GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION

SOC 451Asst. Prof. Fatma Altınbaş Sarıgül

GLOBALIZATION OF CULTURE AND COMMUNICATION

• Global cultural homogenization• Cultural uniformity of the world

GLOBALIZATION‘Globalization did it’ • Cultural diffusion• Capitalism• Inequalities

• Uneven distribution of wealth• Gender issue• Identity issue• Overpopulation• Social problems

• So on…

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GLOBALIZATION

• Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) forms part of the infrastructure of globalization in finance, capital mobility and export-oriented business activity, transnational communication, migration, travel and civil society interactions.

Global advertising expenditures 39 billion $ -in 1950

256 billion $ - in 1990

GLOBALIZATION

• Between 1840-1960, nation states were the leading format of political organization worldwide,

• From 1960s, regionalization has come into the picture as a significant dynamic; ex: EU.

• Over time, state authority has been leaking upward- internationalization of states.

What is the scope for state authority in contemporary globalization?

• The role is different for different kind of states ; large or small, central or peripheral, advanced or developing.

• A need for public sector reform in most of the states with globalization.

• The accompanying growth of market forces has led governments from local to national levels to attract foreign investment, infrastructure development and place marketing.

Does globalization foster democratization through transnational demonstration effects, growing human

rights awareness, and civic activism across borders, or do the economic effects of globalization, by fostering

social inequality?

• Extremely unequal income and wealth distribution over the world, with the effect of globalization.

• Video.

Globalization from sociological perspective

• Globalization is an objective, empirical process of increasing economic and political connectivity, a subjective process unfolding in consciousness as the social awareness of global interconnectedness, and a host of specific globalization projects that seek to shape global conditions.

TRANSNATIONALISM

• A term that is closely related to globalization Processes that interconnect individuals and social groups across specific geopolitical borders.

TRANSNATIONALITYThe rise of new communities and formation of new social identities and relations that cannot be defined through the traditional reference point of nation-states.

• Globalization and transnationalism are often used interchangeably, but transnationalism is more delimited process.

• Transnationalism is most often used in thinking about immigrants who move from one country to another, but who continue to be involved in various ways with their home country.

• For ex: Soccer is a global sport, while baseball is a transnational sport.

Some metaphors to understand globalization

• Solid, Liquid, Gas• Solidity: People, things, information and places

‘harden’ over time and therefore have limited mobility.

• Solidity of materials: stone tablets, newpapers,magazines,books. (solidity of information before high-tech and internet)

• Solidity of places: Mountains, rivers, oceans (solid natural)

Walls, gates, borders (humanly constructed)

Solid to Liquid or even to Gas

• With the developments on transportation, communication and the Internet; people, objects and information can move across global more easily.

• Much of the information now available instantly around the world wafts through the air in the form of signals beamed of satellites.

• Time in a liquid world, more important than space.• Best example: Global Finance

Liquidity of New Age

• Eventhough globalization means more liquidity of everything, solid structures survive in the world.

• The most important solid structure is nation-state.

The idea of Flows• Another key concept in thinking about globalization.• Movement of people, things, information, and

places due, in part, to the increasing porosity of global barriers.

• For ex: Food flows, sushi from Japan becoming globalized all over the world.

• A different kind of flow: Migrants• Ideas, images, information, both legal and illegal, flow

everywhere through interpersonal contact and the media, via internet, because of their immeteriality.

Types of Flows

• Interconnected flows: Global flows that interconnect at different points and times.

• Multi-directional flows: All sorts of things flowing in every conceivable direction among many points in the world.

• Conflicting flows: Transplanetary processes that conflict with one another.

• Reverse flows: Processes which, while flowing in one direction, act back on their source.

Does globalization hop rather than flow?

• The world is characterized by great inequality. • Therefore, all flows do not go everywhere in

the world and, even when they do, they make different effects.

*James Ferguson’s work on Africa.• Globalization may hop rather than flow in

some areas.

Some metaphors to understand globalization

• Heavy, Light, Weightless• Example: Music records, then cassettes, then

CDs, then ipods, cell phones. (heavy to light)

Heavy Structures on the World

• Trade agreements, regulatory agencies, borders, customs barriers, standards and so on..

• European Union- a structure to control global flows.

• Labor unions- a structure to control migrant flow

• IMF, WTO, World Bank- Financial structures to control global economy.

Some metaphors to understand globalization

• Structure, Process.• Thinking about globalization in terms of

processes gives it the kind of dynamism that we all know it has and that offers profound insights into it and the ways in which it works.

• Structures: Nation-states, multi-national corporations.