Globalization & Getting a handle Essay

We cannot overstate the effects of the trend of globalization on our thinking, culture and the media. From the television ads and shows, our style of dressing and the way we converse and communicate with each other in our own country and people from overseas. What is this phenom that we call globalization? How does it affect us now and in the future? What are its benefits as well as its drawbacks? This paper will try to put a body, a face if you will, on the globalization trend. II. DEFINITIONS: Globalization refers to† increasing global connectivity, integration and interdependence in the social, economic, technological cultural, political and ecological spheres. † It can also be defined as a â€Å"comprehensive term for the emergence of a global society in which economic, political, environmental and cultural events in one part of the world quickly come to have significance in other parts of the world†. Now basing from the definitions given, it can mean that globalization can come to mean a trend toward the interconnectivity or interdependence on one another even if we are in two different places. This is its basic concept that is to establish more and better lines by which the world can be bought together in ever increasing ways and means. Now for the questions on how this trend affects the media industry, we can just take a look at the Internet. This system is ready at hand to connect different peoples and cultures with the touch of a button, as it can connect us more swiftly rather than the traditional modes of communication. III. THE EFFECTS ON THE FILM, RADIO AND TELEVISION INDUSTRIES: The entertainment industry have focused their energies on the larger overseas markets for the sale and the promotion of their current offerings, movies, radio shows, television shows have already become a staple in some countries that these have seemed to replace the local industries for the share for the slice of the local market in that country. At the core of the entertainment industry-film, music, television-there is a growing dominance of U. S. products. It can be seen in most parts of the world, products such as KFC, McDonalds or Coca- Cola just to name a few of the transnational companies doing business in other nations aside form the local market. These companies shop around other countries that have lower costs for doing business, thus spurring the local employment and talent pool from those countries to adapt their educational and training pools to the needs of the incoming foreign investors. Some companies, for example, America Online and Time Warner merged to form AOL Time, matching AOL’s Internet businesses and Time’s massive holdings in media, entertainment and news concerns. More and more of these companies ten to look overseas to promote their products and services abroad. But while the trend is focusing on global interconnectivity, that in our modern day environment, time and distance are a negligible factor in terms of dispensing media to other parts of the world. According to Professor Kalyani Chadha at the Philip Merill College of Journalism; â€Å"While popular rhetoric suggest that we live in an increasingly interconnected globalized world in which time and space have collapsed and media experiences are increasingly uniform, the reality is often different†¦ Media systems in different countries continue to be characterized by significant differences in press and broadcasting laws, business and economic structure, access to technology and to nature of journalistic practices, resulting often in variations in both content and perspective. † In a nutshell, it is saying that what may be true and acceptable in other countries and regions might not be acceptable, even palatable in some others. The difference may stem from the traditional as well as the cultural background in the country itself or in some belief system that this particular society holds. But in the discussion of the trend of globalization, the problem herein lies in the fact that in the march for interconnectivity, some of these traditions might have to give way. IV. EFFECTS ON CULTURE: The Webster’s Third New International Dictionary defines culture as the â€Å"the total pattern of human behavior and its products embodied in speech, action and artifacts and dependent upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations† Thus, cultural globalization can thus be defined as the worldwide cultural standardization. Also, it can refer to the postcolonial culture, cultural pluralism and â€Å"hybridization†, or bringing two or more cultures together to create a new one. In the picture of globalization, we must recognize that the global view will effect the change in the cultural standings of some nations. In the long run of things, we must be resigned to the fact that some of these traditions must give way. Remember that globalization is linked to affecting the global community concept, a â€Å"global village†, if you permit the phrase. ( Marshall McLuhan popularized this belief to highlight his observations that an electronic nervous system ( the media) was rapidly integrating the planet—events in one part of the world could be experienced from other parts in real-time, which is the human experience was like when we lived in small villages). In this â€Å"village†, everybody was with the same beliefs and held to the same traditions, at least most of the time. But in the set up of the globalization concept, those beliefs and traditions sometimes, if not most of the time, have to give way to the establishment of a unified set of beliefs from a strong or stronger source. That is cultural hegemony, wherein the stronger or predominant influence will produce ways of thinking and seeing, and especially eliminating alternative views to reinforce the status quo, meaning the status quo of the more predominant influence. Some people fear a loss of cultural diversity as U. S. companies become dominant. Such companies tend to â€Å"bundle† their products, meaning they ship their products in wholesale form. Movies, television shows audio products all come into the local market and compete with the local industry, thus competing for the attention of that market. These tend to replace local alternatives. This would explain in part the prevalence of the media especially the visual media to promote their advertisements in other countries without thinking of the sensibilities that the ad might be offending. Video games and television games flash ever more violent images that seem to engross kids from many nations that were not ready to absorb these kinds of media. All day long, hey would sit in front of the television and just either stare at the monitor watching these violent shows and absorb the values of the characters of the shows’ characters or sit endlessly at video games and get in to the violence that these game icons display. Local culture and social culture are now shaped by large and powerful commercial interests that earlier anthropologists could not have imagined. Early anthropologists thought of societies and their cultures as fully independent systems. But today, many nations are multicultural societies, composed of numerous subcultures. These subcultures are present and very visible to us, in the forms of food, clothes and even in the places that we often frequent. Rarely do we don’t see that in any of the places that we go, there is not one member of these subcultures that we don’t come across. And we tend to borrow these things, if you will, in the way that we prepare our food, the way we buy our clothes and shoes and other accessories, in our choice of products that seem to satisfy our craving to be what the television stars portray on camera. The values that seem to be displayed out there want to look like them, that we can somehow imitate the way they look to be what these companies want us to believe to be acceptable. People are therefore more biased in the products that they purchase or services that they get for themselves so the image that is bought in to them are to look like the people they see. The transnational companies can manipulate the way that people think of themselves also by making us think that standards have to be met in order for us to be acceptable, or part of what is acceptable in the eyes of the global society as a whole. In short, they dictate what constitutes the â€Å"good life†. For example, if you don’t have a certain kind of piece of clothing such a shirt or pair of sneakers, you’re supposed to feel left out of the loop. Or, in the case that you still wear a shirt that is not in fashion, and this is still dictated by the multinational companies abroad, you’re still going to be left out. Or if you don’t drive a certain brand of car or model of that car, it’s an antique they’ll say. In many instances, this trend of cultural globalization tends to make us want these companies say that we have to be to be happy. From whatever the products or producers say, is what we have been conditioned to think, that these are the keys to be living it up. It is argued that one of the consequences of globalization will be the end of cultural diversity, and the triumph of uni-polar culture serving the needs of transnational corporations. Hence, the world drinks Coca-Cola, watches American movies and eats American junk food.