What does cultural globalization mean and what types of issues does Steger discuss related to cultural globalization?
• What are some of the major contradictions within processes of cultural globalization?
Globalization has contradictory impacts on culture because it can both expose people to new cultures, but also opens up the possibility that those cultures are commodified or hybridized in a way that strips them of heritage. (Despite this, there is no authentic culture because they have always been developed in conversation with one another.)Globalization can co-extend feelings of belonging and placelessness - refugees can find comfort in numbers, but still have no place to go.Cultural particularism and cultural hybridity can also co-exist in the same place
What does cultural globalization mean and what types of issues does Steger discuss related to cultural globalization?
The complex interaction of the global and local cannot be reduced to "sameness" or "difference."* More and more people learn some languages, but also many other languages are declining.* Feelings of belonging and placelessness coexist.* There is no fully "authentic" or "self-contained" culture, there has always been an interaction.* Cultural particularism and cultural hybridity co-exist in many countries and localities.* McDonaldization continue, but many companies and institutions also try to create more humane services.
What does McDonaldization mean? What types of critiques does the concept suggest for contemporary American society? How is this concept related to globalization?
is a term used by sociologist george ritzier in his book "the mcdonaldization of society" in 1993. McDonaldization is the reconceptualization of rationalization, or moving from traditional to rational modes of though, and scientific management. This occurs when fast food becomes more and more prominent in the developing world. However, as a result there are consequences that include health and disease risk, the homogenization of a local culture. This is a form of Westernization.
