9.6 Globalization and Culture
9.6 Globalized Culture
Essential Question: How has globalization changed culture since 1900?
At the start of the 20th century, political and social developments led to new directions in the arts.
Modernism developed - a rejection of tradition in favor of experimentation and uncertainty.
World War I, a global depression, and World War II focused attention on survival.
After World War II, wealthier nations developed a consumer culture, focusing more on what they bought and owned.
As trade restrictions loosened and new technology became more available, people worldwide began sampling arts, popular culture, and ideas from faraway countries.
The global connectedness made possible by social media has the power to do both good and ill.
Political, Social, and Artistic Changes
Change was everywhere at the start of the 20th century, with new perspectives and discoveries redefining how people thought about their social and physical environments.
Political Changes
At the beginning of the 20th century, imperialism was creating competition among nations.
Two world wars raised the conflict to the level of deadly force; allies standing together developed a good working relationship and understanding of one another.
The Cold War divided much of the world into camps, stressing differences rather than commonalities.
After the Cold War, economic and cultural barriers fell, bringing countries closer together.
Collaboration gradually replaced competition as nations formed cooperative regional organizations such as the European Union and NAFTA.
Global associations were formed such as the United Nations for conflict resolution and the World Trade Organization to regulate international trade.
Social Changes
International organizations and collaboration brought people of different cultures into closer contact.
International exchanges and women's and civil rights movements helped bring formerly marginalized voices into the conversation.
Albert Einstein and other scientists expanded people's understanding of physical reality.
Sigmund Freud probed the invisible inner workings of the human psyche.
Jean-Paul Sartre philosophized that nothing had meaning.
Technological developments in communication, transportation, and medical and other scientific knowledge brought change after change: from horses to cars, from telegraph to radio, from antibiotics to vaccines.
Artistic Changes
Cubism, a style Picasso used in his famous painting "Guernica," challenged traditional perspective in the visual arts.
Stream-of-consciousness writing by such authors as Marcel Proust and James Joyce rebelled against traditional narrative forms.
Atonal music such as that composed by Arnold Schoenberg explored musical expression outside of familiar tonalities.
These expressions were a response to the mechanized, urbanized society widespread in the early 1900s.
The Harlem Renaissance was a "rebirth" of African American culture, distancing itself from stereotyped portrayals.
During the Harlem Renaissance, writers, poets, musicians, and social activists made Harlem a thriving center for black artistic expression.
Jazz emerged and became an international language.
Global Consumer and Popular Culture
In the 1920s, popular culture expressed itself through new media: radio and motion pictures.
Radio, movies, and later television created a culture shared throughout a nation and eventually throughout the world.
Radio provided a variety of programs, from comedies to music hours, and played a role in national defense during World War II.
Movies provided escape from the anxieties and pressures of the Great Depression while reflecting it in its themes.
Charlie Chaplin's "Little Tramp" character of silent dvds epitomized the down and out.
Radio and television ushered in the consumer culture that engulfed much of the developed world after World War II.
The "free" programs reaching into homes carried commercials for the products of sponsors.
Industry turned from wartime production to the manufacture of consumer products, and people around the world were eager to buy.
In the 1990s, the Internet connected people around the globe.
In the early 21st century, the United States remained the world's most influential culture.
Through Americanization, people worldwide learned more about the United States than Americans learned about the rest of the world.
This dominance created resentment among those who felt that American popular culture diluted their unique cultural identity.
Many people around the world considered American consumer culture to be a throwaway culture.
They objected to the waste and pollution that was part of the focus on newer, cheaper, more disposable products.
Through the influence of the British Empire and American movies, corporations, and scientific research, English became a second language in much of the world.
In the early 21st century, about 300 million people in China were learning English, about the same as the population of the United States.
Many English-speaking corporations moved their call centers to India and the Philippines, where there were large numbers of fluent English speakers who would work for relatively low wages.
As more people from other countries learned English, they spoke it in new ways.
For example, Indian English included the word prepone, which meant the opposite of postpone.
Global Brands and Commerce
As multinational corporations advertised and distributed their products, global brands such as Apple, Nike, and Toyota emerged.
Interbrand names the top global companies each year based on financial performance, ability to influence consumer choice, and ability to command a premium price.
Online commerce makes shopping a global affair.
Sites such as Amazon (in more than 17 countries) and Alibaba (mostly in Asia) make a massive selection of items available.
The online auction site eBay operates in 30 different countries.
Although their platform is international, these retailers must pay a variety of sales taxes according to the laws of each country or state in which they sell products.
Global Influences on Popular Culture
Although the United States is still the dominant culture internationally, influences from other cultures have been made in the United States and elsewhere.
For example, Indian musicals made in Bollywood enjoy popularity worldwide.
Bollywood itself is a blend of film styles, and India makes more films than any other country.
A style of Japanese hand-drawn animation known as anime became hugely influential.
In 2016, 60 percent of the world's animated TV shows were based on anime.
Anime was introduced to American culture in the 1980s through the movie Akira.
Television shows in the late 1990s, such as Pokemon and Dragon Ball, brought anime into the American mainstream.
Reggae music from Jamaica is global in both its origins and its popularity.
It emerged in the 1960s, blending New Orleans jazz and rhythm and blue styles with mento, itself a fusion of African rhythms and European elements.
It is associated with the Rastafari religion, which promotes Pan-Africanism.
It often blended with musical traditions of other countries as its became popular.
Reggae became global in the 1970s through the music of Bob Marley.
Another style of music that fused a variety of traditions and became global was the Korean music nicknamed K-pop.
Its artists, who sang a mixture of Korean and English, became global stars in the early 21st century.
Their popularity has also boosted the popularity of other South Korea exports.
They are considered so valuable that the government is cracking down on piracy, patrolling video sites.
Internet-based streaming video sites such as YouTube and Vimeo helped popularize K-Pop and other musical styles to a global audience.
Social Media and Censorship:
Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, and other forms of social media changed communication, but can also manipulate.
In some countries, such as China, the government banned social media from outside the country, but allowed its own forms of social media, censoring any criticism of the Communist Party.
Global Culture in Sports:
The globalization of popular culture included sports as well.
The establishment of the modern Olympic Games in 1896 reflected an early sense of internationalism.
In 2016, the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, attracted about 3.6 billion viewers worldwide.
Soccer emerged as the most popular sport in the world, in part because it required so little equipment that it could be played almost anywhere.
The World Cup soccer competition rivaled the Olympics as a global event.
Basketball also became a global game, and players such as Michael Jordan and LeBron James became internationally known.
In 2014, the NBA included players from 30 countries or territories.
In 2017, media from 35 countries covered the NBA Finals.
As sports become more popular globally, they also became more available to women.
Some Muslim female athletes wear athletic wear, including hijabs, so they could compete while following traditional Muslim practices regarding modesty in clothing.
Global Culture and Religion:
Globalization promoted new religious developments.
In the 1960s, Beatles band member George Harrison released a song containing the words of a Hindu mantra, launching the popularity of the Hari Krishna movement.
This quickly gained popularity in the United States and Europe.
Forms of Buddhism, shamanism, Sufism, and other religious traditions were revived and adapted for a largely Western audience in what are called New Age religions.
Falun Gong, a movement based on Buddhist and Daoist traditions, gained popularity in China in the 1990s.
Although the communist government allowed the movement at first, Chinese authorities began to restrict it in 1999.
The suppression prompted international protests against the Chinese regime for human rights abuses.
Most people around the world identified with some form of religion in the early 21st century.
However, an increasing number of younger people in many countries identified as nonbelievers.
They were not necessarily atheists (people who do not believe in any god) or agnostics (people who believe that it may not be possible to know if God exists).
Most were simply not affiliated with a religious institution.