Cultural Globalization: The Pros And Cons Of Cultural Globalization

That this was also the decade in which globalization came into full swing is more than a minor inconvenience for its advocates” (Rodrick). If globalization is supposed to present an advantage to developing countries, why have there been so many setbacks? Indeed, both sides will have its winners and losers regardless of which side of the development coin they live on, but for the most part globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, improved the standard of living, and increased life expectancy rates all while keeping developed nations relatively competitive to their developing counterparts. Globalization’s value is that it seeks to create an economic equilibrium in the world, where parties are free from barriers and can benefit from one another through a more efficient allocation of resources. This allows all participating nations to contribute to an integrated economy and where all nations willing to embrace globalization have the potential to benefit. Regardless, the path to successful integration to the global economy has not always been easy. There is contention towards globalization as some argue that it is detrimental to developed nations, while many developing countries that were forced to hastily open up their markets and integrate failed. However, if implemented properly, globalization has proven that it can benefit all parties involved and that the potential gains outweigh the losses.

The improvement of the technology has led to the rate at which the exchange of information take place in very high rate and with it comes a high rate of cultural exchange. Moreover, this high-speed exchange of content, the market for media based content has also broadened (DeRosa, 2013). It has now become far much easier for people in a particular region to be exposed to new cultural experiences particularly through the media of film. Besides, the improvement of the technology in mass media, the consumers have also had an added advantage in the form of increased power of choice and are no longer confined to local content. This is an eventuality that has seen people exposed to other cultures, and this has been the basis for the new norm called cultural globalization (Yong Jin, 2012). However, with every positive gain, there are usually some element of drawbacks, and the situation with the improvement of media coverage through the improvement of technology has not been in any way different. The pointing case has been in the form of the element of domination of some industries by other better-performing media industries. This is particularly the case when foreign media can deliver better content than the local media. If this is the case, an eventuality of dominance by the foreign content becomes the norm, and if the local players do not realign accordingly, people continue to consume the better content regardless of its source. This has been the situation in the

Globalization has led to a growing gap between those who have access and opportunities by which to thrive and those who do not. There are now 793 billionaires (as of 2009)—representing an essentially unimaginable amount of wealth. At the same time, there are millions of workers laboring in conditions we would likely consider inhumane, and doing so for starvation level wages. And still, there are those who do not even have access to jobs whose conditions are even worse. Globalization can benefit some but leaves other nation further and further behind.

During the last decade of the twentieth century, the word ‘globalization’ has become an increasingly prominent feature of political, social, and economic discussion in academic and policymaking circles, as well as in the media. The processes and outcomes of globalization drew attention and debates that had one thing in common. The research shows that nearly everyone agrees that globalization is a trend that is changing the face of the world, and as a result the world society lives in a more ‘globalized’ world. Nearly two and a half decades passed since 1990s, and studies have been conducted to examine the causes and consequences of globalization. Moreover, nearly every person experiences some type of globalization and can testify firsthand the effects it has on their life, society, and the state. The analysis of the effects that globalization dynamics have on the world society indicates that globalization has a significant positive impact via spreading opportunities and wealth across nations, stimulating innovation and productivity, enhancing the economic development of poorer countries, and helping to improve living standards.

In today’s world and economy there have been many factors that affect us all at a global level. Being as technology is increasingly growing at an all-time high and cultures are changing because of these changes, this has led to the world being more globalized. Globalization is the process of interaction amongst people, businesses, governments of different countries and nations, and is driven and or influenced by international trade and international business. Technology has been one of the largest contributing factors to the reason why the world is becoming more globalized. Globalization has both positive and negative effects on the environment, societies, as well as today’s cultures. Cultural globalization refers to the process of spreading one’s cultural values, ideology, and uniqueness on a global level. Cultural globalization can have both positive and negative effects on today’s society as well. A positive effect of cultural globalization is the easy accessibility of different cultural products and commodities. A negative effect of cultural globalization is that smaller, more unique cultures may lose what makes them different and more distinctive from other countries or cultures. Scholars see these changes as part of processes such as cultural hybridity, cultural homogenization and or cultural imperialism. These processes that lead to changes in culture, social order and identity and all of the processes are both similar and different in many ways.

It is fair to say that the impact of globalization in the cultural sphere has, most

Cultural globalization supposes, not only empiric human contacts among civilizations (transporter revolution), but also intellectual instruments of understanding among contact groups in a more or less brutal manner. Let us call humanist sciences those intellectual instruments, having a wide enough meaning: history, philology, linguistics, archeology, sociology, philosophy.

Economic globalization is the growing integration of world markets and the intensifying interdependence of global economies. The process has social and economic costs as well as benefits. The process is both critiqued and lauded by scholars. On one hand it provides opportunities and growth while on the other hand it creates an unequal distribution of wealth also while hurting workers rights.

People have been on the move, traded, migrated and colonized in the earlier times; while in the process they transformed both places that they traveled to and the places that they came from. The pro-globalization people say that it is not just good for the rich but it’s good for the poor, because back in the 1990’s, when globalization took off, about 200 million people got out of poverty in places like India and China. Globalization is the process by which economies of countries around the world become increasingly integrated over time. Supporters of this topic argued that it is both good and beneficial because it has created outsourcing, for example, customer support, marketing, software development, insurance and accounting.

The International Monetary Fund describes globalization in an economical sense by saying that globalization is the growing economic interdependence of countries around the world through accumulating volume and diversity of cross-border transactions in products and services, rapid and extensive dispersion of technology, and more open international capital flows (IMF,

Globalization is profoundly controversial. Some people argue that this international change allows poor countries and their citizens to develop economically and raise their standards of living. Others claim that the creation of an international free market has only benefited multinational corporations in the Western world at the expense of local enterprise and cultures and by the exploitation of less developed countries (What is Globalization?).

Globalization is a very controversial issue that has attracted massive attention in the past few decades. Globalization has impacted people across the world in personal, social, political and economic fields. The effects of globalization are numerous. People across one country today eat from the same restaurants, wear the same clothes, speak the same language and drive the same car as people from the opposite side of the globe. Instant communication with people is easier today than ever. The consequences of this rapid globalization are subject to interpretation. People, in general, tend to be biased about the net results of globalization. World leaders, however, have taken tangible steps towards encouraging a peaceful globalization.

Across the world, globalization is one of the most significant aspects that has occurred over the last fifty years. It allows a country to integrate economically with other countries through a global network comprised of people, trade, and transportation. With the global landscape only becoming more intertwined, globalization and its inherent pros and cons seem to be here to stay. In many areas, global powers tend to lack in rectifying the negative aspects and only focus on the positive side. America, for example, is a leader in the globalization efforts, even though it has greatly effected job opportunities at home, widening income gaps, and an increased standard of living due to fluctuating world markets.

Some of the main features of cultural globalization that will be discussed in this paper include, homogenization which, in the context of cultural globalization, is the spread of Western consumer culture that could eventually lead to the end of cultural diversity, hybridization which is the blending of elements of many different cultures and conflict intensification which relates to the “Clash of Civilizations” theory, that cultural globalization could result in an escalation of tensions between various culturally different regions of the world, that could lead to violence.

Cultural imperialism, the main focus of globalisation is defined as the domination of culture from some countries to the rest of the world (Tobin, 2016). It could be the cultural goods flow to the other countries, normally from the more influential or stronger countries such as the United States and some Western countries which inculcating their values through the goods or advertisements. For instance, the origin of Starbucks, McDonald’s, and