The thematic landscape traversed by scholars of cultural globalization is vast and the questions they raise are too numerous to be fleshed out in this short introduction. Rather than offering a long laundry list of relevant topics, this chapter will focus on four important themes: the crucial role of transnational media corporations in disseminating popular culture; the globalization of languages; and the impact of materialist and consumerist values on our planet’s ecological systems.
Global culture: sameness or difference
Does globalization make people around the world more alike or more different? This is the questions most frequently raised in discussions on the subject of cultural globalization. A group of commentators we might call a pessimistic hyperglobalizers’ argue in favour of the former. They suggest that we are not moving towards a cultural rainbow that reflects the diversity of the world’s existing cultures. Rather, we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenized popular culture underwritten by a western culture industry based in New York, Hollywood, London, and Milan. As evidence for their interpretation, these commentators point to Amazonian Indians wearing Nike training shoes, denizens of the Southern Sahara purchasing Texaco baseball caps, and Palestinian youths proudly displaying their Chicago Bulls sweatshirts in downtown Ramallah. Referring to the diffusion of anglo-American values and consumer goods as the Americanization of the world , the proponents of this cultural homogenization thesis argue that western norms and lifestyles are overwhelming more vulnerable cultures. Although there have been serious attempts by some countries to resist these force of cultural imperialism ‘- for example , a ban on satellite dishes in Iran, and the French imposition of tariffs and quotas on imported film and television – the American popular culture seems to be unstoppable.
But these manifestations of sameness are also evident inside the dominant countries of the global North. American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term McDonaldization to describe the wide-ranging sociocultural processes by which the principles of the fast- food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world. On the surface, these principles appear to be rational in their attempts to offer efficient and preditable ways of serving people’s needs. However, lo high looking behind the façade of repetitive TV commercials that claim to love to see you smile we can identify a number of serious problems. For one, the generally low nutritional value of fast-food meals-and particularly their high fat content-has been implicated in the rise of serious health problems such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and juvenile obesity. Moreover, the impersonal, routine operations of rational fast-service establishments actually undermine expressions of forms of cultural diversity. In the long run, the McDonaldization of the world amounts to the imposition of uniform standards that eclipse human creativity and dehumanize social relations.
Perhaps the most thoughtful analyst in this group of pessimistic hyperglobalizers is American political theorist Benjamin Barber. In his popular book on the subject, he warns his readers against the หน้า71