Cultural Homogenization and the Internet - Essay Example

? Cultural Homogenization and the Internet Culture is defined as the mixture of values, traditions, and beliefs of a specific group of people living in a geographically closed area. It includes shared behavior, ideas, and artifacts that create life and are passed from one generation to another. Culture also includes the history of the area that shapes it; everyone grows up in a certain way and their everyday life is affected by the culture that surrounds them. There are a lot of different cultures around the world; each of them having a unique way of living and fulfilling its tradition (Effects of the Internet: The internet's influence on sociolinguistic). Homogenization means being similar and parallel to the other thing. The term cultural homogenization is a relatively new term as it has evolved recently. The world we live in today is becoming more of a global village. This means that with the ever changing technology, it is shrinking as means of communication with each other, no matter how far apart, are becoming faster than ever before. Cultural homogenization is the blending of cultures as they become more related to each other and their uniqueness is being reduced. We are going towards forming a more global culture as new traditions, ideas, and values will be formed which align in a better way with the global arena of today. Another unique point of this new culture will be that, unlike the old individual cultures, this global culture will dominate many societies and might even be recognized as the super culture. Internet is a worldwide connection of computers that allows man to communicate with each other more faster and has created many changes in the society. It was developed in the 1960’s but it gained popularity and momentum in the 1990’s when the worldwide web was developed. After that there was an explosion of people who were ready for the vast world that was opened to them. Now people could access information about anything and any part of the world. It allowed for the advancement, exploration, and the quenching of the thirst for knowledge for scientists, researchers and people across the globe. Some of the effects that the internet has had on the global culture are that now different countries are able to advance, as getting education is much easier and faster because of the advancements in technology. It has been discovered that internet is used more for education rather than for entertainment purposes. Therefore, when people have more education the country is able to progress at a rapid rate. The internet has affected the global culture in a way that marketing and sales transactions are easier. The marketers have new ways and methods for advertising their products without any geographical limitations. They post anything on the internet and within seconds, the entire world is able to look at it. This leads to a growth in businesses and ultimately to the growth of economies around the world. Now businesses can run on the internet solely and worldwide organizations are able to advance. One advantage that the internet has provided to the people across the world is that they can study the cultures, which are different from theirs. Prior to this, the people either had to travel all the way to the place to find out the culture or had to read a book. With internet, this can be done merely in seconds and people can get knowledge about the culture of a certain country before going there or before conducting business transactions with the people of that country. This will give them information on the cultural sensitivities so that they do not offend anyone by mistake. With all these advancements taking place and people regularly getting similar information, a global view of the world is being formed in which people around the globe have a similar perspective on the different aspects of life, for instance, people’s acceptance to greater diversity. This happens when people like the culture of a different country and out of their own interest, they want to try it and eventually adopt it in their lives. An example can be that nowadays in a metropolitan city, one gets all kinds of food, ranging from Chinese, Japanese, Thai, French and people are free to make their own choice. Living in a global world city, we try out all the different cuisines; if we like them, we can easily find their recipes on the internet, which will eventually lead us to adopt them. This has been gradually happening and it has led to the alteration of lifestyles (Fagan and Munck). Eventually, this cultural homogeneity leads to the cultural differences among the cultures of the world and towards the similarity of cultural aspects which, however, are artificial. This will ultimately lead to the single commodity world in which local identities are implanted with the identity of the multinational organizations. Many multinational companies are taking advantage of globalization by strategizing their plans in a way which is in line with the different local communities. We can notice certain cases when one has products from a specific country but manufactured in another part of the world and transported through a third country. This just shows how our world has gone GLOCAL! This term is a combination of both globalization and local ideas. It corresponds to the combination of the local economies with the global one (Wellman). We can, therefore, safely say that internet is the prime source for the globalization process happening in the world today; the shared sets of ideas become apparent when the idea of liberalization and freedom floated from the USA becomes embedded in the other countries. This is observed in various situations that internet is being used as a political tool, as well as the entire world population is sharing the same ideas and values increasingly (Hongladarom). There are different types of blogs on the internet in which people post their thoughts and other people follow them, share their opinion and then argue in a healthy and effective way. These discussion forums from people across the world on aspects of life are giving a shared expression of the world as seen by people today and as to how they want it to progress. Many important issues pertinent to humanity, e.g. global warming, are considered and efforts are made to solve these issues. The internet will continue to change our lives in many ways as the technology progresses further and the world has a more homogenized culture than ever before. This super culture can be beneficial in many ways, as more information can now be shared and generally more people are benefitting, but it can also have its detrimental effects. Some minorities might have to face discrimination. But if we progress in a more socially responsible way which will take into consideration the sensitivities of everyone, this global culture will then present more advantages and opportunities to everyone. Works Cited Effects of the Internet (the internet's influence on sociolinguistic). 2010. Web . Fagan, Honor G, and Ronaldo, Munck. Globalization and Security: Social and cultural aspects. Introduction to volume 2. ABC-CLIO, 2009. Print. Hongladarom, Soraj. Global Culture, Local Cultures, and the Internet. 1998. 01 February 2012 Web. . Wellman, Barry. Little Boxes, Glocalization, and Networked Individualism. London: Springer-Verlag, 2002. Print. Read More