LESSON 8: GLOBAL MEDIA CULTURE

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs):

a. Analyze how various media drive various forms of global integration; and
b. Explain the dynamics between local and global cultural production.

MEDIA DEFINED
According to Lule (2014), the word media are tools used to store and deliver
information or data. The term is used synonymously with mass media, but it can also refer
to a single medium used to communicate any data for any purpose. Technically, any
vehicle through which we receive information can be considered. For example, one of
the definitions of medium is a means or channel of communication or expression

When people use media today, however, they are usually referring to the mass,
which traditionally has included print journalist, radio and television. The term mass media
simple refers to the technological instruments through which communication flows.
Televisions and newspapers are examples of mass media which have entertainment,
news, and educational programming.

EVOLUTION OF MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION

In the study of globalization, there are five time periods that usefully capture the
study of globalization and media: oral and script, print, electronic, and digital.

Each different time periods as stated by Lule (2014) points out how the media of each
time period contributed to the globalization of the world. The focus of the discussion is
not how much media progress but how media and globalization have developed
sporadically, erratically, in fit and starts, driven by human needs, desires and actions,
resulting in great benefits and sometimes greater harm. The history of media and
globalization id the history of humanity itself.

▪ Oral Communication
Speech is often the most overlooked medium in histories of globalization. Yet the oral
medium-human-speech-is the oldest and most enduring of all media. Over hundreds of
thousands of years, despite humorous changes undergone by human and their societies,
the very first and last human will share at least one thing-ability to speak.

▪ Script
This is the stage that explores the brief transaction from the oral form of
communication to printing. Distance and time are the factors to be considered. As
communication travels on distant places and different period of times. There emerges
problem and difficulties because language relies on the capacity of our memory and
scientifically we know that memory of people also expires and transmission message may
not reach the level of accuracy.

▪ The Printing Press

Prior to the printing press, the production and copying of written documents was slow,
cumbersome, and expensive. The papyrus parchment, and paper that spread
civilizations were the province of a select powerful few. Reading and writing too, were
practices of the ruling and religious elite.

▪ Electronic Media
Lule (2014) narrates the beginning of the electronic media. He said in the 13th century,
a host of new media would revolutionize the ongoing process of globalization. Scholars
have come to call these electric media because they require electromagnetic energy.
The vast reach of this electronic media continues to open up new vistas in the economic,
political and cultural process of globalization.

▪ Digital Media
Digital media as Lule (2014) states are more often electronic media that rely on digital
codes-the long arcane combination of 0s and Is that represent information. Many of our
earlier media such as phones and televisions can be now as digital.

GLOBAL VILLAGE
Campbell, et al. (2010) discusses about Mcluhan, in his book “The Guttenburg
Galaxy” (1964), Mcluhan claimed that “The new” electronic interdependence recreates
the world in the image of a global village”. The metaphor evokes a time long since past
when people live in villages where they have relatively equal access to public
information, since this information was distributed by the town crier, whose voice reached
everyone.

The metaphor of the global village also broke down at the level of communication
exchanges. The original village allowed people to receive and send information. There
was the opportunity to ask questions, to engage in a dialogue, both with the town crier
and with other members of the village. And by promoting the conceptual foundation of
the world’s market economy. Economic globalization, from this perspective is not just
dollars and cents, but story and myth-narratives that make natural the buying and selling
products across borders and boundaries and mythic celebrations of products and
consumption.

MEDIA AND ECONOMIC GLOBALIZATION

The media have been essential to the growth of economic globalization in our
world. Indeed, the media have made the economic globalization possible by creating
the conditions for global capitalism.

MEDIA AND POLITICAL GLOBALIZATION

Globalization has transformed world politics in profound ways. It led to the
formation and then the overthrow of kingdoms and empires. It led to the creation of the
nation-state. And now some argue that the nation-state is being weakened as people
and borders become ever more fluid in our globalized world.

Of utmost importance, through media corporations are themselves powerful

political actors, individual journalist is subject to brutal and intense intimidation as more
actors contend for power. There has never been a more dangerous time to work in
media.

MEDIA AND CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION

According to Lule (2010), the media on one media, on the level, are the primary
carriers of culture. Through newspapers, magazines, movies, advertisements, television,
radio, the Internet, and the other forms, the media produce and display cultural
products, form pop songs to top films. They also generate numerous and ongoing
interactions among cultures, such as when American hip hop music is heard by Cuban
youth. Yet, the media are much more than technology more than mechanical
conveyors of culture, more than simple carriers of editorial cartoons or McDonald’s
advertisements.

The media are people. These are people active economic agents and aggressive
political lobbyist on matters on culture. They market brands aggressively. They seek out
new markets worldwide for their cultural products. They actively bring about interactions
of culture for beauty, power and profit.

As the globalization has increased the frequency of contact among cultures., the
world has been given another awkward term-globalization. In this perspective, the media
and the globalization are facts of life in local cultures. But local culture is not static and
fixed local culture is not pliable and weak. Awaiting and fearing contact from the
outside.
 LESSON 9: THE GLOBALIZATION OF
RELIGION
Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs):
a. Explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs; and
b. Analyze the relationship between religion and global conflicts, and conversely
and global peace.

Introduction:
Generally, globalization is first thought of “in economic and political term” as a
movement of capitalism spreading across the globe. It calls to mind “homogenizing”
exports of the US such as Nike, McDonald’s and MTV. However, since globalization can
be defined as a process of an “ever more interdependent world´ where political,
economic, social, and cultural relationships are not restricted to territorial boundaries or
to state actors, globalization has much do with its impact on cultures.

As goods and finance crisscross across the globe, globalization shifts the cultural
make-up of the globe. And creates homogenized “global culture”. Although not a new
phenomenon, the process of globalization has truly made the world a smaller place in
which political, social and economic events elsewhere affects individual anywhere. As a
result, individuals “search for constant time and space-bounded identities” in a world
ever changing by the day. One such identity is religion.

RELIGION
Generally, religion is a system of beliefs and practices. More specifically the word
comes from the Latin “religare” which means “to bind together again that which was
once bound but has since been torn apart or broken. Indeed, with the globalization of
economics and politics, individual feel insecure “as the life they once led is being
contested and changed at the same time”. Hence, in order for a person to maintain
sense of psychological well-being and avoid existential anxiety. Individuals turn to
scripture stories and teachings that provide a vision about how they can be bound to a
meaningful world, a world that is quickly changing day-by-day.

MOST WIDELY PRACTICED RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD

According to Juan (2006), there are about 4,300 religions of the world. This is
according to adherents, an independent, non-religiously affiliated organization that
monitors the number and size of the world’s religions.

Side-stepping the issue of what constitutes a religion, adherents divides religions

into churches, denominations, congregations, religious bodies, faith groups, tribes,
cultures and movements. All are of varying size and influence.

Nearly 75 percent of the world’s population practices one of the five most
influential religions of the world: Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism.
Christianity and Islam are the two religions most widely spread across the world. These
two religions together cover the religious affiliation of more than half of the world’s
population. If all non-religious people formed a single religion. It would be the world’s
third largest.

One of the most widely-held myths among those in English-speaking countries is

that Islamic believers are Arabs. In fact, most Islamic people do not live in the
Arabic nations of the Middle East.

The world’s 20 largest religion and their number of believers.

1. Christianity (2.1 Billion)
2. Islam (1.3 Billion)
3. Nonreligous (Secular/Agnostic/Atheist) (1.1 Billion)
4. Hinduism (900 million)
5. Chinese Traditional Religion (394 million)
6. Buddhism (376 million)
7. Primal Indigenous (300 million)
8. African Traditional and Diasporic (100 million)
9. Sikhism (23 million)
10. Juche (19 million)
11. Spiritism (15 million)
12. Judaism (14 million)
13. Bahai (7 million)
14. Jainism (4.2 million)
15. Shinto (4 million)
16. Cao Dai (4 million)
17. Zoroastrianism (2.6 million)
18. Tenrikyo (2 million)
19. Neo-paganism (1 million)
20. Unitarian-Universalism (800,000)

RELIGION AND GLOBALIZATION

Religion and globalization persistently engage in a flexible relationship in which

the former relies on the latter in order to thrive and flourish while at the same time
challenging its (globalizations) hybridizing effects. Globalization-due to the advent of
communication and transportation technology and the roles played by the media. -
has contributed to the deterritorliazation and the blurring of geographical spaces and
boundaries. This has resulted apparently in making the world a small village where
people, cultures, and identities come in daily face-to-face contact with each other.

The relationship between globalization and religion characterizes new

possibilities and challenges. Religion has a lot of opportunities to use new strategies
brought about by modernization, i.e., communication and transportation technology.
With the increasing ease to travel long distance, people are able to travel to religious
sites; these pilgrimages are often very important for different religious traditions.
 According to El Azzouzi (2013) undoubtedly, religion is not immune from these
changes and their burgeoning effects brought about globalization.

Globalization has played a tremendous role in providing a context for the current
considerable revival and the resurgence of religion. Today, most religions are not
relegated to the few countries where they began. Religions have, in fact spread and
scattered on a global scale.

GLOBALIZATION ENGENDERING GREATER RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE

Globalization brings a culture of pluralism, meaning religions “with overlapping

but distinctive ethics and interests” interact with one another. Essentially, the world’s
leading religious traditions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam-teach
values such as human dignity, equality, freedom, peace, and solidarity. More
specifically, religions maintain the Golden Rule: “What you don’t wish done to yourself,
do not do to others”. Therefore, through such religious values, globalization engenders
greater religious tolerance in such areas as politics, economics and society.

CONFLICT AMONG WORLD RELIGIONS

As an effect of religious tolerance, globalization transform for the generic

“religion” into a world-system of competing and conflicting religions. This process of
institutional specialization has transformed local, diverse and fragmented cultural
practices into recognizable systems of religion. Globalization has therefore had the
paradoxical effect of making religions more self-conscious of themselves as being
“world religions” (Golebiewski, 2014).

Such conflicts among the world religions exhibit a solid proof among world religions
exhibit a solid proof conforming the erosion and the failure of hybridity. Since religions
have distinct internal structures, their connection to different worshipping ways and
practices as the case with Islam and Christianity, contradict and mostly incompatible to
other, such religions cannot be hybridized or homogenized, as it is claimed, though they
always come in contact.

Violence and discrimination against religious groups by governments and rival

faiths have reached new highs in all regions of the world except the Americas, according
to a new report by the Pew Research Centre.
Social hostility such as attacks on minority faiths or pressure to conform to certain norms
was strong in one-third of the 198 countries and territories surveyed in 2012, especially in
the Middle East and North Africa, it said on Tuesday.

Religious-related terrorism and sectarian violence occurred in one-fifth of those

countries in that year, while states imposed legal limits on worship, preaching or religious
wear in almost 30 percent of them, Pew said. “Religious hostilities increased in every major
region of the world except the Americas," Pew said in its report, the latest such survey in
a series based on data back to 2007.

The Washington-based center, which is non-partisan and takes no policy position

in its reports, gave no reason for the rises noted in hostility against Christians, Muslims, Jews
and an "other" category including Sikhs, Bah'ais and atheists.
Hindus, Buddhists and folk religions saw lower levels of hostility and little change in the
past six years, according to the report's extensive data.

As some restrictive countries such as China, Indonesia, Russia and Egypt also have
large populations, Pew estimated that 76 percent of the total global population faces
some sort of official or informal restriction on their faith. A report last week by the Christian
group Open Doors said documented cases of Christians killed for their faith last year had
doubled to 2,123 around the world, with Syria accounting for more than the entire global
total in 2012.

Results for strong social hostility such as anti-Semitic attacks, Islamist assaults on
churches and Buddhist agitation against Muslims were the highest seen since the series
began, reaching 33 percent of surveyed countries in 2012 after 29 percent in 2011 and
20 percent in mid-2007.
Official bans, harassment or other government interference in religion rose to 29 percent
of countries surveyed in 2012 after 28 percent in 2011 and 20 percent in mid-2007.
Europe showed the largest median increase in hostility due to a rise in harassment of
women because of religious dress and violent attacks on minorities such as the murder
of a rabbi and three Jewish children by an Islamist radical in France.

The report found the highest social hostility concerning religion in Pakistan,
Afghanistan, India, Somalia and Israel. It gave no reasons but radical Islamists often target
mainstream Muslims and Christians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia, while India has
recurring tensions between its majority Hindus and minority Muslims and Christians.
Tensions in Israel arise from the Palestinian issue, disagreements between secular and
religious Jews and the growth of ultra-Orthodox sects that live apart from the majority.
The five countries with the most government restrictions on religion are Egypt, China, Iran,
Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

The world's two largest faiths, Christianity and Islam, make up almost half the
world's population and were the most widely targetted in 2012, facing official and social
hostility in 110 and 109 countries respectively.
Jews suffer hostility in 71 countries, even though they make up only 0.2 percent of the
world's population and about 80 percent of them live in Israel and the United States.
 The report said there were probably more restrictions on religion around the world
than its statistics could document but its results could be considered "a good estimate".
It classified war and terrorism as social hostility, arguing: "It is not always possible to
determine the degree to which they are religiously motivated or state sponsored."
North Korea, which last week's Open Doors report described as the most dangerous
country for Christians in the world, was absent from the Pew study due to a lack of data
on its tightly closed society.