Lab Excercise #1 - Technology and Globalization

1) I agree mostly with the second view, that globalization is loosely structured and open to modification and localized adaptation. I think that globalization is a also “self contained pattern in progress towards full realization,” as the first opinion says, but it’s important to consider how different societies individualize and change the global culture.

2) In an article for The Globalist, Ashutosh Sheshabalaya writes,
“Globalization consist[s] of the exchange of ideas across distinct civilizations . . . Such ideas help form worldviews and shape the world materially” (http://www.globalpolicy.org/globaliz/cultural/2006/1019threerounds.htm). The world culture – consisting of mass media, beliefs and moral values, politics, and social norms – is a giant patchwork quilt, and every nation is constantly altering its corner, adding new pieces, swapping with other countries, and taking things out. An example of this would be India’s Bollywood film industry. Although America invented the “blockbuster” as we know it, and is responsible for most of the top grossing movies every year, India’s movie industry has beaten America’s in quantity of films produced and audience size since 2004. This is an example of contextual adaptation: Hollywood started the phenomenon of big-studio movies, and India adapted it, creating Bollywood. (http://mutiny.wordpress.com/2007/02/01/bollywood-vs-hollywood-the-complete-breakdown/)

3) Technology and culture have an interdependent relationship. ICTs, especially the internet and T.V., have exposed different parts of the world to each other, causing regions to assimilate parts of other nations’ cultures. At the same time, people need new ways to connect with each other, and so new technology is created to fill the void. Globalization requires technology to work, and it leads to new technology created through collaboration and the international exchange of ideas, which in turn leads to new partnerships, and so on. Technology and culture work together to constantly increase globalization’s progress.