Global Culture

More refined

What is Culture?

Culture is the way of life, learnt and shared values, beliefs, customs, and behaviours shared by a group, influencing how individuals solve problems, perceive and interact with the world.

(Trompenaars) (Bennett)

What is Cultural Identity?

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. (Jackson, 2014)

It is a fluid process that is changed by different social, cultural and historical experiences. Some people go through more cultural identity changes than others. (Martin & Nakayama, 2021)

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.

High Culture

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

Low Culture

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

Global Culture

where large numbers of people in different countries across the world share common norms, values and tastes. An ongoing process of people developing a global consciousness and cultural homogeneity. Eg. NASA Golden Record

Cultural Universalism

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

Cultural Relativism

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. (Hershbovitz, 1973)

What is Globalisation?

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

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

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.

MacDonaldisation

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. (Ritzer, 1993)

Cultural Hybridity

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. (Appaduri)

Cultural Imperialism

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.

Liquid Modernity

A metaphor describing the condition of constant mobily and change in relationships, identities and global economies within contemporary society. (Bauman, 2000)

What is Popular Culture?

Refers to the practices, beliefs, objects and phenomena that dominate society at a specific time. (Storey, 2020)

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 is meant by Popular?

Popularis; belonging to the people/popular. The media shapes and reinforces popular culture and trends. Accessible and has 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?

• 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

(Arnold & Leavis)

High (Popular) Culture

The best 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 based on experience.

How has Culture Evolved?

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

Desire/Access to Consumption = New association between material progress and cultural evolution

Democratisation of Culture

• Challenges elitist notions

• Legitimised working class

• Refining culture

• Enchanting democracy

Subculture

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

Counter Culture

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. So we can understand ourselves and society, question and critique social ideas and meanings and recognise its hidden power, shaping norms and behaviours.

The Tourist Gaze

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. (Urry, 1990)

Global Village

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

Mobility Capital

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 to people who raise levels of social capital. (social capital = social community)

(Bourdieu)

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

Western mass consumption, replication of reality. The reproduction of the event is more important to them than the real thing, obsessed with image. (Boorstein, 1964)

Staged Tourism

A 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. (MacCannell, 1999)

Post Tourism (Ritzer)

• Development of non Western tourism

• Fun and amusement > authenticity

• MacDonaldisation of tourism (DIsney standardised experience)

Concept of the Gaze

An individual’s awareness and perception of other individuals or groups or oneself - what is conveyed to the audience through others - (Foucault, 1970)

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?

Any technology that mediates mass human communication.

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

Traditional Media

Traditional = channels of mass communication (TV, Radio, Paper)

New Media

• Epitome of prosumer culture

• Demonstration of content production

• Designed to facilitate content production

• Content creator economies

Eg. TikTok

Communication in Culture

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. (Carey, 1975)

Transformation of Media in Society

1. Industrial Age: Economic focus on factories, labour and material goods. Media supporting institutions are 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 is central to power

4. Imagination Age: AI

The Networked Society

A networked society is a social structure where key activities (economic, political, cultural) are organised through digital networks enabled by information and communication technology. (Castells, 2000)

Space of Flows

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

Time Space Compression

• Digital media accelerates social life

• Distance collapsed

• Sense of immediacy

• Global events feel local, local feels global

(Harvey, 1989)

Irish Face 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 transparency

• Inability to be regulated

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

• Cultural imperialism and homogenisation

• Privacy and data protection concerns

• Utilisation of media by different movements

• Algorithmic politics and platform power

(Postil, 2018)

Opportunities of Global Media

• New commmunication patterns eg. online communities

• Transnational activism through online networks

• Soft power of global media

• New types of media

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

Limitations of New Media

• Algorithms determine visibility

• Platform extracts value from user-generated content

• Geopolitical concerns about data access and use

• Mediation between individual agency and institutional control

(Pilatti, 2025)

Citizenship Jounalism

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 a reliable internet connection and devices
Literacy - who has the skills to use digital technology
Visibility - Whose voices are amplified by algorithms

Interventions of Digital Divide

Regulation // Resistance // Alternatives // Media Literacy Education // Individual Practice

What is Deglobalisation?

a shift towards a less interconnected world marked by dominant nation states, localised solutions and increased border controls. moving away from dominant nation states and free movement.

Anti/Alter Globaliation

A social movement critical of economic globalisation. Opposition to neoliberalism, we should separate economic politics with state intervention.

Neoliberalism

The idea supports free-market capitalism, deregulation, and shrinking government spending. Unlike older forms of "laissez-faire" capitalism that demanded the government stay out of the economy entirely, Neoliberalism believes the state should actively create and maintain rules that allow markets to thrive.
(Stiglitz, 2002)

Implications of Globalisation

Globalisation promotes uneven benefits of exploitation. As globalisation is managed by institutions like the World Bank and International Monetary Fund who often exacerbate inequalities and instability by prioritising market value over social value.
(Stiglitz, 2002)

The Losers and Winners of Globalisation

Income growth rate > Percentiles of global income distribution.
(Lakner & Milanovic, 2013)

Why Resist Globalisation?

• Transnationalisation of Finance

• Transnationalisation of Production

• Global Institutions

• Changing Work Structures

• Changing Role of State

• Environmental Concerns

• Cultural Erosion

Better Globalisation

Complete deglobalisation is unrealistic but a better more ethical solution is possible by prioritising sustainability, fairness and accountability. A thoughtful approach should involve recognising past mistakes and creating a more equitable global system. Focusing on both social welfare and economic growth to foster international cooperation rather than isolation. (Stiglitz, 2002)

Threats of Deglobalisation

• Economic slowdown

• Increased political tension

• Creates fragmentation

• Loss of interconnectedness and cooperation

Organisations that Think Global, Act Local

• World Social Forum - organisations gather to build alternatives to neoliberal policies

• Fairtrade - minimum standards for socially responsible production and trade

Steps for More Sustainable Globalisation

• Stronger Labour Protections

• Environmental Safeguards

• Corporate Accountability

• Fairtrade Agreements

• Balanced Policies

What is Degrowth

Socio economic and political movement that challenges continuous economic growth, arguing that it is unsustainable to the environment and social wellbeing. Advocates for downscaling production aiming to achieve ecological sustainability and enhance quality.

Principles of Degrowth

• Ecological Sustainability - reduce humanity’s ecological footprint

• Social Equity - fair distribution of resources and wealth

• Wellbring > GDP - challenges GDP as the indicator of progress

• Localised Economies - local production to reduce dependence on outsourcing

What is the SLOW Movement

The SLOW movement is a cultural shift that advocates for the sustainable approach to life, resisting fast paced consumerism. It promotes a balanced lifestyle that values quality over quanitiy. Began as a food movement in Italy as a reaction to the MacDonaldisation of fast food and industrial agriculture. Has expanded to various aspects of life, fashion, cities, art. Focusing on sustainability, wellbeing and community resistince. (Petrini,1986)

How to achieve SLOW

• Mindful consumption

• Quality over Quantity

• Environmental Sustainability

• Work Life Balance

What is Cosmopolitanism

The idea that human beings belong to a single global community regardless of national, cultural and political boundaries. Recognises shared moral and ethical responsibilities of all people, not only those within our own country and culture.

Influences perspectives on ethics, politics, migration, global cooperation and human rights.

Origins of Cosmopolitanism

“kosmou polites” - “citizen of the world”

Cosmopoltianism as a Free Thinker Concept (Diogenes 4th)
Cosmopolitanism as a Life Style Concept (Zeno/Stoics 3rd)

Legacy of Early Cosmopolitanism

The Stoic idea of a universal human community later influenced moral and political thoughts, shaping ideas about

• Human Rights, International Law, Ethical Responsibility

The Evolution of Cosmopolitanism

1. Ancient Greek and Stoics focus on philosophy & personal ethics

2. Enlightenment thinkers expanded to education, politics and IR

3. Global exploration, trade and diplomacy challenge national and religious divisions, encouraging universal humanity

4. Immanuel Kant and Erasmus of Rotterdam laid the foundation for modern IR, Human rights and peace theories

Erasmus of Rotterdam (Complaint of Peace)

• Wars between nations and religious groups are destructive

• Education could help rise above prejudices fostering global understanding

• Instead of loyalty to religion or monarchy we should focus on human dignity and moral responsibility

Why does Erasmus matter to Cosmopolitanism?

He challenged nationalism and religious intolerance, promoting peace regardless of differences. Influenced European intellectuals and reformers, emphasising universal reason and shared humanity.

Immanuel Kant (Perpetual Peace)

• All rational beings are part of a single moral community

• Peace can only be achieved through universal legal system

• States should cosmopolitan law that ensures basic rights for all

Why does Immanuel Kant matter to Cosmopolitanism?

Theories laid the foundations for international organisations, United Nations human rights and global governance.

Martha Nussbaum

• Citizenship should be based on human reason, not birthplace

• All human moral worth meaning our obligations should extend beyond our immediate communities.

• Local identities should not take precedence over global responsibilities, human rights

The Cosmopolitan Model

Shared humanity, universal moral worth
Local/National Identity, cultural and political belonging
Global Responsibility, ethical duties to all people.

Jacques Derrida (Cities of Refuge)

• Cosmopolitanism from a political theory to real world dilemma

• Cosmopolitanism should be measured by how societies welcome others

• Hospitality is a moral duty but challenge to balance security

• Migration crises, war and political oppression are the test of cosmopolitanism

Kwame Anthony Appiah

• A pragmatic approach to cosmopolitanism focusing on mutual respect and cultural dialogue

• We have moral obligations to others but we don’t have to agree on everything

• Rejects universalism, embraces cultural diversity.

Rooted Cosmopolitanism (Appiah)

Unlike Nussbaum, Appiah does not dismiss national identity but sees cosmopolitanism as a flexible and adaptable identity. People can belong to multiple identities at once. Eg. Global, national, local.

Cultural Exchange

Cultural exchange is the sharing of ideas, values, traditions, and other aspects of culture among people from different backgrounds.

Cultural Appropriation

Cultural appropriation refers to adopting customs, practices, ideas, or other elements of a particular people, community, or society inappropriately or without proper acknowledgment.

What is migration?

The movement of people

Examples of migration

Expat, refugee, asylum seekers, migrants