UNIT 3: CONTEMPORARY FORMS OF CONNECTIVITY

LESSON 9: Media and Globalization

Introduction:

In the previous lessons, it is given that globalization is a process which is currently occurring
as of now. On its impact, it is easily seen in culture and technology. With the movies from
Hollywood and Pop songs from South Korea that circulates across the globe, people now can
explore various cultures and way of living in the world. The development of technology even
made way for more accessible in food industry. Foods from the other country is not anymore
exclusive to them such as McDonalds from United States dominates the world food chain
and the obsession to South Korean’s Samgyeopsal. In this lesson, we tackle more of the
development of media and culture in the globalizing world.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this lesson students must be able to:

1. Analyze how global integration form through various media

2. Explain the process between local and global cultural production
3. Derive cultural consumption and consumer pattern from the impact of
globalization in media

Sections of the Lesson:

1. What is media?
2. What is global village and imagined community?
3. Impact of globalization in media and culture

It can be true that globalization fueled the spread of values culture, but it can also be true
that via media, globalization was pushed through. By any means, such as oral, script, print,
electronic, and digital, media influenced globalization and even the way of living of the
people. With the invention of the television, people start sitting around their homes just
watching the pictures and stories across the globe. The global village, an imagined
community, emerged merely because of the television. People start seeing how other people
live, eat, or work as if we knew everyone without seeing each other face to face. They
imagined themselves acting the things other people do. Since then, the interaction of
cultures was intensified than ever before. Lule (2012) claimed that we cannot imagine
globalization occurring without the media which is crucial to human life

What is media?
Media, as defined by Lule (2014), is “a means of conveying something, such as a channel of
communication”. Medium is the plural word and it is the technologies of mass communication. As we
have mentioned above, globalization enabled the large amount of interaction of cultures and it tends
to influence each other. In the Globalization and Culture: Global Mélange of Jan Nederveen Pieterse
(2004: 41–58 cited in Lule, 2014) argues that there are actually three aspects to consider the influence
of globalization on culture:

 Cultural differentialism - suggests that cultures are different, strong, and resilient. It can
suggest that cultures are destined to clash as globalization continually brings them together
 Cultural convergence - suggests that globalization will bring about a growing sameness of
cultures. A global culture, likely American culture, some fear, will overtake many local cultures,
which will lose their distinctive characteristics.
o ‘cultural imperialism’, in which the cultures of more developed nations ‘invade’ and
take over the cultures of less developed nations. (homogenized)
 Cultural hybridity – suggests that globalization will bring about an increasing blending or
mixture of cultures.

With the greater amount of interaction of cultures due to globalization, the term glocalization existed.
It specifies for the media and globalization as the facts of life in local cultures (Lule, 2014).

What is global village and imagined community?

Media’s role in glocalization

 Site – i.e. American Idol

 Agents – i.e. KPop music spread globally through television, radios and magazines, Philippine
starts producing girl/boy band group
 Korean song’s fame from Psy’s Gangnam Style craze

Surely, local culture was the result of multiple interactions with the other previous culture. Influencing
the local culture, in the times of globalization, is inevitable.

Impact of globalization in media and culture

How media affect societies?

• Extend and amputate human senses – dulled our capacity to remember because of digital
development; with this development, people can now communicate easily but with lesser
intimacy.
• Creation of “global village”
• Homogenization of culture – as culture tend to homogenize, the spread of dominant culture (e.g.
American hegemony could create cultural imperialism where their values and culture is spread
and even manifested in consumer patterns nowadays as if it was dictated by the Americans to
them.)
o Cultural imperialism is criticized because consumers/audiences are active participants
and stressed that they are not passive thinkers in accepting/watching media
messages. Also, not all of the popculture refers to American culture, such as Hello
Kitty, Pokemon, and Korean novelas, this was due to Renewed strength of regional
trends in the globalization process.
• Democratization of access – knowledge can now easily access even using a smart phone.
• “Cyberbalkanization” – eco chambers (e.g. people tend to make their own world by hiding some
post from their news feed. With this, people prevent other users from listening to or opinions and
information that challenges their viewpoints, thus, making them more close-minded as if they are
placed in a chamber. This can even manipulate political events manifested in the film The Great
Hack which discussed how Trump organization influenced voters through Facebook algorithms.