A

Seminar Report
ON

“GLOBALISATION”

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF

M.B.A

(MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION)

BY
ANANT SONI
M.B.A (2010-2011)

Guided by: Submitted to:

Miss. Ankita Juneja MissP.Vakula
(Faculty, MBA Dept.) (HOD MBA Dept.)
 Introduction
A phenomenon by which the experience of everyday life, as
influenced by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, reflects a
standardization of cultural expressions around the world. Propelled
by the efficiency or appeal of wireless communications, electronic
commerce, popular culture, and international travel, globalization
has been seen as a trend toward homogeneity that will eventually
make human experience everywhere essentially the same. This
appears, however, to be an overstatement of the phenomenon.
Although homogenizing influences do indeed exist, they are far from
creating anything akin to a single world culture.

Emergence of Global Subcultures

Some observers argue that a rudimentary version of world culture is
taking shape among certain individuals who share similar values,
aspirations, or lifestyles. The result is a collection of elite groups
whose unifying ideals transcend geographical limitations.

“Davos” Culture

One such cadre, according to political scientist Samuel Huntington in

The Clash of Civilizations (1998), comprises an elite group of highly
educated people who operate in the rarefied domains of international
finance, media, and diplomacy. Named after the Swiss town that
began hosting annual meetings of the World Economic Forum in
1971, these “Davos” insiders share common beliefs about
individualism, democracy, and market economics. They are said to
follow a recognizable lifestyle, are instantly identifiable anywhere in
the world, and feel more comfortable in each other's presence than
they do among their less-sophisticated compatriots.
The International “Faculty Club”

The globalization of cultural subgroups is not limited to the upper

classes. Expanding on the concept of Davos culture, sociologist Peter
L. Berger observed that the globalization of Euro-American academic
agendas and lifestyles has created a worldwide “faculty club”—an
international network of people who share similar values, attitudes,
and research goals. While not as wealthy or privileged as their Davos
counterparts, members of this international faculty club wield
tremendous influence through their association with educational
institutions worldwide and have been instrumental in promoting
feminism, environmentalism, and human rights as global issues.
Berger cited the antismoking movement as a case in point: the
movement began as a singular North American preoccupation in the
1970s and subsequently spread to other parts of the world, traveling
along the contours of academe's global network.

Nongovernmental Organizations

Another global subgroup comprises “cosmopolitans” who nurture an

intellectual appreciation for local cultures. As pointed out by Swedish
anthropologist Ulf Hannerz, this group advocates a view of global
culture based not on the “replication of uniformity” but on the
“organization of diversity.” Often promoting this view are
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that lead efforts to preserve
cultural traditions in the developing world. By the beginning of the
21st century, institutions such as Cultural Survival were operating
on a world scale, drawing attention to indigenous groups who are
encouraged to perceive themselves as “first peoples”—a new global
designation emphasizing common experiences of exploitation among
indigenous inhabitants of all lands. By sharpening such identities,
these NGOs have globalized the movement to preserve indigenous
world cultures.
Transnational workers

Another group stems from the rise of a transnational workforce.

Indian-born anthropologist Arjun Appadurai has studied English-
speaking professionals who trace their origins to South Asia but who
live and work elsewhere. They circulate in a social world that has
multiple home bases, and they have gained access to a unique
network of individuals and opportunities. For example, many
software engineers and Internet entrepreneurs who live and work in
Silicon Valley, California, maintain homes in—and strong social ties
to—Indian states such as Maharashtra and Punjab.

The persistence of local culture

Underlying these various visions of globalization is a reluctance to

define exactly what is meant by the term culture. During most of the
20th century, anthropologists defined culture as a shared set of
beliefs, customs, and ideas that held people together in recognizable,
self-identified groups. Scholars in many disciplines challenged this
notion of cultural coherence, especially as it became evident that
members of close-knit groups held radically different visions of their
social worlds. Culture is no longer perceived as a knowledge system
inherited from ancestors. As a result, many social scientists now
treat culture as a set of ideas, attributes, and expectations that
change as people react to changing circumstances. Indeed, by the
turn of the 21st century, the collapse of barriers enforced by Soviet
communism and the rise of electronic commerce have increased the
perceived speed of social change everywhere.

The term local culture is commonly used to characterize the

experience of everyday life in specific, identifiable localities. It
reflects ordinary people's feelings of appropriateness, comfort, and
correctness—attributes that define personal preferences and
changing tastes. Given the strength of local cultures, it is difficult to
argue that an overarching global culture actually exists. Jet-setting
sophisticates may feel comfortable operating in a global network
disengaged from specific localities, but these people constitute a very
small minority; their numbers are insufficient to sustain a coherent
cultural system. It is more important to ask where these global
operators maintain their families, what kind of kinship networks
they rely upon, if any, and whether theirs is a transitory lifestyle or a
permanent condition. For most people, place and locality still matter.
Even the transnational workers discussed by Appadurai are rooted in
local communities bound by common perceptions of what represents
an appropriate and fulfilling lifestyle.
Experiencing Globalization
Research on globalization has shown that it is not an omnipotent,
unidirectional force levelling everything in its path. Because a global
culture does not exist, any search for it would be futile. It is more
fruitful to instead focus on particular aspects of life that are indeed
affected by the globalizing process.

The Compression of Time And Space

The breakdown of time and space is best illustrated by the influential

“global village” thesis posed by communications scholar Marshall
McLuhan in Gutenberg Galaxy (1962). Instantaneous
communication, predicted McLuhan, would soon destroy
geographically based power imbalances and create a global village.
Later, geographer David Harvey argued that the postmodern
condition is characterized by a “time-space compression” that arises
from inexpensive air travel and the ever-present use of telephones,
fax, and, more recently, e-mail.

There can be little doubt that people perceive the world today as a
smaller place than it appeared to their grandparents. In the 1960s
and '70s immigrant workers in London relied on postal systems and
personally delivered letters to send news back to their home villages
in India, China, and elsewhere; it could take two months to receive a
reply. The telephone was not an option, even in dire emergencies. By
the late 1990s, the grandchildren of these first-generation migrants
were carrying cellular phones that linked them to cousins in cities
such as Calcutta (Kolkata), Singapore, or Shanghai. Awareness of
time zones (when people will be awake; what time offices open) is
now second nature to people whose work or family ties connect them
to far-reaching parts of the world.

McLuhan's notion of the global village presupposed the worldwide

spread of television, which brings distant events into the homes of
viewers everywhere. Building on this concept, McLuhan claimed that
accelerated communications produce an “implosion” of personal
experience—that is, distant events are brought to the immediate
attention of people halfway around the world.
The spectacular growth of Cable News Network (CNN) is a case in
point. CNN became an icon of globalization by broadcasting its U.S.-
style news programming around the world, 24 hours a day. Live
coverage of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Persian Gulf War
in 1991, and extended coverage of events surrounding the terrorist
attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on September 11,
2001, illustrated television's powerful global reach. Some
governments have responded to such advances by attempting to
restrict international broadcasting, but satellite communication
makes these restrictions increasingly unenforceable.

The standardization of experience

Travel

Since the mid-1960s, the cost of international flights has declined,

and foreign travel has become a routine experience for millions of
middle- and working-class people. Diplomats, businesspeople, and
ordinary tourists can feel “at home” in any city, anywhere in the
world. Foreign travel no longer involves the challenge of adapting to
unfamiliar food and living arrangements. CNN has been an essential
feature of the standardized hotel experience since at least the 1990s.
More significantly, Western-style beds, toilets, showers, fitness
centres, and restaurants now constitute the global standard. A
Japanese variant on the Westernized hotel experience, featuring
Japanese-style food and accommodations, can also be found in most
major cities. These developments are linked to the technology of
climate control. In fact, the very idea of routine global travel was
inconceivable prior to the universalization of air-conditioning. An
experience of this nature would have been nearly impossible in the
1960s, when the weather, aroma, and noise of the local society
pervaded one's hotel room.
Clothing
Modes of dress can disguise an array of cultural diversity behind a
facade of uniformity. The man's business suit, with coloured tie and
buttoned shirt, has become “universal” in the sense that it is worn
just about everywhere, although variations have appeared in
countries that are cautious about adopting global popular culture.
Iranian parliamentarians, for example, wear the “Western” suit but
forgo the tie, while Saudi diplomats alternate “traditional” Bedouin
robes with tailored business suits, depending upon the occasion. In
the early years of the 21st century, North Korea and Afghanistan
were among the few societies holding out against these globalizing
trends.

The emergence of women's “power suits” in the 1980s signified

another form of global conformity. Stylized trouser-suits, with silk
scarves and colourful blouses (analogues of the male business suit),
are now worldwide symbols of modernity, independence, and
competence. Moreover, the export of used clothing from Western
countries to developing nations has accelerated the adoption of
Western-style dress by people of all socioeconomic levels around the
world.

Some military fashions reflect a similar sense of convergence. Rebel

fighters, such as those in Central Africa, South America, or the
Balkans, seemed to take their style cue from the guerrilla garb worn
by movie star Sylvester Stallone in his trilogy of Rambo films. In the
1990s the United States military introduced battle helmets that
resembled those worn by the German infantry during World War II.
Many older Americans were offended by the association with Nazism,
but younger Americans and Europeans made no such connections. In
2001, a similar helmet style was worn by elite Chinese troops
marching in a parade in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

Chinese fashion underwent sweeping change after the death in 1976

of Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong and the resultant
economic liberalization. Western suits or casual wear became the
norm. The androgynous gray or blue Mao suit essentially
disappeared in the 1980s, worn only by communist patriarch Deng
Xiaoping and a handful of aging leaders who dressed in the uniform
of the Cultural Revolution until their deaths in the 1990s—by which
time Mao suits were being sold in Hong Kong and Shanghai
boutiques as high-priced nostalgia wear, saturated with postmodern
irony.

Entertainment
The power of media conglomerates and the ubiquity of entertainment
programming has globalized television's impact and made it a logical
target for accusations of cultural imperialism. Critics cite a 1999
anthropological study that linked the appearance of anorexia in Fiji
to the popularity of American television programs, notably Melrose
Place and Beverly Hills 90210. Both series featured slender young
actresses who, it was claimed, led Fijian women (who are typically
fuller-figured) to question indigenous notions of the ideal body.

Anti-globalism activists contend that American television shows have

corrosive effects on local cultures by highlighting Western notions of
beauty, individualism, and sexuality. Although many of the titles
exported are considered second-tier shows in the United States, there
is no dispute that these programs are part of the daily fare for
viewers around the world. Television access is widespread, even if
receivers are not present in every household. In the small towns of
Guatemala, the villages of Jiangxi province in China, or the hill
settlements of Borneo, for instance, one television set—often a
satellite system powered by a gasoline generator—may serve two or
three dozen viewers, each paying a small fee. Collective viewing in
bars, restaurants, and teahouses was common during the early
stages of television broadcasting in Indonesia, Japan, Kenya, and
many other countries. By the 1980s video-viewing parlours had
become ubiquitous in many regions of the globe.

Live sports programs continue to draw some of the largest global

audiences. The 1998 World Cup men's football (soccer) final between
Brazil and France was watched by an estimated two billion people.
After the 1992 Olympic Games, when the American “Dream Team” of
National Basketball Association (NBA) stars electrified viewers who
had never seen the sport played to U.S. professional standards, NBA
games were broadcast in Australia, Israel, Japan, China, Germany,
and Britain. In the late 1990s Michael Jordan, renowned for leading
the Chicago Bulls to six championships with his stunning basketball
skills, became one of the world's most recognized personalities.

Hollywood movies have had a similar influence, much to the chagrin

of some countries. In early 2000 Canadian government regulators
ordered the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) to reduce the
showing of Hollywood films during prime time and to instead feature
more Canadian-made programming. CBC executives protested that
their viewers would stop watching Canadian television stations and
turn to satellite reception for international entertainment. Such
objections were well grounded, given that, in 1998, 79 percent of
English-speaking Canadians named a U.S. program when asked to
identify their favourite television show.

Hollywood, however, does not hold a monopoly on entertainment

programming. The world's most prolific film industry is in Bombay
(Mumbai), India (“Bollywood”), where as many as 1,000 feature films
are produced annually in all of India's major languages. Primarily
love stories with heavy doses of singing and dancing, Bollywood
movies are popular throughout Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
State censors in Islamic countries often find the modest dress and
subdued sexuality of Indian film stars acceptable for their audiences.
Although the local appeal of Bollywood movies remains strong,
exposure to Hollywood films such as Jurassic Park (1993) and Speed
(1994) caused young Indian moviegoers to develop an appreciation for
the special effects and computer graphics that had become the
hallmarks of many American films.
Food

Food is the oldest global carrier of culture. In fact, food has always
been a driving force for globalization, especially during earlier phases
of European trade and colonial expansion. The hot red pepper was
introduced to the Spanish court by Christopher Columbus in 1493. It
spread rapidly throughout the colonial world, transforming cuisines
and farming practices in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It might
be difficult to imagine Korean cuisine without red pepper paste or
Szechuan food without its fiery hot sauce, but both are relatively
recent innovations—probably from the 17th century. Other New
World crops, such as corn (maize), cassava, sweet potatoes, and
peanuts (groundnuts), were responsible for agricultural revolutions
in Asia and Africa, opening up terrain that had previously been
unproductive.

One century after the sweet potato was introduced into south China
(in the mid-1600s), it had become a dominant crop and was largely
responsible for a population explosion that created what today is
called Cantonese culture. It is the sweet potato, not the more
celebrated white rice, which sustained generations of southern
Chinese farmers.

These are the experiences that cause cultural meaning to be attached

to particular foods. Today the descendants of Cantonese, Hokkien,
and Hakka pioneers disdain the sweet potato as a “poverty food” that
conjures images of past hardships. In Taiwan, by contrast,
independence activists (affluent members of the rising Taiwanese
middle class) have embraced the sweet potato as an emblem of
identity, reviving old recipes and celebrating their cultural
distinctions from “rice-eating mainlanders.”

While the global distribution of foods originated with the pursuit of

exotic spices (such as black pepper, cinnamon, and cloves),
contemporary food trading features more prosaic commodities, such
as soybeans and apples. African bananas, Chilean grapes, and
California oranges have helped to transform expectations about the
availability and affordability of fresh produce everywhere in the
world. Green beans are now grown in Burkina Faso in Central Africa
and shipped by express air cargo to Paris, where they end up on the
plates of diners in the city's top restaurants. This particular
exchange system is based on a “nontraditional” crop that was not
grown in Burkina Faso until the mid-1990s, when the World Bank
encouraged its cultivation as a means of promoting economic
development. The country soon became Africa's second largest
exporter of green beans. Central African farmers consequently found
themselves in direct competition with other “counter-season” growers
of green beans from Brazil and Florida.

The average daily diet has also undergone tremendous change, with
all nations converging on a diet high in meat, dairy products, and
processed sugars. Correlating closely to a worldwide rise in affluence,
the new “global diet” is not necessarily a beneficial trend, as it can
increase the risk of obesity and diabetes. Now viewed as a global
health threat, obesity has been dubbed “globesity” by the World
Health Organization. To many observers, the homogenization of
human diet appears to be unstoppable. Vegetarians, environmental
activists, and organic food enthusiasts have organized rearguard
actions to reintroduce “traditional” and more wholesome dietary
practices, but these efforts have been concentrated among educated
elites in industrial nations.

Western food corporations are often blamed for these dietary trends.
McDonald's, KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), and Coca-Cola are
primary targets of anti-globalism demonstrators (who are themselves
organized into global networks, via the Internet). McDonald's has
become a symbol of globalism for obvious reasons: on an average day
in 2001, the company served nearly 45 million customers at more
than 25,000 restaurants in 120 countries. It succeeds in part by
adjusting its menu to local needs. In India, for example, no beef
products are sold.

McDonald's also succeeds in countries that might be expected to

disdain fast food. In France, for example, food, especially haute
cuisine, is commonly regarded as the core element of French culture.
Nevertheless, McDonald's continues to expand in the very heartland
of opposition: by the turn of the 21st century there were more than
850 McDonald's restaurants in France, employing over 30,000 people.
Not surprisingly, many European protest movements have targeted
McDonald's as an agent of cultural imperialism. French intellectuals
may revile the Big Mac sandwich for all that it symbolizes, but the
steady growth of fast-food chains demonstrates that anti-globalist
attitudes do not always affect economic behaviour, even in societies
(such as France) where these sentiments are nearly universal. Like
their counterparts in the United States, French workers are
increasingly pressed for time. The two-hour lunch is largely a thing
of the past.

Food and beverage companies attract attention because they cater to

the most elemental form of human consumption. We are what we eat,
and when diet changes, notions of national and ethnic identity are
affected. Critics claim that the spread of fast food undermines
indigenous cuisines by forcing a homogenization of world dietary
preferences, but anthropological research in Russia, Japan, and Hong
Kong does not support this view.

Close study of cultural trends at the local level, however, shows that
the globalization of fast food can influence public conduct. Fast-food
chains have introduced practices that changed some consumer
behaviours and preferences. For example, in Japan, where using
one's hands to eat prepared foods was considered a gross breach of
etiquette, the popularization of McDonald's hamburgers has had such
a dramatic impact on popular etiquette that it is now common to see
Tokyo commuters eating in public without chopsticks or spoons.

In late-Soviet Russia, rudeness had become a high art form among

service personnel. Today customers expect polite, friendly service
when they visit Moscow restaurants—a social revolution initiated by
McDonald's and its employee training programs. Since its opening in
1990, Moscow's Pushkin Square restaurant has been one of the
busiest McDonald's in the world.

The social atmosphere in colonial Hong Kong of the 1960s was

anything but genteel. Cashing a check, boarding a bus, or buying a
train ticket required brute force. When McDonald's opened in 1975,
customers crowded around the cash registers, shouting orders and
waving money over the heads of people in front of them. McDonald's
responded by introducing queue monitors—young women who
channeled customers into orderly lines. Queuing subsequently
became a hallmark of Hong Kong's cosmopolitan, middle-class
culture. Older residents credit McDonald's for introducing the queue,
a critical element in this social transition.
Yet another innovation, in some areas of Asia, Latin America, and
Europe, was McDonald's provision of clean toilets and washrooms. In
this way the company was instrumental in setting new cleanliness
standards (and thereby raising consumer expectations) in cities that
had never offered public facilities. Wherever McDonald's has set up
business, it rapidly has become a haven for an emerging class of
middle-income urbanites.

The introduction of fast food has been particularly influential on

children, especially since so many advertisements are designed to
appeal to them. Largely as a consequence of such advertising,
American-style birthday parties have spread to many parts of the
world where individual birth dates previously had never been
celebrated. McDonald's and KFC have become the leading venues for
birthday parties throughout East Asia, with special rooms and
services provided for the events. These and other symbolic effects
make fast food a powerful force for dietary and social change, because
a meal at these restaurants will introduce practices that younger
consumers may not experience at home—most notably, the chance to
choose one's own food. The concept of personal choice is symbolic of
Western consumer culture. Visits to McDonald's and KFC have
become signal events for children who approach fast-food restaurants
with a heady sense of empowerment.
Religion and Globalization
Central to Huntington's thesis in The Clash of Civilizations is the
assumption that the post-Cold War world would regroup into
regional alliances based on religious beliefs and historical
attachments to various “civilizations.” Identifying three prominent
groupings—Western Christianity (Roman Catholicism and
Protestantism), Orthodox Christianity (Russian and Greek), and
Islam, with additional influences from Hinduism and
Confucianism—he predicted that the progress of globalization would
be severely constrained by religio-political barriers. The result would
be a “multipolar world.” Huntington's view differed markedly from
those who prophesied a standardized, homogenized global culture.

There is, however, considerable ethnographic evidence, gathered by

anthropologists and sociologists, that refutes this model of
civilizational clash and suggests instead a rapid diffusion of religious
and cultural systems throughout the world. Islam is one case in
point, given that it constitutes one of the fastest-growing religions in
the United States, France, and Germany—supposed bastions of
Western Christianity. Before the end of the 20th century, entire
arrondissements (districts) of Paris were dominated by Muslims, the
majority of them French citizens born and reared in France. Thirty-
five percent of students in the suburban Dearborn, Michigan, public
school system were Muslim in 2001, making the provision of ḥalāl
(“lawful” under Islam) meals at lunchtime a hot issue in local politics.
By the start of the 21st century, Muslims of Turkish origin
constituted the fastest-growing sector of Berlin's population, and, in
northern England, the old industrial cities of Bradford and Newcastle
had been revitalized by descendants of Pakistani and Indian Muslims
who immigrated during the 1950s and '60s.

From its inception, Christianity has been an aggressively

proselytizing religion with a globalizing agenda. Indeed, the Roman
Catholic Church was arguably the first global institution, having
spread rapidly throughout the European colonial world and beyond.
Today, perhaps the fastest-growing religion is evangelical
Christianity. Stressing the individual's personal experience of
divinity (as opposed to priestly intercession), evangelicalism has
gained wide appeal in regions such as Latin America and sub-
Saharan Africa, presenting serious challenges to established Catholic
churches. Following the collapse of Soviet power in 1991, the Russian
Orthodox church began the process of rebuilding after more than
seven decades of repression. At the same time, evangelical
missionaries from the United States and Europe shifted much of
their attention from Latin America and Africa to Russia, alarming
Russian Orthodox leaders. By 1997, under pressure from Orthodox
clergy, the Russian government promoted legislation to restrict the
activities of religious organizations that had operated in Russia for
less than 15 years, effectively banning Western evangelical
missionaries. The debate over Russian religious unity continues,
however, and, if China is any guide, such legislation could have little
long-term effect.

In China, unauthorized “house churches” became a major concern for

Communist Party officials who attempted to control Muslim,
Christian, and Buddhist religious activity through state-sponsored
organizations. Many of the unrecognized churches are syncretic in
the sense that they combine aspects of local religion with Christian
ideas. As a result they have been almost impossible to organize, let
alone control.

Social scientists confirm the worldwide resurgence, since the late

20th century, of conservative religion among faiths such as Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Shinto in Japan and Sikhism in
India. The social and political connotations of these conservative
upsurges are unique to each culture and religion. For example, some
sociologists have identified Christian evangelicalism as a leading
carrier of modernization: its emphasis on the Bible is thought to
encourage literacy, while involvement in church activities can teach
administrative skills that are applicable to work environments. As a
sociologist of religion, Berger argues that “there may be other
globalizing popular movements [today], but evangelicalism is clearly
the most dynamic.”
Demographic Influences
Huntington's “clash of civilizations” thesis assumes that the major
East Asian societies constitute an alliance of “Confucian” cultures
that share a common heritage in the teachings of Confucius, the
ancient Chinese sage. Early 21st-century lifestyles in Tokyo, Seoul,
Beijing, Taipei, and Hong Kong, however, show far more evidence of
globalization than Confucianization. The reputed hallmarks of
Confucianism—respect for parental authority and ancestral
traditions—are no more salient in these cities than in Boston,
London, or Berlin. This is a consequence of (among other things) a
steady reduction in family size that has swept through East Asian
societies since the 1980s. State-imposed restrictions on family size,
late childbearing, and resistance to marriage among highly educated,
working women have undermined the basic tenets of the Confucian
family in Asia.

Birth rates in Singapore and Japan, in fact, have fallen below

replacement levels and are at record low levels in Hong Kong; birth
rates in Beijing, Shanghai, and other major Chinese cities are also
declining rapidly. These developments mean that East Asia—like
Europe—could face a fiscal crisis as decreasing numbers of workers
are expected to support an ever-growing cohort of retirees. By 2025,
China is projected to have 274 million people over age 60—more than
the entire 1998 population of the United States. The prospects for
other East Asian countries are far worse: 17.2 percent of Japan's 127
million people were over age 65 in 2000; by 2020 that percentage
could rise to 27.

Meanwhile, Asia's “Confucian” societies face a concurrent revolution

in family values: the conjugal family (centring on the emotional bond
between wife and husband) is rapidly replacing the patriarchal joint
family (focused on support of aged parents and grandparents). This
transformation is occurring even in remote, rural regions of
northwest China where married couples now expect to reside in their
own home (“neolocal” residence) as opposed to the house or compound
of the groom's parents (“patrilocal” residence). The children produced
by these conjugal units are very different from their older kin who
were reared in joint families: today's offspring are likely to be
pampered only children known as “Little Emperors” or “Little
Empresses.” Contemporary East Asian families are characterized by
an ideology of consumerism that is diametrically opposed to the neo-
authoritarian Confucian rhetoric promoted by political leaders such
as Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew and Hong Kong's Tung Chee-hwa at
the turn of the 21st century.

Italy, Mexico, and Sweden (among other countries) also experienced

dramatic reductions in family size and birth rates during the late
20th century. Furthermore, new family formations are taking root,
such as those of the transnational workers who maintain homes in
more than one country. Multi-domiciled families were certainly
evident before the advent of cheap air travel and cellular phones, but
new technologies have changed the quality of life (much for the
better) in diaspora communities. Thus, the globalization of family life
is no longer confined to migrant workers from developing economies
who take low-paying jobs in advanced capitalist societies. The
transnational family is increasingly a mark of high social status and
affluence.
Political Consequences of Globalization

Challenges to national sovereignty and identity

Anti-globalism activists often depict the McDonald's, Disney, and

Coca-Cola corporations as agents of globalism or cultural
imperialism—a new form of economic and political domination.
Critics of globalism argue that any business enterprise capable of
manipulating personal tastes will thrive, whereas state authorities
everywhere will lose control over the distribution of goods and
services. According to this view of world power, military force is
perceived as hopelessly out of step or even powerless; the control of
culture (and its production) is seen as far more important than the
control of political and geographic borders. Certainly, it is true that
national boundaries are increasingly permeable and any effort by
nations to exclude global pop culture usually makes the banned
objects all the more irresistible.

The commodities involved in the exchange of popular culture are

related to lifestyle, especially as experienced by young people: pop
music, film, video, comics, fashion, fast foods, beverages, home
decorations, entertainment systems, and exercise equipment.
Millions of people obtain the unobtainable by using the Internet to
breach computer security systems and import barriers. “Information
wants to be free” was the clarion call of software designers and
aficionados of the World Wide Web in the 1990s. This code of ethics
takes its most creative form in societies where governments try
hardest to control the flow of information (e.g., China and Iran). In
1999, when Serbian officials shut down the operations of Radio B92,
the independent station continued its coverage of events in the
former Republic of Yugoslavia by moving its broadcasts to the
Internet.

The idea of a borderless world is reflected in theories of the “virtual

state,” a new system of world politics that is said to reflect the
essential chaos of 21st-century capitalism. In Out of Control (1994),
author Kevin Kelly predicted that the Internet would gradually erode
the power of governments to control citizens; advances in digital
technology would instead allow people to follow their own interests
and form trans-state coalitions. Similarly, Richard Rosecrance, in
The Rise of the Virtual State (1999), wrote that military conflicts and
territorial disputes would be superseded by the flow of information,
capital, technology, and manpower between states. Many scholars
disagreed, insisting that the state was unlikely to disappear and
could continue to be an essential and effective basis of governance.

Arguments regarding the erosion of state sovereignty are particularly

unsettling for nations that have become consumers rather than
producers of digital technology. Post-Soviet Russia, post-Mao China,
and post-Gaullist France are but three examples of Cold War giants
facing uncertain futures in the emerging global system. French
intellectuals and politicians have seized upon anti-globalism as an
organizing ideology in the absence of other unifying themes. In Les
cartes de la France à l'heure de la mondialisation (2000; “France's
Assets in the Era of Globalization”), French Foreign Minister Hubert
Vedrine denounced the United States as a “hyperpower” that
promotes “uniformity” and “unilateralism.” Speaking for the French
intelligentsia, he argued that France should take the lead in building
a “multipolar world.” Ordinary French citizens also were concerned
about losing their national identity, particularly as the regulatory
power of the European Union began to affect everyday life. Sixty
percent of respondents in a 1999 L'Expansion poll agreed that
globalization represented the greatest threat to the French way of
life.
 Anti-Globalism Movements and the Internet

Anti-globalism organizers are found throughout the world, not least

in many management organizations. They are often among the
world's most creative and sophisticated users of Internet technology.
This is doubly ironic, because even as NGOs contest the effects of
globalization, they exhibit many of the characteristics of a global,
transnational subculture; the Internet, moreover, is one of the
principal tools that makes globalization feasible and organized
protests against it possible. For example, Greenpeace, an
environmentalist NGO, has orchestrated worldwide protests against
genetically modified (GM) foods. Highly organized demonstrations
appeared, seemingly overnight, in many parts of the world,
denouncing GM products as “Franken foods” that pose unknown (and
undocumented) dangers to people and to the environment. The
bioengineering industry, supported by various scientific
organizations, launched its own Internet-based counterattack, but
the response was too late and too disorganized to outflank
Greenpeace and its NGO allies. Sensational media coverage had
already turned consumer sentiment against GM foods before the
scientific community even entered the debate.

The anti-GM food movement demonstrates the immense power of the

Internet to mobilize political protests. This power derives from the
ability of a few determined activists to communicate with thousands
(indeed millions) of potential allies in an instant. The Internet's
power as an organizing tool became evident during the World Trade
Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Washington, in 1999, in
which thousands of activists converged on the city, disrupting the
WTO meetings and drawing the world's attention to criticisms of
global trade practices. The Seattle protests set the stage for similar
types of activism in succeeding years.
The Illusion of Global Culture
Localized responses
For hundreds of millions of urban people, the experience of everyday
life has become increasingly standardized since the 1960s. Household
appliances, utilities, and transportation facilities are increasingly
universal. Technological “marvels” that North Americans and
Europeans take for granted have had even more profound effects on
the quality of life for billions of people in the less-developed world.
Everyday life is changed by the availability of cold beverages, hot
water, frozen fish, screened windows, bottled cooking-gas, or the
refrigerator. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that these
innovations have an identical, homogenizing effect wherever they
appear. For most rural Chinese, the refrigerator has continued to be
seen as a status symbol. They use it to chill beer, soft drinks, and
fruit, but they dismiss the refrigeration of vegetables, meat, and fish
as unhealthy. Furthermore, certain foods (notably bean curd dishes)
are thought to taste better when cooked with more traditional fuels
such as coal or wood, as opposed to bottled gas.

It remains difficult to argue that the globalization of technologies is

making the world everywhere the same. The “sameness” hypothesis
is only sustainable if one ignores the internal meanings that people
assign to cultural innovations.

Borrowing and “translating” popular culture

The domain of popular music illustrates how difficult it is to unravel

cultural systems in the contemporary world: Is rock music a
universal language? Do reggae and ska have the same meaning to
young people everywhere? American-inspired hip-hop (rap) swept
through Brazil, Britain, France, China, and Japan in the 1990s. Yet
Japanese rappers developed their own, localized versions of this art
form. Much of the music of hip-hop, grounded in urban African
American experience, is defiantly antiestablishment, but the
Japanese lyric content is decidedly mild, celebrating youthful
solidarity and exuberance. Similar “translations” between form and
content have occurred in the pop music of Indonesia, Mexico, and
Korea. Even a casual listener of U.S. radio can hear the profound
effects that Brazilian, South African, Indian, and Cuban forms have
had on the contemporary American pop scene. An earlier example of
splashback—when a cultural innovation returns, somewhat
transformed, to the place of its origin—was the British Invasion of
the American popular music market in the mid-1960s. Forged in the
United States from blues and country music, rock and roll crossed
the Atlantic in the 1950s to captivate a generation of young Britons
who, forming bands such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, made
the music their own, then reintroduced it to American audiences with
tremendous success. The flow of popular culture is rarely, if ever,
unidirectional.

Subjectivity of Meaning—the case of Titanic

A cultural phenomenon does not convey the same meaning
everywhere. In 1998, the drama and special effects of the American
movie Titanic created a sensation among Chinese fans. Scores of
middle-aged Chinese returned to the theatres over and over—crying
their way through the film. Enterprising hawkers began selling
packages of facial tissue outside Shanghai theatres. The theme song
of Titanic became a best-selling CD in China, as did posters of the
young film stars. Chinese consumers purchased more than 25 million
pirated (and 300,000 legitimate) video copies of the film.

One might ask why middle-aged Chinese moviegoers became so

emotionally involved with the story told in Titanic. Interviews among
older residents of Shanghai revealed that many people had projected
their own, long-suppressed experiences of lost youth onto the film.
From 1966 to 1976 the Cultural Revolution convulsed China,
destroying any possibility of educational or career advancement for
millions of people. At that time, communist authorities had also
discouraged romantic love and promoted politically correct marriages
based on class background and revolutionary commitment.
Improbable as it might seem to Western observers, the story of lost
love on a sinking cruise ship hit a responsive chord among the
veterans of the Cultural Revolution. Their passionate, emotional
response had virtually nothing to do with the Western cultural
system that framed the film. Instead, Titanic served as a socially
acceptable vehicle for the public expression of regret by a generation
of aging Chinese revolutionaries who had devoted their lives to
building a form of socialism that had long since disappeared.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin invited the entire Politburo of the

Chinese Communist Party to a private screening of Titanic so that
they would understand the challenge. He cautioned that Titanic
could be seen as a Trojan horse, carrying within it the seeds of
American cultural imperialism.

Chinese authorities were not alone in their mistrust of Hollywood.

There are those who suggest, as did China's Jiang, that exposure to
Hollywood films will cause people everywhere to become more like
Americans. Yet anthropologists who study television and film are
wary of such suggestions. They emphasize the need to study the
particular ways in which consumers make use of popular
entertainment. The process of globalization looks far from hegemonic
when one focuses on ordinary viewers and their efforts to make sense
of what they see.

Another case in point is anthropologist Daniel Miller's study of

television viewing in Trinidad, which demonstrated that viewers are
not passive observers. In 1988, 70 percent of Trinidadians who had
access to a television watched daily episodes of The Young and the
Restless, a series that emphasized family problems, sexual intrigue,
and gossip. Miller discovered that Trinidadians had no trouble
relating to the personal dramas portrayed in American soap operas,
even though the lifestyles and material circumstances differed
radically from life in Trinidad. Local people actively reinterpreted the
episodes to fit their own experience, seeing the televised dramas as
commentaries on contemporary life in Trinidad. The portrayal of
American material culture, notably women's fashions, was a
secondary attraction. In other words, it is a mistake to treat
television viewers as passive.
The Ties That Still Bind

Local culture remains a powerful influence in daily life. People are

tied to places, and those places continue to shape particular norms
and values. The fact that residents of Moscow, Beijing, and New
Delhi occasionally eat at McDonald's, watch Hollywood films, and
wear Nike athletic shoes (or copies thereof) does not make them
“global.” The appearance of homogeneity is the most salient, and
ultimately the most deceptive, feature of globalization. Outward
appearances do not reveal the internal meanings that people assign
to a cultural innovation. True, the standardization of everyday life
will likely accelerate as digital technology comes to approximate the
toaster in “user-friendliness.” But technological breakthroughs are
not enough to create a world culture. People everywhere show a
desire to partake of the fruits of globalization, but they just as
earnestly want to celebrate the distinctiveness of their own cultures.