Digital Media as a Catalyst to Cultural Globalization

When we talk about the way a group of persons or an individual behaves as well

as their knowledge and beliefs with regards to home and living, fashion and identity,

health and wellbeing, arts and entertainment, food and drink as well as work and

education, it is basically culture. In terms of cultural globalization, as local culture

interacts with international culture, it results in three things which are cultural

differentialism, cultural convergence, and cultural hybridity. Cultural globalization is

defined as the dissemination of ideas and values across different countries or cultures

which leads to positive interconnectedness of individuals. But the question here is how

does cultural globalization happen? It can happen in several ways but nowadays, the

most efficient way to develop an aspect of culture internationally is by the means of

digital media. Digital media as compared to electronic media relies on digital codes

while electronic media requires the use of electricity. Because of digital media, election

campaign in politics has a wider reach while in economics, promotions of goods and

services as well as online shopping has become easily attainable. Connecting the two

concepts, digital media and cultural globalization, there is an obvious correlation

between the two. Digital media affects cultural globalization in both positive and

negative way as it both increase and decrease human interconnectedness. It impedes

globalization of culture due to its ability to disassociate from the actual as cultural

globalization tends to ease virtually than personally wherein it enables a wider range of

imagined subjectivities. On the other hand, digital media also supports globalization of

culture as it develops new systems of how individuals and entities could connect leading

to global interconnectedness.
 Digital media plays a big role in our daily lives. Some examples of these include

software, social media, web pages, websites, video games as well as digital images,

videos and audios. By the means of digital media, it affects cultural globalization as well

as culture itself in both positive and negative ways as mentioned earlier. In my own

opinion, I believe that digital media supports cultural globalization more than delaying it.

For example, social media, beside increasing the interaction between individuals from

different cultures, it creates an environment where opinions and ideas of different

perspectives are shared as well as visuals. Facebook, to be specific, shows its support

to cultural globalization due to the fact that there are more than 70 translations available

on the site. Another example is youtube, wherein it is a video-sharing website that

permits individuals to interconnect with the global population through viewing and

sharing videos. With different video contents shared by people around the world,

traditional stereotypes decline since individuals have the freedom to comment and

partake on discussion on a certain matter. With this, it served as a motivation for global

change.

The conveyance of ideas, knowledge, opinion and values around the globe with

the help of digital media intensifies the social relations of different cultures. Digital media

as a means of globalization of culture is double edged as it has both positive and

negative effect. But as time passes by, the global community tend to have a wider

understanding of one’s culture with its help. They tend to possess an open mind and

broadening one’s way of thinking about different ways of life, specifically the cultural

differences. Digital media influences the growth of one’s sensitivity and creativity, thus,

helps the process along with positive human interconnectedness.