Cultural Globalization

1.     Summary of "Cultural globalization:

 Globalization is a multidimensional process which involved various factors like economy, politics, technological developments-media and communications technologies, environmental change and cultural factors and so on. So globalization is shown as various forms in broad areas and the interaction which made globalization is very complex. Also, the process of globalization progress rapidly with development of network across international boundaries.

Thus, there are various views to analyze globalization and many of them, especially western critics said that the cultural globalization is dominated by western capitalism values. Because cultural globalization is highly related with global market and it is affected by capitalism. So many socialist and economist created concepts like ‘Cultural imperialism’, ‘Americanization’, ‘Westernization’ and even ‘McDonaldization’. And they think the global culture is the result of the cultural globalization which contributed by the spread of commodity, knowledge in mainstream of globalization.

Clifford Geertz said ‘Culture is not a power, something to which social events can be causally attributed.’ It means culture is influence our lifestyle and values. And the more cultural globalization processed, the more values lead in a single global culture. There are many discussions which considered by international values. We handle same problems like global warming and influenza security. But it is not meaning of international unify. Like the discussion of ‘Westernization’ or ‘Americanization’, the mainstream of globalization is led by advanced countries which have power to exert their influence. So there must be differences of the initiative.

Also, there are conflicts between different culture in the process of globalization. For example, many Muslim countries do not want globalization because they regard globalization with the perspective of Westernization. So they afraid that globalization damage their own values. And these topics occurred various sections in many countries because nowadays, the world connectivity is increasing rapidly.

Finally, there are different views about local effect into culture. Until the present days, most of people believe that culture has foundation in locality and they think such local place created their specific culture. But the people who espouse ‘Deterritorialization’, said that culture is created in the integration of different events and merge of process or relationships in reality.

2.     What was interesting/what did you learn:

 I interested that I can actually feel the concept about globalization in my life. The Korean society which I born was capitalized and there were many things of American or western culture. Furthermore, the game ‘StarCraft’ which I played in my childhood is produced in north America. Therefore, actually I was grown up in the society which already globalized also in progress. And I really feel about the change of world connectivity. When I in the childhood. It was transition period of developing IT technology. So I just communicated with my friends in online and we shared about trend cultures. But it is not about trend of international culture. However, these days we can easily find international trend culture in online spheres like ‘YouTube’, ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’. Even we can contribute international online encyclopedia like ‘Wikipedia’. Because of these things, I deeply feel about the concept in our class and it makes the lecture more impressive.

3.     Discussion Point:

 My first discussion point is ‘The cultures which created in these days are really irrelevant with locality?’ Though it is already discussed by many persons. But I think it is very important and interesting topic, also I have different view about ‘Deterritorialization’. So I want to discuss about that.

The people who argued deterritorializaion said no more cultures have foundation with localities. But I think it will be never happened. Because every spheres which create culture have specific disposition. For example, newspaper homepages in Korea have their own tendency. Even though they are in same country. Like this, each group has different characteristic and it is commonly based on locality. Also we can easily find conflicts between different culture and I think these gaps will always exist. Because there are differences in the relationship between peoples. And they are based on distance of real world. For example, we are more affected with close friends than person who is got to know in online place. Like this, the locality affects resident in the generality of cases. So I think locality affects specific group culture continuously.

Second, ‘Is culture really irrelevant with power?’ Some socialists and economist said culture influence life but not about power. I’m very confused in this context. In these days, cultural enterprise is considered powerful business. Obviously it is connected with economical benefits and international competitiveness. Especially, Korean culture enterprise which represented by K-pop and drama is considered that it has economic potential. Also, in some way, tourist industries are based on cultural property. So in my opinion, from now on, culture can be regarded main power. And I want to discuss this topic with classmate.