Free Custom «Globalization Tendencies to Negative Effect on Culture Diversity» Essay Paper

Introduction

Over the past few years, world has witnessed massive revolutions in terms of trade, communication, political ideologies among other remarkable changes. It is for that reason that the world has become a global village a term some people have persistently used to describe the scenario. So what is globalization?

Globalization is a term used to describe the increasing unification of countries under the planet earth in terms of economic aspects. This happens through agreements and treaties signing among countries and regions.  International trade have been enhanced  as well as becoming vibrant due to waiving of some import and export custom duties, barriers to trade that includes the tariffs and removal of  quota systems set for certain country. The main aim for the improved economic avenue is closely associated to wealth increase via division of labor since countries can specialize on the best productive activity that will in turn reduce competition.

On the other hand, globalization adopts many aspects that include trade, foreign investments, migration, and technology among others. In conjunction to these aspects, it has been closely associated with its impacts on ideas sharing, language influence and most importantly, the impacts on culture. Whole world enjoys a wide variety of cultural backgrounds that forms a rich diversity of cultural ideas and knowledge. The diversity of these culture have however been largely influenced by the rate at which globalization have increased. This paper will deeply reflect on the negative impacts of globalization on reduction of our cultural diversity and loss of cultural identity.

Positive Effects of Globalization

As much as there have been debates on the negative effects of globalization on culture diversity and loss of identity, there are many benefits accrued to globalization.

To start with, the financial market has improved due to availability of worldwide financial markets and the improvement of confidence to seek financial assistance from external lenders. According to Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, there was remarkable business achievement by twenty first century due to globalization. An approximate of one and a half trillion American Dollars was involved in daily transaction and the levels of trade and investments recorded much expansion. In addition, presence of global common market facilitates freedom of goods and capital transactions. There is improved productivity and high rate of competition as markets try to maintain its operations in the global business markets. As a result, industries have improved their products and embracing technological production to cope with the competition. Existence of economic blocs and institutions such as World Trade Organization and International Criminal Court has reduced the trans-boundary barriers. People can travel from one country to another without much restriction. Traveling can be purposed to furthering studies, trading or even residing to another country.

Another benefit enjoyed by the world due to globalization is the improved information flow among all regions including even the remote geographical regions. Fiber optic communications, internet among others communication media have enhance good communication. In conclusion, it is only with the support of other countries in the world that we can achieve solutions such as issues on climate change.

Modern Globalisation Diversity Destruction

Migration Flux

As opposed to the past, some of the modern society has increasingly become heterogeneous in terms of cultural, racial, and ethnicity. Gone are the days when we could have a city occupied by a single race or ethnic group since the rate of migration have become rampant. According to meddah, some cities have witnessed these effect since there is much cloning of cities where people embraced ‘fake stereotypes’ and the unique cities that enjoyed histological and cultural aspects no longer exists. A good example is the current cities such as London, Paris and Madrid show no difference as opposed to the past scenarios (Meddah 1). These cities have received inhabitants from all over the world who come for business activities or other social activities such as games and sports. The attraction to events such as FIFA world cup, Olympic Games and commonwealth games has been the source of many immigrants.  Some countries have been largely overwhelmed by the rate of immigrant visiting and relocating in those popular cities. In most cases, the migrants have sought residence in other countries for the purposes of investments, education, recreation and sometimes military operations.

There are much migration activities in countries with recreational facilities and sceneries that attract tourists to the countries. The tourism industry has been in upper hand in contributing to people migration from one country to another. As much as we have positive effects of tourism such as foreign exchange and job creations for the locals, there have been claims that some tourists’ cultures have negatively influenced some countries of their visits. Many claims have been witnessed in Africa where the culture is different from America and Europe. Issue on homosexuality public support witnessed in some states in America is unacceptable in African countries but to surprise of many, instances of gay and lesbianism in African countries is no longer a secret. What was considered taboo in African culture has found roots in African countries and homosexuality is one of them. In other instances we have smuggling of drugs and illegal businesses being carried out by these tourists. If local residents indulge in drug abuse, there are expectations for change of the culture to a new culture of addition and illegal businesses that make impose negative image to the associated society.

Business activities have made investors to migrate to countries with vibrant economic growth a situation faced in china, Japan and African countries. Migrants tend to adapt the local culture in order to cope with the activities in the country. National culture is greatly influenced by the immigrant cultures in most cases (Vertovec 1).  This have lead to culture of people who can understand and speak different foreign languages and sometimes it becomes worse when a migrant bears children in foreign country since the new born grow in a different cultural setup. It is not a wonder to find a foreigner who can speak a fluent foreign language but little knowledge of the country of the origin.

Open Minded Evolution In Modern Society.

The existence of globalisation have made people express their interest in exploring different cultures for the purpose to enjoying or reaping benefits from the presence of culture diversity.  One of the evident instances is the venturing of providing different food dishes in restaurants where there is presence of foreign dishes. In some countries you will find restaurants that mainly Chinese, Japanese, Arabic restaurants. The food and services provided in such restaurants are exclusively oriented to meet the requirement of certain condition for that culture. These restaurants for many years have tried to preserve the culture of the local society due to the value associated with certain food to a certain event or ceremonies. For culture strengthening, we should support such restaurant. However, Traditional foods-oriented restaurants that have not embraced the current revolution such as fast food chains have met a lot of hostility to an extent of closing down. Another instance of much controversy is the dressing industry where the beautiful traditional cloths are no longer competing in the market due to branded clothing (Meddah 1). It is in the attempt to keep pace with the world dressing styles and fashion designs and brands that the traditional dresses have met reduced demand. Boutiques, stores, shopping malls, and cloth lines without the international brand have lost the previous customers to the new brands and fashions.

Society Conformism on culture diversity

Another effect of globalisation has made some impact on our societies through global culture and the Americanisation. People from different regions of the world have adapted same dressing styles, use of similar facilities, similar eating habits, and even setting similar objectives in their lives.

Brand association in the market has taken the centre-stage in terms of clothing, automobiles, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks and other products. As result, we have people who resemble each other in terms of clothing regardless of their geographical location. It does not matter where you are but you can enjoy the comfort of polo, Reebok, Nike clothing in Egypt, Japan, Colombia, or even London. Most of these brands are available in different countries and people will buy them instead of the traditional clothing as they try to keep up with the new dressing trend in the world (Meddah 1).

Some people have ended up regarding the traditional dressing code as archaic and outdated. Failure to adhere to the new trends be it dressing, food, or housing, you ends up regarded as conservative or other negative attitude associations. What some of these people do not understand is the danger accompanying this trend since we are losing our identity and uniqueness that separates our culture from other cultures of the world.

However, conformism is inevitable due to its strength it impacts on the individual who feel that change is inevitable. Such people fears being different from the other and ends up joining a group that he/she does not belong in order to safeguard ego (Mirchev 1)

Effects of Communication and Information on Culture

Communication is one of the drivers of economic achievement through dissemination of substantial information required for development. Without proper communication, countries can be doomed due to lack of vital information. As we all know, information is power and therefore we should equip ourselves with it always. However, contents of the information are the most important aspects of effective communication since some information are destructive and likely to influence negatively to the recipient. Below is a discussion on how media and communication platforms can negatively influence our culture.

Effects of Cinema, TV, and Internet on Culture

Modernisation witnessed in many countries have made some communication tool available compared with the past scenarios where owing a television set or a computer was a remarkable achievement. It becomes influential for consumers to watch since we do not have control over the substances aired in TV programs. One of the nightmares that have persistently disturbed some people in the world is the dominance of American TV programmes and the film industry. As much as we commend the film industry for making much achievement in production, there should be a shift to more educative films and TV programmes. Most of the programmes have concentrated on love, crime, and immorality themes and continued watching by the rest of the world will increase possibilities and tendency to adopt same way of thinking.

Some scenes are eye-catching especially when there is marriage breaking and other negatively associated habits in the society.  Some scenes have substances that make some issues such a divorce, crime, and incest look usual occurrences and if this is the message to the viewers, then we do not have future for our culture. Some programmes with antisocial message are likely to pose negative effect hence influencing the viewers to change their lifestyle negatively. Such programs receives much interest from the children who ignores parental commands hence influencing children’s health, behaviour as well as the family life(Boyse 1)

Surprisingly, some of these films and cinema have neither quality nor positive message. People like watching the twisted truth of impossibilities receive simplicity to normal occurrence hence no imposition of condemnation.

Internet on the other hand has been an avenue for people to interact through surfing. This is through Usenet news, e-mails, and the increased interactions through social websites such as Face Book and Twitter. This interaction facilitates human culture evolution to model new public common. This brings together the people around the world in sharing of moments especially those geared to culture (Hauben 1). At the end, we imitate foreign cultures in perception of bettering ours. In addition, internet has created an avenue prone to pornographic materials that are easily accessible by kids, youth, and adults. This is likely to erode our mind and negatively affect our culture.

effects of Advertisement on culture

In a competitive market that exits in many countries, most of the producers have utilised the effectiveness of advertising. This is one of the mostly used tools to change people’s mind towards a given product. The effectiveness of advertisement relies on generalisation of all consumers, which have negative effects on all kind of people. As a result, culture diversity of the consumers is highly affected and the consumers adopt a new culture. The main problem is that some adverts are misleading and consumers’ purchasing of some of these products may permanently lead to cultural value loss. For instance, adverts on alcoholic drinks are always ‘cool and thrilling’ a condition that makes most of people indulge into drinking without knowing the repercussions.

Another scenario was by Doss where there was much change in the beliefs of Americans between nineteenth and twentieth century. There was shift between a work ethics witnessed in 19^th century to a pleasure ethics in 20^th century (Doss 7). This shift had a relationship to increase in pleasurable purchase of the advertised goods. These goods included canned and frozen food that overpowered the locally produced goods (Chase 21).

Advertisement and other avenues of marketing are therefore source of cultural diversification. The gist related to the power of the adverts increases personal urge to try the product without putting into considerations the results after some time.

Effects of Media, Talk Freedom, Media Filter on culture diversification

There is no doubt that media freedom and talk freedom faces challenges due to increasing opposition to cultural globalisation trends. Media have a role to play when delivering message to the viewers since some news aired in televisions and radios may influence negatively. It is a fact that media have their rights and freedom to enjoy but there should be crosschecking of some of its contents. Censoring technology should be utilised in some instance since they are likely to influence negatively the viewers or audience. For instance, some media houses have much reports dominated by beheadings, stoning, suicide bombing while earlier reports were on car accidents, train wrecks and market deteriorations. This scenario has met many critics from Muslims. As long as these reports are transmitted via media, the perpetrators are likely to enjoy the audience granted to them (Carl 1).

The much-anticipated theory behind media effects is the ability of mass media to influence the audiences’ thinking and habits. Critics have pointed the media especially in the early to mid 20^th century in there attributes in weakening and constraining freethinking.

Comedies and cartons have different perception by different cultures since it may be exciting for one culture but turn offensive to another culture (Lyons 1). Therefore, when making such humours as witnessed in the Mahomet caricatures in the jylland posten journal you should be ready to face much resistance.

Influences of occidental culture ideals on the cultural identities

Another description of Occidental culture can be the adoption of the western culture especial in the scopes of politics, technology, industries among others (Thong 1). To be precise, the effects of occidental culture have been rampant in persuasion and increasing its influence in other countries of the world. In other occasions, manifestation of the results achieved is through invasions and colonisation of native societies. Natives meet several challenges as they try to fit in the western culture models since this was not the initial setting for them (Kottak 1)

Multinational Companies Affect Culture

Multinational companies such as Coca cola, mc Donald, Nike among others have led to evolution of new culture of consumption for their products. It is evident that their products receive warm welcome from the foreign countries. Some of these multinational companies such as Coca Cola enjoy large number of consumers who find the drinks more satisfying as opposed to some of the local non-alcoholic drinks. These Companies also takes an advantage of economic of scale hence the reduced prices that are customer friendly. The comfort of wears such as Nike make the foreign consumers feel more satisfied and thrilled by these products. Regardless of having similar good and services in our countries, there are tendencies of importing similar products from foreign countries with aim to feel associated with certain product. The massive demand for American and occidental cultures have largely influenced the foreign countries and there are possibilities of loss of cultural identities.

In some instances, much opposition occurs when multinational companies tries to market their products in foreign countries that have adhered to their traditional products. McDonald does not make attempts to market their beef hamburger in India since this would be in opposition to their traditional beliefs and culture. Some influence on Asians is likely to occur due to this westernisation since they are traditionally oriented to plant-based diets and if this condition persists, there is possibility to shift from their current healthy lifestyles to animal-based diets similar to western cultures (Cornell Times 1)

how Consumerism Of Mass Creates New Culture.

Different companies and industries have continuously produced new products and availed them to the market. The availability of consumerism society is a major boost to these industries since the products targets a certain segment of consumer. Most importantly, globalisation has opened up the world of consumer who will enjoy certain products regardless of their cultural difference. A good example is the market for IPods that have received consumers across all races and ethnicity background. Production and marketing of such products have become simple since it has become culturally acceptable to all cultures.

According to Giuliana Muscio, there is close correlation between mass production and consumers’ behavior (Muscio 2). It is this situation that compelled to a research to find out what joined the two scenarios and to his surprise, Doss discovered that advertisement played a great role. As a result, larger firms opted to produce more than needed since the demand was overwhelming especially during the commencement of the twentieth century. Advertisement then stimulated consumers to a state termed as ‘democracy for desires’ as well as ensuring that consumers competed with their neighborhoods (Doss 144). The increased advertisement in twentieth century resulted to mass production that in turn led to mass consumerism behavior among the citizens in America hence evolution of new way of life.

Terrorism and Rejection of Occidental Culture

Regardless of the increasingly influence of occidental culture, some countries and organisational groups have greatly challenged the dominance of western countries in dictating other countries. Among the challenges posed to America is the terror groups alleged to have carried attacks to the Americans and their allies. Terrorism is one of violent and horrible activities that seek to warm western nations against interfering with activities of other countries.

There is rise of organisation of terror groups such as Al Qaida to pose opposition against occidental world and its associated culture. This opposition may occur internally as some communities try to safeguard their regional and cultural differences. A good example is Corse, pays Basque, Bretagne regions in France that have kept the government on their toes in attempts to keep away the government from any interference.

Many disbelievers of globalisation have looked down upon this idea since they argue that there many effects on cultural diversity. Some of the implications associated to their critics are the loss of languages while the traditional etnas have faced negative influences on daily basis.