Culture and Globalization Lesson 11 Culture and globalization

Culture and Globalization Lesson 11

• Culture and globalization • Much older than modernity… but now more free and wide circulation • CULTURE: symbolic construction, articulation and dissemination of meanings. • 1) Sameness/difference • 2) Role of the Media • 3) global languages • 4) consumerism and ecology Four important themes

• Americanization = Western values = Cultural Imperialism • • G. Ritzer: «Mac. Donaldization» B. Barber: «Mac. Donald against Jihad» F. Fukuyama: «End of History» R. Robertson: «Glo-calism» • No clear-cut division of sameness and difference • Less stable post-modern framework, creativity and commodification Difference/sameness

• New trends in newspapers: Post WWII : • 1) Changes in ownership, loss of younger readers, loss of market share to electronic media and TV. But. Although, in most post-industrial societies newspapers are still important, without significant reduction of sales. • 2) Newspapers (and TV) are associated with basic patterns of socio-economic development: affluent, educated readership with greater leisure time. (Nations and regions: tv-centric vs. newspaper centric) Structural changes and new trends

• 3) Growth of “infotainment”: increased focus on sex, crime and entertainment. IT portable devices: a further push. • A contradictory picture: increased competition brings about “tabloidization” but political coverage does not diminish. Diversification of the market: more politics and less politics at the same time. • Post industrial societies: largely stable circulation of papers but number of newspapers has contracted. • Media merging, acquisitions, multi-media empires. Consequences? Structural changes and new trends

• New trends in broadcasting • Similar concerns for TV and Radio standards: under threat? (technology and economy) • Critical factors: proliferation of channels and fragmentation of the audience (cable, satellite, digital, broadband, etc. ); breaking down boundaries between audio-visual industries, telecommunications and computers. Structural changes and new trends

. Role of privatization policies and deregulation in the TV market development • However… public channels remain popular in many OECD countries. Broadcasting systems seem to maintain a distinct imprint of their origins. • The rise of Internet • Post-industrial societies move towards information society model. World’s online community lives in highly developed nations. Structural changes and new trends

• The rise of Internet • Above the average internet users: Nordic democracies, Anglo-American countries, Asian “tigers”, smaller European nation. • At the bottom of the ranking sub-Saharan African countries. • Possible leapfrog? Development brings internet but does internet enhance development? Structural changes and new trends

Consequences for democracy: • is democracy endangered by the rise of IT? Who owns technology? Who controls the web? Who are the new gatekeepers, if any? • Is democracy reinforced by IT? Alternative channels of civic engagement? Better information? Possibility to challenge global problems? • Consequences for dictatorships (dilemmas): Consequences for social-political-economic environment

• Cyber-pessimism: • Internet is a Pandora’s box: new inequalities, deeper divisions, benefits to the elite with poorer dropping even further behind • Cyber-optimism: • New possibilities of development, end of censorship, grouping and working together much easier, breaking down hierachy. Cyber-pessimism or cyberoptimism