Globaliz­ation and American­ization of Culture: An Analysis

Globalization of Culture

Table of Contents

Globalization of Culture: Americanization?. 1

Table of Contents. 2

Introduction3

The Globalization of Culture. 4

Globalization of Culture: Positive or Negative Process?. 6

The Term Americanization8

Americanization of Culture. 9

Growing Anti-American Sentiments. 11

Conclusion12

Literature. 14

Internet Sources. 14

Introduction

When discussing the globalization most people concentrate on changes occurring in the economical and political spheres. Direct investments, international agreements, tariff rates etc. are the expressions that cross one’s mind. Yet the globalization has a tremendous influence on culture as well and “it can be little doubt that one of the most directly perceived and experienced forms of globalization is the cultural form.”[1]

However, the globalization’s influence on culture is less quantifiable and cultural issues are more subtle and sensitive.

Some of the principal concerns expressed about the new globalization of culture is that it not only leads to a homogenization of world culture and progressive disappearance of attire, customs, ceremonies, rites, and beliefs that in the past gave humanity its folkloric and ethnological variety, but that it also represents the "Americanization" of world cultures.

These concerns are not only expressed by the Middle east countries but also by countries all over the world. They are shared among political sectors of the left, center, and right.

Even developed western countries like Canada are also having problems with Americanization. “American companies now control most of Canadian industry, causing many people to wonder how long it will take before Canada becomes part of the United States.”[2]

The fear that American culture might usurp the rest of the world is not a new one. As early as in 1901, the British writer William Stead published a book called “The Americanization of the World”. Many other writers have followed him and discussed the same topic.

The arguments that surfaced amid the tumult of Seattle in 1999 and have resonated also in Davos, Bangkok, and Prague state that “the disappearance of national borders and the establishment of a world interconnected by markets will deal a deathblow to regional and national cultures and to the traditions, customs, myths, and mores that determine each country or region's cultural identity.

Since most of the world is incapable of resisting the invasion of cultural products from developed countries—or, more to the point, from the superpower, the United States—that inevitably trails the great transnational corporations, North American culture will ultimately impose itself, standardizing the world and annihilating its rich flora of diverse cultures.

In this manner, all other peoples, and not just the small and weak ones, will lose their identity, their soul, and will become no more than 21st-century colonies—zombies or caricatures modeled after the cultural norms of a new imperialism that, in addition to ruling over the planet with its capital, military might, and scientific knowledge, will impose on others its language and its ways of thinking, believing, enjoying, and dreaming.”[3]

The Globalization of Culture

The globalization of culture is not a new process; it has a long history. it started with cultural diffusion and emulation established through migration, wars and trade.

Good examples of early globalization of culture are the great multicultural empires that held their domains together through a shared and extensive ruling class culture and the expansion of the great world religions over great distances with tremendous social impacts.

Most successful and enduring pre-modern multicultural empires were Roman Empire and Han China.

Afterwards, there were western global empires that created thin inter-elite cultural connections. They provided some infrastructure for the diffusion of transnational secular ideologies and discourses to Africa, Asia and Latin America.[4]

As a result of the expansion of great world religions one encounters nowadays the so-called religious mobility that also alters the local culture. For instance in Brazil, there are many people that have tried several religions; they were Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, members of some unchristian religion etc.[5]

From the eighteenth century onwards, as the new technological innovations appeared new forms of cultural globalization emerged.

Western science, nationalism, liberalism and socialism made considerable impact on national and local cultures.

After the Second World War the intensity and volume of cultural communication at a global level tremendously increased. Radio, television, the Internet, satellite and digital technologies made instantaneous communication possible and exposed many people to diverse cultural values and outputs.

However, national institutions continue in many states to have a central impact on public life, foreign products are constantly read and reinterpreted in novel ways by national audiences.

Contemporary cultural globalization is associated with following developments: “new global infrastructure of an unprecedented scale, generating an enormous capacity for cross-border penetration and a decline in their cost of use; an increase in the intensity, volume and speed of cultural exchange and communication of all kinds; the rise of Western popular culture and inter-business communication as the primary content of global cultural interaction; the dominance of culture industry multinationals in the creation and ownership of infrastructures and organizations for the production and distribution of cultural goods; and a shift in the geography of global cultural interaction departing in some significant ways from the geography of the pre-Second World War global order.”[6]

There is no historical equivalent of the global reach and volume of cultural traffic through contemporary telecommunication, broadcasting and transport infrastructure.”[7]

Globalization of Culture: Positive or Negative Process?

The globalization has been influencing the local culture in innumerable different ways; for instance it has also an immense influence on the perception of time. The people that have been living in the cyclic time where one still has time, have to switch to the linear time where everything is happening so fast and no one has any time.[8]

The pro-globalizers argue that globalization is globalizing American culture and American cultural icons.

“Thriving cultures are not set in stone. They are forever changing from within and without. Each generation challenges the previous one; science and technology alter the way we see ourselves and the world; fashions come and go; experience and events influence our beliefs; outsiders affect us for good and ill.”[10]

They also argue that “the disappearance of cultural, folkloric and ethnological variety, while the bulk of society abandons them and adopts others more suited to the reality of our time, is not only due to globalization. It is also due to modernization, an unavoidable process. Totalitarian regimes in countries like Cuba or North Korea, fearful that any opening will destroy them, close themselves off and issue all types of prohibitions and censures against modernity.

On the other hand the anti-globalizers believe that despite the embrace of multiethnic imagery, globalization doesn't desire diversity; quite the opposite and that its enemies are local brands, national habits and distinctive regional tastes.[12]

The Term Americanization

What does the term Americanization actually mean?

The usage of this term started during the first quarter of the 20th century when the immigrant in the United States was induced to assimilate American traditions, ideals and way of life.

“Joined by social workers interested in improving the slum conditions surrounding the immigrants, and by representatives of the business and industrial world, organizations were formed to propagandize and to agitate for municipal, state, and federal aid to indoctrinate the immigrants into American ways. Many states passed legislation providing for the education and Americanization of the foreign-born.”[13]

Yet, in today's world, the term “has a different, but similar meaning - the globalization by the U.S. of the world. The American economy is an ever-present force in the world today. Pepsi ads are on the streets of every big city in China, Big Macs are being ordered throughout the entire world, and the term "Always Coca-Cola" is being muttered by all of Europe, although they have no idea what the phrase means.Over the past few decades, American capitalism has rapidly taken over the entire world.

Not even the most communist nations of China and Russia are immune to this rapid invasion of American culture”[16]

The term is now being seen in “a pejorative context rather than as the positive acceptance of the possibilities of personal regeneration within the United States itself. For now the site of transformation is not America; Americanization is not, indeed, a voluntary act. Rather it might occur within an indigenous culture, subject to the powerful influence of “the idea of America” abroad.

Americanization of Culture

The spread of icons of Americanization like Nike, Coca Cola, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, rock, rap, Hollywood movies, blue jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts has various consequences on local cultures, some very obvious, and others less visible.

The influence of American companies on other countries' cultural identity can be for instance seen with regard to food since food is in many countries an important aspect of the culture and food chains can influence the habits in societies where they operate.

“The French are proud of having a unique cuisine that reflects their culture, such as crepes and pastries. Because of their pride in their cuisine, some French people are concerned that U.S. food chains crowd out their own products with fast food. Some French people would argue that fast food does not belong in the French society and is of lower quality than their own.”[18]

Richard Sennett in his book “The Corrosion of Character: The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism” (1988) is discussing how the new “no long term” work pattern influences the social bonds of trust, loyalty, mutual independence.

Hollywood also has the key role in the changing of local cultures. It shapes perceptions of America and presents images of American attitude, lifestyles, values both within the United States and beyond its borders.

“In a debate in the British House of Lords in 1925, it was suggested that Americans had realized almost instantaneously that the cinema was a heaven-sent method of advertising themselves, their country, their wares, their ideas, and even their language. “[19]

The phenomenon of globalization is often seen as running in one direction: from the United States outward. But these processes are also inevitably shaping American life and culture, though the effects may be dim or double-edged.

Furthermore, in some communities, in fact, American products conform to local culture; for instance McDonalds.

Growing Anti-American Sentiments

Americanization is not only outbound process but bears consequences for Americans themselves since it is causing the stereotyping of America and an increasing anti-American sentiment in the world as well as wrong judgments about American way of life.

Americans are stereotyped as being shallow, spoiled and superficial. In many countries America is associated with the words like "violence" and "inequality" and only rarely with words like "freedom" and "generosity".[21]

This is the reason why José Bové, the farmer-cum-crusader against la malbouffe (lousy food), has become no less than a popular hero in France. And with his sentencing to three months in prison, his popularity has likely increased.”[22]

Americanization is also causing the hatred of the so-called "American Way" and it is allowing the people who foster this hatred to do something with it - through technology.

“There is now around the world a panorama of military pathology .a world-wide Rambo culture that feeds of the exports sales of western industrialized societies and the availability of guns within those societies to people who feel they are not protected. The Italian journalist Tiziano Terzani has described this culture as a budding fraternity of lethal poseurs whose needs the West exploits but does not satisfy.”[23]

The globalization of culture is not a new process; it has started long time ago, with first migrations, great empires and development of the great world religions. However, it reached an immense volume only in the era of internet, television, telecommunications etc.

While many argue that globalization of culture is a negative process, other see only it’s positive sides and state that many changes of culture are actually due to modernization.

Many countries fear the globalization of culture is actually Americanization. The icons of Americanization are everywhere around us and they are influencing the local culture in many different ways; through food, clothing, time perception, movies, work patterns etc.