Advertising and Public Relations, Kang Ha Eun
To introduce meaning and character of 'cultural globalization', this article first describes the defining features of the two terms: culture, and globalization.
Beginning with globalization, the author mentioned that it is a multidimensional process which occurs within the broad field of the economy, politics, technology, environmental change, and culture. Globalization also has to do with the increasing global connectivity. The network of interconnections and interdependencies is getting denser. Moreover, this process is accelerating in a modern world. Now, increasing connectivity can be said as part of our daily lives. Connectivity connotes both our use of communication technologies and perplexing urban environments. There is no doubt that we are living in a much more globally connected world today. All dimensions are important in the global world, but the most crucial element can be the economy for the world is mostly dominated by a capitalist system. However, according to the author, we have to resist the temptation to economic reductionism because it works on just a narrow idea of the economic and, it distorts the understanding of the area of culture.
The common phrase like 'the impact of globalization on culture' or 'the cultural consequences of globalization' implies the assumption that globalization is somewhat lying outside of the culture. This idea of cultural globalization comes out from cultural imperialism. In that concept, the culture seems to be passive: something that people experience but do not themselves produce. According to Clifford Geertz, culture is not a power, something to which social events can be causally attributed." However, to the question 'what is culture for?' it could be rather right to say that it is to generate meaning in life. Culture motivates people to make certain choices and actions. To understand cultural globalization, we have to think about how culturally informed local actions can have globalizing consequences. As the sum of individual actions consists the social institutions and has the power to govern our lives, it is important to understand, as a part, the globalized market and consumer activities.
To sum up, culture can be said as a dimension which globalization has an impact on but also the background which globalization is generated and shaped.
Globalization process seems to lead the world to a single global culture, as it seems to have a general unifying character among diverse dimensions. Therefore it is by no means surprising that there are assumptions that cultural globalization implies a form of cultural imperialism and claims that globalization is pushing people to make a 'global culture' However, increasing global connectivity doesn't necessarily mean that the world is economically or politically unified. There is an anxiety toward 'a kind of totalitarianism of culture': the total domination of world cultures by the iconic global brands such as Disney and Coca-Cola. But we have to distinguish between cultural goods and practice of culture. Thus, connectivity of globalization brings disparate cultures into closer contact, not installing Western culture as a global culture.
Another aspect of globalization is 'deterritorialization'. The promising way of approaching cultural globalization is via understanding the effects of globalization. The globalization is changing our local lives most of us are living. This change can be explained by the idea of deterritorialization. According to Nestor Garcia Canclini, deterritorialization implies 'the loss of the natural relation of culture to geographical and social territories.' This means that the importance of the geographical location of a culture is becoming smaller. Thus, the culture is no longer tied to the limitations of locality. If the globalization is described as the diffusion of social economic connections throughout the world, deterritorialization can be explained as the reach of the connectivity into the local everyday life. Local culture is no longer constrained in its region. Deterritorialization can integrate distant culture into our daily lives and it can be felt in everyday practices. Of course, it can transform our local experience, it opens wider cultural horizons to the people, so events happening in the distant world is getting more and more significant. So it can be said that deterritorialization promotes the cultural openness.
Cosmopolitan cultural politics is the attempt to reconcile the values of a different culture with the global-human community. However, this has a dilemma of universal human rights versus cultural difference. Considering cultural identity, it is the aspect of differentiating, institutionalizing and socially regulating nature of modern life. Globalization has been having an impact on creation and proliferation of cultural identity. People who regard identity as existential possession, rather than noticing its institutional features, tend to think of globalization as a threat to cultural identity. But, those who think like that are making a mistake of confusing Western-modern form of cultural imagination with a universal form of human experience.
INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
Most interesting fact I learned from this article is the new perspective of viewing a relationship between culture and globalization. Before reading this article, I just thought that globalization has an impact on cultural dimension. But the fact that "culture is a dimension in which globalization both has its effects and simultaneously is generated and shaped" was very interesting because culture seemed like a much more active dimension than I thought. Moreover, compared to last article emphasizing globalization's impact on economic sphere, this article dealt more with our daily cultural life with the question like "what is culture for?".
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION
Throughout this article, many scholars have insisted that the western culture has more power on globalization, but is it true? It seems that nowadays, different cultures have an impact on a different part of the culture. For example, Korean Bingsu became a globally popular dessert. Additionally, what makes local culture globally popular?
I saw one student commenting on the cultural superiority of western culture, but as I mentioned above, I don't think western culture is not "always" superior to the rest of the world nowadays. There are many examples showing it is not. Like music, foods, and festivals.
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