Globalization of Consumer Culture - Essay Example

Culture globalization in relation to cosmopolitan culture It is an undeniable fact that market globalizationhas undergone a rapid scale with a wide variety of global brands being availed to all corners of the world. The significance of marketing communication as well as the idea that people can sell to the whole world is a message that has remained more contested. Globalization of consumer culture has taken place over some time in the past in what would be referred to as a whole scale phase. The term globalization has a relatively close connection to the consumerism culture. There is, therefore, a need for consumers to carry out a critical thinking when handling this culture (Kroeber, 1976:10). Globalization of consumer culture has significant effects in a variety of cultures around the world. It significantly engenders a cosmopolitan culture. Cosmopolitanism is an ideology that all humans of all ethnic groups belong to one community with shared morality. It includes economic, political, and moral relationships between individuals and nations. There are a diversity of theories put across, which can help discuss the extent to which globalization of consumer culture engenders a cosmopolitan culture. Some theorists like Kroeber on the study of culture believe that globalization has a historical chronology conceived as a human integration and hybridization, arguing the possibility of detecting cultural mixing across the continents (Kroeber, 1976:32). These ideas may refer to the religious practices, linguistics, and the culture. However, other sociologists trace the origin of globalization as free enterprise and modernity that remains facilitated through the technology adaptation. Another perspective involves the transfiguration of worldwide multiplicity into a pandemic westernized consumer culture. The influence of American products in the whole world results into a system that most of the people refer to as the Americanization. This remains diversified by the speed of the new media channels spread around the web. Hybridization transforms the cultural practices into new cultural forms. These cultures keep on varying as part of the constant process of globalization. However, cultures overlap to draw other traditions from the external forces indicating that it is not homogenous, discrete, or bounded by entity (Mayer, 2007:3). One of the widely known globalization theory is the World-System Theory. This theory originated around the 1500. During this time in history, parts of the Western Europe experienced a long-term crisis of feudalism that resulted to technological innovations as well as the rise of varied market institutions. There were also advances in incentives and production since long-distance trade motivated them to reach other parts of the world. Advanced military strength and transportation means enabled traders to establish strong cultural and economic ties with other regions, a factor that favored the accumulation of wealth in Europe (Mayer, 2007:123). Europe established geographical and occupational division of labor where intensive production was held in reserve for major countries while peripheral regions offered raw materials and low-skilled labor. This unequal relationship between the non-European periphery and European core resulted to unequal development. In the twentieth century however, this system begun undergoing some changes. The world system reached its limit geographically with extension of state system and capitalist markets to all regions. United States of America also rose to a hegemonic power during this historic period. Communist regimes and newly independent states challenged primary control through this century. Some initially peripheral countries experienced an improvement in their economic status. The nineteenth-century ideology liberalism, which held the hope of equal economic advancements and same individual rights, became dominant. The World Polity Theory is a further globalization theory that can show how globalization of consumer culture engenders a cosmopolitan culture. This theory also has its roots in the European tradition. Private organizations, public officials, as well as intellectuals elaborated ideas on individual rights, rational progress, and state sovereignty that were universally valid. A variety of movements rose in attempt to defend such ideas. As a result, international life greatly received a cultural structure. During the final part of the twentieth century, world culture had developed as the constitutive element and had a variety of scripts to be adhered to everywhere. This is one of the cultures that has, in fact, been greatly enacted. It is no longer the preserve of the West, but has become more of an heritage, which is institutionalized across the world and greatly supported by a variety of transnational groups. However, it has not attained global consensus because regions show differences; for instance, in the manner they interpret core notions such as the rights of individuals. World culture has been known to bring up a variety of conflicts. This is because when people believe they live in a single world under universal principles, they often get critical of actions by state that may deviate from global norms (Papastergiadis, 2003:78). The state of the world often may fall short of global standards. World culture therefore, encourages the discovery of new problems in the society. World Culture is a third theory that is useful in this discussion. It is an interpretation of globalization focusing on the manner participants become conscious and give meaning as well as appreciate living in the world and viewing it as a single place. In this case, globalization refers to the intensification of awareness as well as compression of the world. In a world that is compressed, the confrontation and comparison of the views of the world are bound to offer new cultural conflicts. In such a case, religious traditions have a critical role to pay. This is because they can be mobilized to offer a final validation for the view of the globe. It is therefore arguable that a globalized world is not harmonious but integrated, not diverse but a single place, and prone to fragmentation though it is an assembly of shared perceptions. Most of the most significant perspectives on economic issues of globalization are related to the Marxian theory. Two systems of globalization have been described in relation to this. The capitalist system, which is currently dominant, is however shadowed by a antiglobalization movement, which is fed by the issues of ecological instability and class polarization. Priority has been accorded to a class of transnational capitalists and transnational corporations that share perspectives and global interests. Within the capitalist globalization, culture ideology is particularly significant since it brings about a global mood, which is valuable to transnational corporations. Integrating Marxism and postmodernism, a postmodern interpretation of global economy that is centered on the idea of empire is offered (Pilkington, 2002:154). It is suggested by theorists that globalization is governed by an empire, which cannot be traced to a single place or nation and is considered omnipresent. Another aspect of the cultural globalization is the diffusion of cuisines the Americans fast food chains. The theory of culture diffusion features MacDonald as the largest global food service corporation with thousands of chains serving more than seventy million people in 120 countries. Regardless of the location, consumers get a variety of these foodstuffs almost all over the world. The big Mac index remains acknowledged as the informal control of purity among world currencies, the same experience, and knowledge of MacDonald’s. Sociologist George Ritzer in his book explains that McDonaldization occurs when culture possesses the features of a fast-food restaurant. This is the process of moving from conventional to the rational of thoughts and the scientific management. As such, he continues to donate much in culture society as worldwide homogenization. As a result, the ideology of the first fast-food restaurant will dominate many sectors of the American society and the rest of the world. Through efficiency, his customers shift from being famished to being full. This helps us to understand how globalization of culture moves to a cosmopolitan culture through adoption of the new technology. Coca Cola is another example that funds almost all the World Cup games, and through its products, it reaches all kinds of consumers by crossing the boundaries. All this remains anchored through the media as the medium of the culture globalization (Werbner, 2008:16). Other materials that extent globalization of culture to a cosmopolitan culture are the social networks like the face book and twitter. They have also been put forward as theories to explain how globalization of consumer culture engenders a cosmopolitan culture. This deprives a lot of change from the antiquity view of culture to a more communal relationship and breaks the extent of racial discrimination. Here, a single update in face book like, ‘our culture is more influential’ may have millions of people from different areas and a country whose prospective individual might not even know their location. This shows how the globalization of culture develops extending its boundaries beyond mere relations. Others have a million followers in the twitter and comment on almost every single update. From these social networks, people learn more of cultural practices from their friends who appear from diverse areas of the world. As the global popular culture contains products and symbols that penetrate most local markets, it encompasses ideology of the economic freedom. Here, the consumer selection encourages the diverse uses and interpretations of the consistent patterns. Consumers obtain goods from different societies or countries and do not deny the powers of multinational corporations that promote the consumption of their products and logos. A research shows that popular cultures usually produces global tastes, but also creates consumers who keep the culture from becoming uniform (Rovisco & Nowicka, 2011:21). An example is the dominant American culture that produces new products and is used all over the world. It is however notable that the world culture engenders a conflict in the world society through the process that turns the west against itself. This is the domination on the economic and culture by the western countries that now continues to penetrate other countries through the United Nation bodies. This integration and mixing make the poor countries without the resources to trade with other countries to improve the economy. The former colonies started invoking world cultural practices of equality and growth as a basic human right. Further tension increased from the global human rights turning the inspection on the new states, decrying their shrewd championing of certain universals while ignoring and brutally violating others. This act is associated with those having integrity and political contribution of citizens. Thus, the moral legitimacy that attributed to national and ethnic units, and the insistence that all abide by basic principles, and ethics yield forms of incongruity and conflict that would emerge in a less globalized world (Rovisco, 2011:35). When non-cultures and regions become more prominent in the world policy, it makes increasingly sensible to speak of the world cultures rather than singular culture. However, dominant western model penetrates intensely in most places selling their culture and promoting their lifestyles. Others remain to evoke resistant as well as hard work to revive and globalize alternative models. As such, many Muslims leaders and organizations promote societal copy that infuses the state with sacred precepts and recasts the association among the state and the citizens. Theory of culture materialization argues that the merging of Asians and Africans will result into axes rather than the nation-state violence that dominate in the recent centuries. Time forms a significant part of people’s lives that people rarely think about. Cultures are no longer viewed as insular. Global market forces and transnational interdependence have led to a restructuring of word wide economies and have shaped social and political lives of societies. As a result of global interconnectedness, the forces operating produce local effects. Whatever happens politically and economically in a given part of the world can greatly impact the lives of a vast population of people elsewhere in the world. Under the current realities of growth in transnational influence, states have sought an increase in control of their leverage through merging into larger units. For instance, the nations of Western part of Europe formed a Europe Union in their attempt to exercise more control over their life economically. People all over the world are increasingly becoming enmeshed into a cyber world, which transcends distance, place, and time as well as national borders. These realities demands a need for an expansion of the capacity of analysis of cross cultures (Werbner, 2008:21). Bibliography Kroeber, A. L. 1976. Handbook of the Indians of California. New York: Dover Publications. Mayer, F. 2007. To what extent can it be argued that cultural globalisation has led to a homogenisation of national and local cultures? München, GRIN Verlag GmbH. Available from: Http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:101:1-2010081212800. [accessed on May 09 2013] Papastergiadis, N. 2003. Complex entanglement art, globalisation and cultural difference. London, Rivers Oram. 162 Pilkington, H. 2002. Looking West?: cultural globalization and Russian youth cultures. University Park, Pa, Pennsylvania State University Press. 8 Rovisco, M., & Nowicka, M. 2011. The Ashgate research companion to cosmopolitanism. Burlington, VT, Ashgate. 35 Vertovec, S., & Cohen, R. 2002. Conceiving cosmopolitanism: theory, context and practice. New York [u.a.], Oxford Univ. Press. 25 Werbner, P. 2008. Anthropology and the new cosmopolitanism: rooted, feminist and vernacular perspectives. Oxford, Berg. I6 Read More