Lecture 3:

Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

Culture is often associated with media or values, but it can include

goods, commodities and services. Among these are things like clothes,
food, music, or the car someone owns, if they have one.

All of these are part of culture and for many people define their identity.
Culture includes not only what norms we hold, and media, but also
other things we use and buy.

In the case of the West, culture is quite consumerist and commodified,

i.e., bought and sold.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

Culture includes information, communications and media. This is a

definition people are more used to. Culture here is the sort of media we
watch or listen to, or the type of books, magazines or newspapers we
read.

It is about information and the communications we consume. An aspect

of American culture is Hollywood film and the ideas and symbols it
reflects or encourages in American society.

When people talk about culture being globalized they are often thinking
about music, film or TV programming that spreads around the world and
is received by many people.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

Culture includes norms and values. This is not separable from the
previous types of culture that reflect or influence norms and values.
Culture is composed of our beliefs. This can include religious or political
beliefs, for instance.

Some countries might be characterized as liberal because of the

generalized adherence to ideas about rights and liberal democracy.
Some could be characterized as Christian, Jewish or Muslim because of
the dominance of these religions’ values in the value systems of the
country.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

The literature on pre-modern globalization discusses long-distance

trade. This involves the transportation of goods that make up culture,
for instance precious stones or cloth, and the intermingling of cultures
over distance when traders meet each other.

Religions, empires and politics are further examples of long-standing

types of cultural globalization. World religions include Christianity, Islam,
Confucianism, Hinduism, Judaism and Buddhism. These can be found
across regions of the world. One way they become globalized is through
people adopting religions from elsewhere.

For example, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam have spread beyond their
places of origin to areas where people convert.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

Literacy, writing and printing aided the spread of religion and other
forms of culture. Religious texts and norms could be disseminated in
written and mass printed form. Such technological and institutional
developments are important in the spread of culture.

Culture does not diffuse equally. Religions have spread hierarchically or

unevenly. People who can read are more likely to be from higher classes
and so religion has penetrated more strongly amongst such groups, at
least initially.

For example, some people in countries that adopted Christianity or Islam

kept to their local belief systems and religious practices
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
Empires have also been linked to the spread of global culture, from
those of the Chinese, and the Greeks and Romans, to modern European
imperialists such as the Spanish and British.

Historical empires involved the military imposition of political authority

over a broad territory populated by diverse social, ethnic and national
groups. Sometimes this was accompanied by the cultural socialization of
elites and the extension of literacy. In ancient empires imperialism was
linked to the spread of theatre, drama and poetry.

American expansionism is associated nowadays with the globalization

of American media and culture. The British pursued an imperial
educational policy, with a British school system, textbooks and curricula,
use of the English language, and the education of colonial elites in the
UK. In parts of its former empire elements of this live on.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture

Technological change has been a key factor behind the globalization of

culture and media. Many of the technologies of cultural globalization
have been of the modern industrial era. Modern cultural and
communication technologies, from the printing press to the television,
and IT developments of the ‘postmodern’ era, have been significant in
globalization of culture.

People will develop new technologies and media because of the

financial gain that can be made from them. Economic incentives have
been behind technological change, especially under capitalism where
profits can be made out of developing communications technologies and
the globalization of media and culture for sale.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
Important to cultural globalization is not just technology that transmits
media and information but also technology for the transportation of
people.

This is significant culturally because people take their culture with them,
especially if they are moving on a longer-term rather than transient
basis, as in tourism.

They experience global culture in the places they go to. Or they have
global culture brought to them by the movement of people from abroad
to their locality.

Host communities’ cultural configurations are changed by the

movement of people into them.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
International tourism has increased significantly but also unequally.
People from richer countries make up a disproportionate number of
those who travel, and their expenditure is stratified by wealth.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
International telephone calls and the possibility of making phone calls
through wireless, cable and satellite technology have been significant;
but significant inequality in access to them.
Wireless and satellite technology and the advance of mobile telephony
have the potential to equalize things because they do not require a fixed
infrastructure of wires and cables. E.g. in poor parts of Africa, people can
make mobile phone calls, for personal or business reasons, send or
receive money with their mobile phones, or rent out mobile calls locally.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
Cinema and TV are two of the most important media for transmitting
culture globally. Wireless radio was important in disseminating music,
news and culture but has been overtaken by TV.

In some rich developed countries the ownership of televisions rose from

about 10 per cent of households at the start of the 1950s to about 90
per cent at the end.

There are soaps and reality TV shows, and events like the Olympics,
World Cup and Arab Spring, that are viewed in many parts of the world.
Technological changes such as satellite and cable allow a greater volume
of information to be received, in particular more TV channels.

This allows not only for a broader global range of television to be

broadcast into people’s homes but also for narrowcasting.
 Lecture 3:
Technology, the Economy and Global Culture
The Internet is relatively unregulated by governments. Internet access
can contribute as well as receive information, without extensive financial
or institutional backing, for instance through blogging or participating in
the interactive dimensions of sites.

People who are consumers or users can also become producers of

content. Sites such as WordPress provide free resources that people can
use to publish blogs, and sites such as YouTube allow the posting of
video or music for free. Individuals can publish their own websites.

The access and horizontal networking the Internet allows as part of a

developing network society. People can communicate and organize via
the Internet themselves, rather than through hierarchical or
bureaucratic forms in states, other political organizations and
corporations.