Final: Local values vs. Global values

According to Smith, Owens & Baylis (2011, p.8), “Globalisation is mostly simply (or simplistically!) defined as a the process of interconnectedness between societies such that events in one part of the world increasingly have effects on peoples and societies far away”. 

In other words it brings two parts of the world closer together. 

For example, a lot of local food is eaten by many people globally but the style and the special meaning of the food is sometimes ignored by global people.

This blog will discuss about how local values are changed by globalisation, how local food is spread worldwide and the blog will deal with the positive effects of globalisation.

Firstly, this paragraph will discuss how local values are changed by globalisation.

 According to Moore (2012), Cultural flow is an important part of globalisation such as performance, fashion and food. 

 Today, a lot of special countries cuisines are eaten globally such as Chinese, Japanese, Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, Korean, Italian, Greek, German, Turkish, French and more.

 Many of those restaurants are owned by those nations such as Chinese restaurants in Australia are usually owned by people with a Chinese background. 

However, some local food is well spread and is not provided by that nation any more. 

For example, the Sushi roll is a popular snack anywhere in the world today and many sushi restaurants or takeaway shops are not owned by Japanese. 

According to Shimemura (2002,p.85), one of the processes of globalisation is not being conservative but being flexible with local culture and customs such as the McDonald's philosophy.

 It means local and original things need to change when it is spread globally.

 For example, there are McDonald’s restaurants in over 32,000 locations in more than 100 countries worldwide today and they provide original menus in each country.

The original menus are depending on the local culture and religions; for example, there are many kinds of chicken burgers and vegetarian burgers provided at McDonald’s in India , Lamb burgers in Australia  and Teriyaki sauce burgers in Japan. 

McDonald’s are changing their products and their business is succeeding globally. 

However, on the other hand, many local and traditional cultures are destroyed by the process of globalisation. 

The Japanese sushi roll is eaten as an easy and health snack in Australia today. 

The eating style of sushi in Australia is different from the Japanese traditional style. 

Traditionally, Japanese people eat sushi for special occasions such as ceremonies and anniversaries. Therefore, sushi is one of the most luxury and expensive food in Japan. 

No doubt, there are many cheap sushi restaurants today and it is becoming an ordinary food; however, sushi is a still symbol of high status food (Nagao & Okubo 2000). 

For example it is quite common that there are no prices for the sushi in some sushi restaurants because they charge the daily market price. It takes ten years in Japan to become a qualified sushi chef.

 In short, Japanese traditional high status sushi became a fast food in Australia. 

This is because a lot of Japanese restaurants that provide Sushi are owned by non-Japanese owners and owners of sushi restaurants need to conform to each country’s culture and life style (Suzuki 1990).

As a result, many local cultures are changing in the process of globalisation such as the traditional American hamburger became changed the style in different countries and the value of sushi has changed to an convenient, quick and easy takeaway style through the process of globalisation.

Secondly, this paragraph will discuss about how local cultures are spread worldwide. 

Local cultures are transported worldwide both physically and virtually. 

After transportation was improved and provided in many countries, people were able to travel worldwide. Therefore, people could physically experience different cultures easily today.

 However, individual travelling experiences are limited; therefore, it is not a main means of spreading local culture. The main way of spreading local culture is the media today. 

Television programs broadcast travel-shows around the world and local foods and events; therefore people could know other cultures at home through the media. 

However, the mainstream media is controlled by sponsors, politics and it is physically limited; therefore, it cannot be exactly the same as the real experience (Sparks 2009).

Moreover, today people are able to connect the internet by computer or mobile terminal units and check or send any information worldwide. 

For example, if a person wants to cook local food, he could check the recipe, photographs and videos from the internet and be able to cook it even if he has never eaten the food. 

The recipe might be incorrect information because there are a lot of uncontrolled contents such as blogs.

Blogs are overlapped between private and public (Weber 2007); therefore, it possible to include incorrect information. 

Fashion or other cultural events are able to be sent by movies, books and photographs.

 However, food needs to be tasted if we try to cook the same taste as local food. 

For example, many sushi rolls are sold in Australia today.

 The sushi roll’s ingredients are different from Japanese sushi; however, many blogs show the Australian sushi roll’s recipe as traditional Japanese sushi. In other words, the media could spread culture globally; however, it is limited. 

The media helps globalisation because people have easy access; however, there is a lot of incorrect information. 

In other words, globalisation is connecting different places but if information is incorrect, the incorrect information will be spread and might affect the original local culture.

Finally, this paragraph will discuss the positive effects of globalisation. 

Those above paragraphs mentioned several negative points of globalisation. 

 However, there are several positive effects to local culture.

 When a minor local culture is introduced worldwide, this could cause opportunities to make a closer relationship between each country. 

For example, many Japanese people like travelling to Australia today, it is because of the weather, the cost and many other reasons; however, one of the reasons is the food. 

There are many Japanese restaurants and sushi shops around Australia; therefore many Japanese people do not need to worry about food problems (Satake 2010). 

The information that there is a good variety of Japanese food in Australia is reported by the media and many tourists choose to visit Australia. 

No doubt, tourists realise that a lot of Japanese restaurants do not really provide traditional Japanese taste; however, Japanese food makes tourists relaxing. 

In other words, importing Japanese food helps to improve the tourism industry. A cultural flow makes people act and it makes a big industry today.

As a result, cultural connection creates physical connection and this is globalisation.

In conclusion, local cultures are introduced by the media worldwide today. 

It makes several negative effects such as destroying the local original culture. However, connecting local cultures does not only make negative effects because it brings countries closer and mutual understanding is made easier. 

Globalisation is criticised sometimes because it could help capitalism; however, it might be possible to cause understanding each other and to create a fair world if people believe it.

 

Image: http://whatscookingamerica.net/Appetizers/CaliforniaRoll.htm
http://gawker.com/hippies/
http://store.shopping.yahoo.co.jp/sakatsu/59000010455.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RFDkNZwLiI

Reference:

Baylis,J, Smith, S & Owens 2011, the globalization of world politics An introduction to international relations fifth edition, Oxford university press, Oxford, NY

McDonald’s USA, retrieved 5 October 2012,
< http://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en/home.html>

McDonald’s India, retrieved 5 October 2012,
< http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/>

McDonald’s Japan, retrieved 5 October 2012,
< http://www.mcdonalds.co.jp/＞

McDonald’s Australia, retrieved 5 October 2012,
< http://mcdonalds.com.au/#/home>

Moore, C 2012, ALC215 Lecture, Deakin University, retrieved 4 October 2012, https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=31220&tId=1594120

Nagao, K & Okubo,H 2000, ‘A Study of Japanese Ceremonial Foods’, Bunkyo University Women's College, Annual reports of studies Vol.44, pp.87-94, retrieved 5 October 2012, < http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110001137134/en>

Shimemura, Y 2002, ‘Globalization vs. Americanization: Is the World Being Americanized by the Dominance of American Culture’, comparative civilizations review, Vol.47, pp.80-91, retrieved 3 October 2012, < https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/CCR/article/viewFile/12818/12682>

Satake, S 2010, ‘Approach for Definitions of "Tourism"and"Kanko" -Lessons provided from consideration of their etymological approach and early usage examples in Japan’, Osaka University of Tourism, Journal of Osaka University of Tourism, Vol.10, pp. 89-98, retrieved 5 October 2012, < http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110007687766/>

Sparks, G G 2009, Media effects research: A basic overview, 3 nd edn, Wadsworth Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA. (Chapter 12).

Suzuki, M 1990, ‘the globalisation and Japanese food culture’, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba forum Vol.28, pp.80-86, retrieved 5 October 2012, < http://ci.nii.ac.jp/naid/110000389408/>

Weber, S, Weber, J 2007, ‘Technology in the everyday lives of 'tweens'’,Growing up online: young people and digital technologies 2007, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, N.Y, pp. 49-65

Week 8:Which comes first the celebrity or the culture?

People are strongly influenced by celebrities in the modern society. According to Marshall (2012), a celebrity is a construction of a personal persona. In other words, celebrity is made by audience. This post will discuss about which comes first the celebrity or the culture.

Culture and the celebrity have strong connections in the modern society because people could access many different kinds of media; therefore, the public and the private are not clearly separated in the contemporary society (Marshall 2012). Celebrities show the trend of the society and also create the trend.

 For example, a young idolized singer group, AKB48 is popular in Japan and Asian countries today.

The group is supported by a lot of people and filmed and shown by the media; therefore, the group is a social phenomenon in Japanese culture. The producer, who created the group started the movement and he created a new symbol of Japanese pop culture worldwide. Their website is multilingual and people can watch their videos with subtitles on Youtube anywhere around the world. This shows how the media and popularity of this group drives globalisation forward.

The group members are blogging, tweeting, and participating in events that give the audience the opportunity to meet the group; therefore, the audience has affinity with the group members. 

In this case, the members of the group are not special talented girls; therefore many teenage girls could copy them easily. In other words, the reach of celebrity goes beyond entertainment (Marshall 2010) because the celebrity becomes role model for people. 

The culture and the celebrity are both influenced by each other; therefore it is impossible to say which comes first. 

  

Image source:

http://hararie-japan-tokyo-tokyo.com/japanese_culture/2010/11/akb48-a-very-large-and-popular-girl-group.html

http://blog.harugon.com/2012/01/akb_6471.html

References:

AKB48 Official English Website 2012, retrieved 4 September 2012, <http://www.akb48.co.jp/english/members/index.html>

AKB48 Official Chinese website 2012, retrieved 4 September 2012,
<http://www.akb48.co.cn/>

Marshall, D 2012, ALC215 Lecture, Deakin University, retrieved 3 September 2012, <https://d2l.deakin.edu.au/d2l/lms/content/viewer/main_frame.d2l?ou=31220&tId=1637656 >

Marshal, D 2010, The Specular Economy, Society, vol.47, no.2, pp. 47-52, retrieved 2 September 2012,<http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?sid=06343fae-2275-40fc-b18e-61cda1dbde0a%40sessionmgr13&vid=1&hid=3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=54618364>.

Week 7: Is Al Jazeera a counter to Western media imperialism or a mirror version of FOX news style propaganda?

Al Jazeera is the most famous Arabic media today. This is because they have done some unique reports about The War in Afghanistan and the Iraq war. For example, Al Jazeera reported about that local civilians have been injured by the American side in the Iraq war and also reported a message from Osama bin Laden. Al Jazeera is unique; therefore many people might believe that Al Jazeera is a fair organization. However, there are several reasons against this opinio. This post will discuss about the difference an the similarities between the Western media and Al Jazeera.

Is Al Jazeera biased?

The media is restricted by a lot of elements such as politics, economics and culture; therefore, the media is always influenced by the situation. In other words, bias and the media are strongly related anyway. Al Jazeera was founded in the Arabic countries and by Arabic people; therefore it is biased toward Arabic culture (El-Nawawy 2003).

Their base of view is Arabic culture; therefore it is a different reporting style and the content of Al Jazeera is different to contents from western media. However, even if the style is different still the stance that biased towards the own culture is the same.

Al Jazeera is biased towards Arabic cultures; however, it might still bring positive effects to our society because when Al Jazeera reports about the Arabic side of the view about a war or other political issues, people could compare between Western reports and Arabic reports. It might cause multiple choices for people and it will be good source of critical thinking.

The media should try to avoid bias; however, this might be difficult. Therefore, people need to be critical and the Al Jazeera is a good source of comparison.

 Image source:

http://www.september11news.com/OsamaSpeeches.htm

http://scrippsmediaethics.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/bias-at-heart-of-journalism.html

Refelences:

El-Nawawy, M. 2003, ‘The battle for the Arab mind’, Al-Jazeera, the story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism 2003, Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69, 217-218

Al Jazeera 2012, retrieved 28 August 2012,<http://www.aljazeera.com/>

September 11 News.com 2009, retrieved 28 August 2012, <http://www.september11news.com/>

Week6: What is the Blogsphere?

There are over one billion blogs in existence worldwide. It includes microbloggings such as Twitter. 

In our grandparents’ generation, public sphere was only limited because it needed to be face to face; however, the style of public sphere was changed by the internet and blogging is one of the most popular public spheres today.

The blog is overlapped between public and private (Weber  2007). Human society was changed a lot by the internet and especially blogging changed the human’s communication style. People could blog about anything; therefore it is private and there is no responsibility. However, a blog could be published to public society and everyone could read it.

There are a lot of elderly people in a local cafe in an afternoon. People communicate with each other and get a lot of local information including gossips from the local cafe. That information might not be accurate but it is only shared with a limited amount of people. However, many young people are using blogs and that is the public sphere for them today; therefore inaccurate information could be published for everyone worldwide.

What is the difference between a local cafe and blog?

The difference is only the audience of the population. But the difference has a great effect.

For example, first name last name, a Japanese celebrity wrote her blog about criticism for a criminal with the criminal’s photo in July 2012. However, the photo was not the criminal’s photo, it was a completely different person. Many people criticise the blog.

The celebrity wrote the information on the blog and this caused a big problem; however, if she talked about the same topic only with friends or workmates, it would not have been a big problem.

Blogsphere is one of most popular public spheres today; however, there are still a lot of problems.

image source: http://www.lisaneun.com/MT/archives/2006_06.html

Reference:

Weber, S, Weber, J 2007, ‘Technology in the everyday lives of 'tweens'’, Growing up online: young people and digital technologies 2007, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, N.Y, pp. 49-65

Hat trick associates 2012, ‘So How Many Blogs Are There, Anyway?’, retrieved 23 August 2012, <http://www.hattrickassociates.com/tag/how-many-blogs-exist/>

Yahoo news 2012 'Angry Dewi Sukarno', retrieved 23 August 2012,
<http://headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20120803-00000010-rbb-ent>

Week 5 Making Culture: How do you participate in national, international, transnational or global culture?

Today, 5,993,945 (26.8%)of the Australian resident population were born outside Australia. There are a lot of people with different backgrounds and those cultures are mixed and becoming the new Australian culture. This post will discuss about how people participate in global culture.

The media connects many countries. People could watch international TV shows, listen to different language programs on the radio and read many types of foreign books in local libraries in Australia today. However, the most familiar tool of participating in global culture might be the internet. The internet could connect a lot of people, many countries and cultures.
For example, there is a large amount of blogs worldwide. According to Cross (2011, p.6), paradigm was changed by blogs because everyone who never had the chance to explain their opinion to the public, could publish their own opinion today; therefore, the traditional publication style such as newspaper or television lose their power in modern society. Everyone could explain their opinion, idea, products or anything on the internet and many new cultures which are not dependent on a country could be made on the internet.

No doubt, there are still many technical and legal problems such as human rights, legal rights or ethical issues; therefore, the internet must be controlled by someone officially. However, the internet has so many opportunities for mixed and creates new borderless cultures.

There are a lot of opportunities for many cultures to participate on the internet.

Image source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_10927368_global-computer-network.html

Reference:

Cross, M 2011, Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter Are Transforming Popular Culture, Praeger Publishers Westport, CT, USA

Australia Bureau of Statistics 2011, 'Migration, Australia, 2009-10', retrieved 15 August 2012, <http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/52F24D6A97BC0A67CA2578B0001197B8?opendocument>

Week4: The Olympics as a positive or negative global event

In 27 July 2012, the 2012 summer Olympic Games were started in London. Over 10,000 peoplefrom 204 countries or regions enter the event. Therefore, the event could be a good source for globalisation. This post will discuss about a positive effect of Olympic Games in globalisation and the problem.

In the opening ceremony, we could see all participating nations and regions in one ground. Also the ceremony was relayed throughout worldwide. It could be good opportunity to know each country and regions because that includes somewhere inconspicuous areas in economical or political scene. Those areas are not focused by media very often; therefore Olympic Games could be a good opportunity for them. 

However after the opening ceremony, main media report only specific games or match; for example, almost all relays are related with Australian athlete or popular sports in Australia. In other words, people could not watch many events if it is not related with Australia athlete. No doubt, many people are interested in own country; however, it is not good for the point of introduce other countries because the information is controlled by main media.

According to Short( 2008, p.325), “The Olympic Games is one of the truly global media events in which people around the world watch the same event in real time for two weeks every four years”.

If the media is not lean into only own country, the Olympic Game would be a great global event.

Image source:
http://www.weebirdy.com/2012/07/wee-obsession-the-hill-at-the-london-2012-opening-ceremony.html/148280581sm00395_2012_olymp

http://au.eurosport.com/rowing/olympic-games-london/2012/oz-rower-held-by-police_sto3371576/story-london.shtml

Reference:

Short, J 2008, ‘City: analysis of urban trends, culture, theory, policy, action’, Vol.12, Issue.3, pp. 321-340, retrieved 8 August 2012, < http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13604810802478888>

Week 3: Global Media Empire

Globally, there are many international companies today, for example, McDonalds, KFC, SONY, Walt Disney, Google, Facebook, Apple and others. Those companies provide their service, products, ideas and conceivable things for people worlwide. This post will focus on SONY as an example of a Global Media Empire.

SONY is a Japanese multi-industry company and one of the leading companies of electric products worldwide. 
After the portable music player, WALKMAN was introduced by SONY in 1979, the style of listening to music and music culture were changed worldwide (Kasahara 2003: p.41). Music was being listened to by people at home or at concert halls before the WALKMAN was provided; however, people could enjoy music anytime, anywhere after the WALKMAN was introduced. This was a big change in music history and influenced many people worldwide.

In other words, SONY succeeded in globalising the world by one single media product. Today, the WALKMAN is not as popular as the iPod; however, the achievements mentioned above will never disappear.

Globalisation is supported by many companies worldwide and those companies have power in world economics. For example, the total assets of SONY groups are ¥13.29 trillion.

Culture is always changing in human society; however, if culture would be changed by economic power, this could cause a negative effect in human society such as a gap between the rich and the poor. Therefore, people should be more considerate about the power of global media empire today.

Image source:
http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2009/07/notable-and-crazy-sony-cassette-walkman-editions/
http://cambridgeforecast.wordpress.com/2010/11/

Reference:

Kasahara, T 2003, ‘Culture and the Walkman’, Kyoto Sosei University review, Vol.3, pp.41-46, retrieved 31 July2012,  <http://ci.nii.ac.jp/els/110004677359.pdf?id=ART0007407260&type=pdf&lang=en&host=cinii&order_no=&ppv_type=0&lang_sw=&no=1343798233&cp=>