analysis. The West dominates global culture due to economic power. It co-opts some aspects of other cultures if it is able to exploit it for a profit.
• Western consumers like to buy the ‘exotic’ and therefore features of local cultures that can be marketed as ‘exotic’. Long way removed from the sort of equality suggested by the concept of multi-directional flow.