Global Cultures

Concepts and Definitions

What is Culture? (Trompenaars)

Culture is the way of life for a group or society. Influencing how societies solve problems, as different societies solve the same problems differently due to their cultural background.

What is Culture? (Bennet)

Culture is the learnt and shared values, beliefs, customs, and behaviors shared by a group, influencing how individuals perceive and interact with the world.

What is Cultural Identity? (Jackson, 2014)

Cultural identity refers to the sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, shaped by shared characteristics, nationality, ethnicity and religion. It plays a crucial role in an individual's self-concept and interaction with others.

What is Cultural Identity? (Martin & Nakayama, 2021)

Cultural identity is a fluid process that is changed by different social, cultural and historical experiences. Some people go through more cultural identity changes than others.

Subculture

different norms and values to mainstream culture

Mass Culture

the way the majority of the population lives life

Folk Culture

Cultural products and practices rooted in shared experiences of a specific group. Passed down person to person. Reflects life experience and values.

Low Culture

the customs and practices of different regions and groups

High Culture

the cultural artefacts and attributes seen as being of low value by society, perceived as having less valuable knowledge.

Global Culture

the process of cultural homogenity due to the spread of globalisation.

What is Global Culture?

Global culture is where large numbers of people in different countries across the world share common norms, values and taste. Eg. NASA Golden Record.

Cultural Universalism

Cultural Universalism is the concept of asserting certain values, beliefs and practices that are universally applicable across all societies and boundaries. Eg. UDHR

Cultural Relativism (Hershbovitz, 1973)

Cultural relativism is the principle of understanding a person’s beliefs and practices from the perspective of their own culture rather than cross cultural understanding, the opposite of ethnocentrism. Eg. Halal diet

What is Globalisation?

The process of worldwide expansion and interconnection that is happening because of international trade and advances in transportation and communication.

What is Globalisation? (Ritzer)

A set of processes involving increasing liquidity and the growing multidirectional flow of people, objects, places and information.

Cultural Globalisation

The global interaction of cultural ideas, practices and products across national borders, leading to increased cultural interconnection. Spread of social norms, values, ideas and attributes. Eg. education, entertainment and family life.

Economic Globalisation

The increased integration and interdependence of national economies through the flow/transmission of goods and services; consumer culture.

Political Globalisation

The expansion of political interrelations worldwide, involving national governments and international organisations on matters of international importance. Eg. Response to pandemics, refugees, peace agreements.

MacDonalisation (Ritzer, 1993)

The rationalisation of production, work and consumption. Cultural homogeneity and standardisation of cultural practices favouring efficiency and control over creativity and imagination. Fails to note how new cultural ideas and practices are adopted.

Cultural Hybridity (Appaduri)

Cultural identities are becoming less constrained by geography and nationality as hybrid cultural identities emerge. However, all societies and cultures adopt aspects of globalisation in different ways and at different speeds depending on the culture’s resources and politics.

Cultural Globalisation

The global interaction of cultural ideas, practices and products across national borders, leading to increased cultural interconnection. Unilateral in practice, as global media dominate in shaping trends and cultural consumption.

Global Imperialsim

the dominance of certain cultures and the erasure of traditions.

Ethnoscapes

the flow of people across borders; migrants, tourists, etc.

Technoscapes

flows of technology, how technology is being dispersed and at what speed

Financescapes

the flow of money across political borders, how the currency market and stock exchange move money at speed.

Mediascapes

the flow of media across borders, how the world of commodities and news are spread.

What is Globalisation? (Appaduri)

A term used to describe how trade and technology have made the world into a more connected and interdependent place. It is complex, overlapping and disjunctive. It is fluid, irregular, and there are multiple ways to understand it.

Liquid Modernity (Bauman, 2000)

A metaphor describing the condition of constant mobily and change in relationships, identities and global economies within contemporary society.

What is Pop Culture? (Storey, 2020)

Refers to the practices, beliefs, objects and phenomena that dominate society at a specific time.

Cultural Theory of Popular Culture

• favoured by many people

• leftover after high culture

• commercial objects produced for mass consumption

• folk culture, for people by people

• imposed by the dominant class

• both authentic and commercial

What defines popular? (Storey, 2020)

Popularis; belonging to the people/popular. Media shapes and reinforces popular culture and trends. Accessable andhas broad appeal for mainstream audiences.

What makes something popular?

Driven by public emotion, resonates. given from the dominant class to the subordinate class. What is popular differs depending on space, time and context.

Critiques of Popular Culture (Arnold & Leavis)

• leads to social disintegration

• likened to junk food

• nostalgia for a pure culture

• high culture dumbed down

• authenticity disputed for global entertainment

• reinforces hierarchies within society

High (Popular) Culture

The besy of human creativity. Eg. Classical arts, literature, music

Low (Popular) Culture

Kitsch, slapstick, camp, escapist fiction, popular music, comic books, tattoo art and exploitation films.

Mass Culture

Produced for larger audiences with unknown diverse tastes. Relies on electronic and mechanical media to reach large audiences. Motivated by profit and use mass production for cultural production.

Significance of Pop Art

Challenges the distinction between high and low culture, reflects how consumerism transforms art into a commodity. Eg. Coloured Mona Lisa, Campbell’s Soup

Post Modernism

Culture evolved into a collage of cultural elements reflecting human needs, experiences and challenges. Creative participation and engagement create new meanings.

How has Culture Evolved?

• Post WW1 (Economic Boom) = Expansion of materialism and consumerism, goods and services

• Desire for Consumption = New association between material progress and cultural evolution

Democratisisation of Culture

• Challenges elitist notions

• Legitimises working class

• Refining culture

• Enchanting democracy

Subculture VS Counter Culture

• SC= A cultural pattern distinct to a specific group within society, part of but secondary to mass culture.

• CC= A cultural pushback against mainstream norms seeking to challenge and change social structures.

Why is Popular Culture important?

Popular culture is everywhere, shaping how we think, act and interact

• understand ourselves and society

• question and critique social ideas and meanings

• recognise its hidden power, shaping norms and behaviours.

The Tourist Gaze (Urry, 1990)

The tourist gaze is a set of expectations that tourists have on a place or community of locals that they wish to meet while searching for an authentic experience that may not exist.

Global Village

The idea that people are connected by easy travel, mass media, electronic communication, and can become a single community build on interconnectedness.

Mobility Capital (Bourdieu)

• The expected personal or economic benefits derived from a person’s mobility.

• Mobility can be physical (transport) and virtual (telecommunications)

• Poor mobility can lead to social exclusion resulting in poor access to public services,

• Tied to social capital as a person with low mobility is likely to have poorer access to social networks and people who raise levels of social capital. (social capital = social community)

What is Tourism?

• A specific type of movement

• Movement through space

• Short term, temporary

• Intention to return home

• For leisure, entertainment, distraction

• Intent for “out of the ordinary” not everyday experience

Benefits of Tourism

• Increased economic growth

• Growth in employment

• Promotes national culture

• Preserves landscape

Negatives of Tourism

• Commercialism > Authenticity

• Causes culture class/assimilation

• Pollutes and damages the environment

• Increased cost of living

Authentic Tourism (Boorstein, 1964)

Western mass consumption, replication of reality. The reproduction of the event is more important than the real thing, obsessed with image.

Staged Tourism (MacCannell, 1999)

Process that may stage the displays of authentic culture for the tourist to appease their desire. A pre-modern experience with none of the problems.

Post Tourism (Ritzer)

• Development of non Western tourism

• Fun and amusement > authenticity

• MacDonaldisation of tourism (DIsney standardised experience)

Concept of the Gaze (Foucault, 1970)

An individual’s awareness and perception of other individuals or groups or oneself (what is conveyed to the audience)

Camera Analogy

A set of filters, ideas, skills, desires and expectation one has framed by social class, gender, nationality, age, education and epoch.

Influence of Tourism

Tourism is not an answer to ones modernity problem but modernity itself as with globalisation we are changing and becoming more alike - not all bad (hybridisation/homogenisation)

Tourism is a positive phenomenon that resulted in a social movement which now allows workers leisure and facilitated holidays

What is Media?

Traditional = channels of mass communication (TV, Radio, Paper)
Expanded = any technology that mediates human communication

Media through institutions with economic and political dimensions
Media is both technology and content

Communication in Culture (Carey, 1975)

Communication is a symbolic process whereby reality is produced, maintained, repaired and transmitted.

Media as a cultural storyteller, defining norms, values and identities. Representation matters, who and how it gets told.

Transformation of Media in Society

• 1) Industrial Age; Economic focus in factories, labour and material goods. Media supporting institutions, a mass communication method.

• 2) Post Industrial Society; Knowledge, information and services become primary to economic growth.

• 3) Information Age; Transmission and processing of information is fundamental to productivity. ICT Capitalism, communication central to power

• 4) Imagination Age; AI

The Networked Society (Castells, 2000)

A networked society is a social structure where key activities (economic, political, cultural) are organised through digital networks enabled by information and communication technology

Space of Flows

Social interaction organised aross global flows of information, capital and communication. Disruption and distribution of linear time despite being bounded in real life.

Time Space Compression Advantages (Harvey, 1989)

• Digital media accelerates social life

• Distance collapsed

• Sense of immediacy

• Global events feel local, local feels global

Irish Facing Media = Irish

• RTÉ

• Irish Times

• Irish Independent

• Celtic Media Group

Irish Facing Media = Not Irish

• Reach (The Mirror)

• DMGT

• Business Post

• Liberty Media

• The Star

Global Media

Increased trend of concentrated ownership

Effects of Global Media

• Homogenisation of content

• Cultural exchange and hybridisation

• Shared experiences

• Restriction of diverse voices

• Reduction of compensation

• Conflict of interest

• Lack of transparecy

• Inability to be regulaten

Information Capital

Audience and data as commodities, the media does not sell content to audiences; they sell audiences as a product to the media/third party. Eg. Cambridge Analytica.

Challenges of Media Globalisation (Postil, 2018)

• Cultural imperialism and homogenisation

• Privacy and data protection concerns

• Utilisation of media by different movements

• Algorithmic politics and platform power

Opportunities of Global Media

• New commmunication patterns eg. online communities

• Transnational activism through online networks

• Soft power of global media

• New types of media

What is Soft Power?

the media’s ability to attract and persuade others, drawing on the. culture, values and policies of a nation to make them a dominant purveyor of modure culture and soft power. Eg. Hallyu

New Media

• Epitome of prosumer culture

• Demonstration of content production

• Designed to facilitate content production

• Content creator economies

Eg. TikTok

Limitations of New Media (Pilatti, 2025)

• Algorithms determine visability

• Platform extracts value from user generated content

• Geopolitical concerns about data access and use

• Mediation between individual agency and institutional control

What is Citizen Journalism

Is the collection, reporting and dissementation of news and information by everyday citizens rather than professional journalists. Fueled by smartphones and social media, it demonstrates media and allows the public to actively participate in news and cultural production

Digital Divide

• Access - who has reliable internet connection and devices

• Literacy - who has the skills to effectively use digital technology

• Visibility - Whose voices are amplified by algorithms

Interventions of Digital Divide

• Regulation

• Resistance

• Alternatives

• Media Literacy Education

• Individual Practice