Cultural Integration

Cultural Integration

Syllabus

• the diffusion, adoption and adaptation of mass consumer culture reflected in media, fashion, brand images, sport, music and religion

• the factors affecting cultural integration such as technological change, transnational corporations (TNCs), global media networks, cultural imperialism and the actions of governments

Globalisation

• Globalisation involves shrinking space, time and disappearing borders that link people’s lives more intensely than before.

• As a result of faster and more efficient transport networks and advancing computer technology, the individual nation state is becoming less of a force on the global scene.

• Show smartboard globalisation doc

Cultural integration?

• Is it true that major western cities and societies are looking more and more like the sort of cities that middle-class, white, plastic Americans want to live in?

• There is a pervading sense that major western cities are becoming very much the same.

Invisible Cities.

• Italo Calvino described a fictional city called Trude in his novel Invisible Cities. Calvino's character Marco Polo referred to how there increasingly seemed to be many Trude-like cities in the world.

• This was the first time I had come to Trude, but I already knew the hotel where I happened to be lodged; I had already heard and spoken my dialogues with buyers and sellers of hardware; I had ended other days identically, looking through the same goblets at the same swaying navels. Why come to Trude? I asked myself. And I already wanted to leave. "You can resume your flight whenever you like," they said to me, "but you will arrive at another Trude, absolutely the same, detail by detail ..." (Calvino, Invisible Cities, 1972:128).

• Do we have a world composed of Trudes? Is the culture of western cities homogeneous, uniform? Or increasingly homogeneous?

Are culture and economy becoming increasingly uniform across the globe?

• Cities increasingly seem to share compatible systems of commerce, identical leisure pursuits and cuisine, similar social relations, and uniform built environments. There is plenty of evidence of Trude-like convergence across the planet.

• Uniform ways of life: language; architectural styles; leisure; fashions; sports; etc

• Take for example the spread across the globe of US cultural products, such as Hollywood films, McDonald's cuisine and Coca-cola. The spread of such products helps explain why the beverages and entertainment in Trude-like cities had become so monotonously familiar to the traveller.

Kabul, Afghanistan

Diffusion• Diffusion is the spreading of mass

consumer culture

Adoption• Adoption is the taking up of mass

consumer culture

Adaptation• Adaptation is the adjusting of mass consumer

culture to suit new circumstances

Factors affecting cultural integration

• So what lies behind the spread of such products?

• Three key influences include:• technological developments

(communications)• commercial forces (TNCs)• international regulatory

environments (free trade)

• The rapid development of communications technologies, the aims and strategies of transnational corporations in the entertainment industries, and the international regulatory environment, have all contributed to cultural integration.

Learning Objective:To know how our locality is linked to other placesTo be able to use an atlasTo be able to describe patterns on a map

Title: How is our place connected to other places?

What is a connection?

• A connection is a link between two places!

Challenge: You have 5 mins

• Using an atlas identify the countries that you have been connected to in the last 24hrs. Link these places with a line and identify the factor that linked you to this country

Challenge 2

• What pattern can you see on you map. Which continent were you linked to the most? Which countries were you linked to? Did you connect with a country more than once? Is there a relationship between the places you linked to and the factor that linked you to that place?

• Thinking Time – Consider these questions for 1 minute

Challenge 3• Describe the patterns on your map • Use the prompts below to help:

My map shows………………From my map I can see the continent I had most links with…..This included countries such as…….The main factor that linked me to these places was…………..The second continent I had many links with was………… This included countries such as…….The main factor that linked me to these places was…………..The continents I had few links with include……..One possible reason for this could be………

Factors affecting cultural integration

•1.Technological change• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p

McfrLYDm2U 8 min video

Technological change in transport

2. Media

• http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2003/0804media.htm 9 Firms that dominate the globe

yourtv.com.au

• In recent years, due to sponsorships by large companies, especially globalised companies, and the role of media in particular new cable and satellite channels, the process has accelerated.

3. Brand images

Romania

Brand Image Challenge

Racing the clock, come up with one international brand name for each letter of the alphabet

4. Sport

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7396348.stm Man United in Sierra Leone 2008

• http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2006/0609kofifootball.htm

• At the UN, How We Envy the World Cup - Kofi A. Annan

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVArC_klWEI

New Caledonia

•Bowl alternately

•Stumps together

•No bails

•Mostly women who

wear floral dresses

Samoa

•At least 16 a side

•Sing & dance when wicket taken

Vanauatu

•Bowl alternate ends

Match the team and sponsor Sports and Brand images/TNCs

•Netball is another excellent example of cultural adaptationadaptation and diffusion diffusion

•The game was adapted from basketball in the United States in the late 1800s and has subsequently spread to a range of countries globally.

• Australia’s women’s netball team has won several world championships during the past 10 years playing a range of countries from around the globe.

Commonwealth Countries

Cricket World Cup playing countries

Commonwealth Countries

Rugby Union World Cup playing countries

Commonwealth Countries

Rugby League World Cup playing countries

Commonwealth Countries

Netball World Cup playing countries

Commonwealth Countries

Hockey World Cup playing countries

Commonwealth Countries

(Women's) Rugby world cup

Commonwealth Countries

Food

• http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1626519_1373664,00.html

Religion in Africa

Part 1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azh30FclspM&feature=related

Part 2http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24eSTJY0V6g

Example : Spread of Islam