Module 1:
Introduction to Popular
Culture
Defining Culture
The
01 Handout 01:
Globalization
Basic Characterization of a ‘Globalized’
World
▪ Process of interaction and
integration between two or more
nations/civilizations
▪ Transfer of goods (commodities)
from one place to another
▪ Economic and cultural influences
Modern/Contemporary
Globalization
▪ [P]olicy and technological
developments…spurred increases in cross-
border trade, investment, and migration
▪ Investments are now at billion dollars (1999:
$827B)
▪ Thomas Friedman: globalization is “farther,
faster, cheaper, and deeper”
Globalization Drivers:
Policy
▪ Adoption of Free-Market economic systems
▪ Reductions in barriers to commerce and
establishment of international agreements
▪ International industrial and financial
business structures
▪ Setting of Universal Standards
Globalization Drivers:
Technology
▪ Drastic transformations in economic
transactions and conduct of business
▪ Faster and more informed analyses of economic
trends around the world
▪ Easy transfer of assets
▪ Real-time collaboration with far-flung
partners
Unfettered international free market has
benefited multinational companies and is
blamed for unequal economic
development among countries
01 Handout 02:
Approaches to the Study of
Globalization
What exactly is Globalization?
▪ There is no consensus as to what globalization is and there
are those who doubt its existence.
▪ Disproportionate intellectual influence reflects not only
existing power relations in the world, but also the global
dominance of Anglo-American ideas.
▪ Various scholars have approached the concept of
globalization by analyzing and describing a variety of
changing economic, political, and cultural processes that
are alleged to have accelerated since the 1970s
James Rosenau’s ‘Fragmegrative
Dynamics’
‘[U]nderscore the contradictions, ambiguities,
complexities, and uncertainties that have
replaced the regularities of prior epochs’
What exactly is Globalization?
Manfred Steger:
[S]ocial-Scientific approaches…ought to be complemented by
interpretive explorations of the ideational and normative
dimensions of globalization.
Globalization as
‘Globaloney’
▪ A small and rapidly decreasing number of
scholars contend that existing accounts of
globalization are incorrect, imprecise, or
exaggerated.
▪ 3 groups of thinkers are critical of the
concept of globalization
Rejectionists
▪ Dismisses the utility of
globalization comparing the
concept to similarly vague words
like nationalism.
▪ The term could basically mean
anything and everything.
▪ Robert Holton: abandon all general
theoretical analyses in favor of
middle-range approaches
▪ Identify and evaluate the
ideological maneuvers of
prominent proponents and
opponents
Sceptics
▪ Emphasizes the limited nature of current
globalizing processes
▪ Hirst and Thompson: world economy is not
a truly global phenomenon, but one
centered on Europe, eastern Asia, and
North America
Sceptics
▪ Hirst and Thompson: Without a
truly global economic
system…there can be no such thing
as globalization.
Modifiers
▪ The label globalization has often
been applied in a historically
imprecise manner.
▪ Robert Gilpin: World economy in
late 1990s is even less integrated
than it was prior to WW1
Periphery countries supply
core countries with cheap
World System Theory labor and resources, while core
countries reap majority of the
profits. In this way, an unequal
exchange of capital from
politically weak regions to
politically strong regions
occurs.
Semi-peripheral states have a
mix of core and periphery
production, and are under
constant pressure to prevent
themselves from slipping into
the periphery, while
simultaneously attempting to
advance towards the core
status
Karl Marx Immanuel Wallerstein Andre Gunder Frank
Modern capitalist economy in which we live today has been global since its inception
five centuries ago. Globalizing tendencies have been proceeding along the continuum of
modernization for a long time.
Ash Amin
The criticism of globalization as a new phenomenon has
been based on quantitative analyses of trade and output that
neglect the qualitative shift in social and political relations.
Leslie Sklair
highlights the importance of what he calls ‘the ‘culture-
ideology of global consumerism’
Globalization as an
Economic Process
▪ The evolution of international
markets and corporations led to an
intensified form of global
interdependence.
▪ Globalization [is] a real
phenomenon that signals an
epochal transformation in world
affairs
Globalization as an
Economic Process
▪ issue of free trade
▪ 2 important aspects of economic
globalization:
1. changing nature of the production process
2. liberalization and internationalization of
financial transactions
1.changing nature of the
production process
2. liberalization and
internationalization of
financial transactions
Globalization as an
Economic Process
▪ powerful transnational corporations
(TNCs)
▪ increasingly deregulated global
labor market
▪ availability of cheap labor,
resources, and favorable production
conditions in the Third World
enhanced both the mobility and the
profitability of TNCs
Globalization as Political
Process
Government
▪ Challenges the fate of the modern nation-
state
Territory
Nation People
▪ Understand the political causes for the
massive flows of capital, money, and
State technology across territorial boundaries
▪ economic globalization might be leading to
the reduced control of national
governments over economic policy
Sovereignty
▪ growing impact of intergovernmental
organizations, and the prospects for global
governance
Richard Langhorne
‘Globalization has happened because technological advances
have broken down many physical barriers to worldwide
communication which used to limit how much connected or
cooperative activity of any kind could happen over long
distances.’
Kenichi Ohmae (1st perspective: end of the nation state thesis)
Projecting the rise of a ‘borderless world’ brought on by the
irresistible forces of capitalism…political order of the future will
be one of regional economies linked together
Jan Aart Scholte (2nd perspective: politics is the crucial
category upon which rests a proper understanding of
globalization)
If concrete political decisions were responsible for changing
the international context in the direction of deregulation,
privatization, and the globalization of the world economy,
then different political decisions could reverse the trend in
the opposite direction
John Gray (3rd perspective: globalization is fueled by a mixture
of political and technological factors)
Current political efforts to establish a single global market “will
make international cooperation more difficult. … As global
laissez-faire breaks up, a deepening international anarchy is the
likely human prospect.’
Manuel Castells (3rd perspective: globalization is fueled by a
mixture of political and technological factors)
three independent processes: ‘The information technology
revolution; the economic crisis of both capitalism and
statism, and their subsequent restructuring; and the
blooming of cultural social movements.’ … continued
relevance of nation-states as crucial bargaining agencies
Martin Shaw (4th perspective: global governance)
emphasizes the role of global political struggles in creating a
‘global revolution’ that would give rise to an internationalized,
rights-based Western state conglomerate symbolically linked
to global institutions…state formation beyond the national
level
David Held and Anthony McGrew (4th perspective: global
governance)
inherent in the globalization process that seems to favor the
strengthening of supranational bodies and the rise of an
international civil society…democratic rights will ultimately
become detached from their narrow relationship to discrete
territorial units (cosmopolitan democracy)
Criticisms against the 4th view:
abstract idealism that fails to engage with current political developments on the level of
policy... the possibility of resistance, opposition, and violent clashes becomes just as real
as the cosmopolitan vision of mutual accommodation and tolerance of differences
Globalization as Cultural
Process
▪ First, does globalization increase
cultural homogeneity, or does it
lead to greater diversity and
heterogeneity? (Are we becoming
more alike or more different?)
▪ Second, how does the dominant
culture of consumerism impact the
natural environment?
John Tomlinson
defines cultural globalization as a ‘densely growing network
of complex cultural interconnections and interdependencies
that characterize modern social life’. He emphasizes that
global cultural flows are directed by powerful international
media corporations that utilize new communication
technologies to shape societies and identities.
Culture no longer remains tied to fixed localities… [and]
reflect dominant themes emerging in a global context
George Ritzer and Benjamin Barber
rise of an increasingly homogenized global culture
(Americanization and cultural imperialism)
Ritzer’s McDonaldization: leads to the eclipse of cultural diversity
and the dehumanization of social relations. Barber’s McWorld:
soulless consumer capitalism that is rapidly transforming the
world's diverse population into a blandly uniform market
Barber sees jihad as the ‘rabid response
to colonialism and imperialism and
their economic children, capitalism and
modernity’.
Roland Robertson
global cultural flows often reinvigorate local cultural
niches…localities produce a variety of unique cultural
responses to global forces. Often referred to as
‘hybridization’ or ‘creolization’, the processes of cultural
mixing are reflected in music, film, fashion, language, and
other forms of symbolic expression.
Jan Nederveen Pieterse
exploring ‘hybridity’ amounts to ‘mapping no man's land’…hybridity
concept 'does not preclude struggle but yields a multifocus view on
struggle and by showing multiple identity on both sides, transcends the
“us versus them” dualism that prevails in cultural and political arenas’
globalization is both a material and a mental condition
Arjun Appadurai
identifies five conceptual dimensions or ‘landscapes’ that
are constituted by global cultural flows:
ethnoscapes (shifting populations made up of tourists,
immigrants, refugees, and exiles),
technoscapes(development of technologies that
facilitate the rise of TNCs),
finanscapes (flows of global capital),
mediascapes(electronic capabilities to produce and
disseminate information), and
ideoscapes (ideologies of states and social movements)
Arjun Appadurai
Suspended in a global web of cultural multiplicity, more and more people become aware of
the density of human relations. Their enhanced ability to explore and absorb new cultural
symbols and meanings coexists in uneasy tension with their growing sense of
‘placelessness’
The two most ominous ecological problems connected to the global spread of consumer
culture are human-induced global climate change, such as global warming, and the
worldwide destruction of biodiversity.
Conclusions
▪ there exists a variety of
approaches to the subject, but no
scholarly agreement on a single
conceptual framework for the
study of globalization
▪ Hans-Georg Gadamer: the
motivations and prejudices of the
interpreter condition every act of
understanding.
