THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD
with the challenges of a global media culture. They
GEC 003
TOPIC: WORLD OF IDEAS
MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION
- Globalization entails the spread of various cultures
- Globalization also involves the spread of ideas
- Globalization relies on media as its main conduit for
the spread of global culture and ideas
Social Media, TV Programs, books, movies, and
magazines have made it easier for advocates to reach
larger audiences
MEDIA AND ITS FUNCTIONS
Jack Lule
- Describe media as “a means of conveying something
such as a channel of communication”
- Commentators refer to media is “the technologies of
mass communication”
Marshall McLuhan
- Declared that “the medium is the message”
- It was an attempt to draw attention to how media, as
a form of technology, reshape societies
- Explained that media has both positive and negative
effects
Positive Effects
– expand the reach of communication
Negative Effects
– amputate and limit human senses
THREE TYPES OF MEDIA
Print Media – books, magazines, and newspapers
Broadcast Media – radio, film, and television
Digital Media – internet and mobile mass
communication
Internet Media – e-mail, internet sites, social media,
and internet-based video and audio
THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AND CULTURAL
IMPERIALISM
McLuhan
- Used his analysis of technology to examine the
impact of electronic media
- Analyzed the social changes bought about by
television
- Declared that TV was turning the world into a “global
village” means the perception of the world would be
the same
In the years after McLuhan, media scholars grappled
assumed that global media had a tendency to
homogenize culture.
Commentators
- Believed that media coupled with American
hegemony would create a form of cultural
imperialism
In 1976
- Media critic Herbert Schiller argued that not only
was the world Americanized
- This process led to the spread of “American”
capitalist values like consumerism
CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
- A process by which one country dominate other
countries’ media consumption and consequently
dominates their values and ideologies
- A political-economy perspective argues that the
homogenization of cultural and communication
leads to shared values and ideologies
- Therefore, they are imposed upon the rest of the
world, through media texts
- Hegemony – the military, political, economic, and
cultural might, or clout, of a particular state
- Jhon Tomlinson – “cultural imperialism” promotes
“homogenized, westernized, consumer culture”
CRITIQUES OF CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
- Proponents of cultural imperialism ignored the fact
that media messages are not just made by producers
but also by audiences
EXAMPLES:
Japanese brands – hello kitty, Mario Brothers,,
pokemon
Korean pop (kpop) and Korean telenovelas
Sushi – most obvious case of globalization
McDonald – continued to spread across Asia
Jollibee – number one choice for fast food in Brunie
SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CREATION OF CYBER
GHETTOES
- These form of communication have democratized
access and enabled users to be consumers and
producers of information. Anyone with an internet
connection or a smart phone can use social media for
free
- The dark side of social media is it may be co-opted
towards undemocratic means. Global online
propaganda will be the biggest threat to face
globalization of media deepens
GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION
Religion
- Belief in and worship of superhuman controlling
power, especially personal God or gods
- System of faith and worship
- Pursuit or interest which someone ascribes supreme
importance
- Has the most difficult relationship with globalism
- More concerned with the sacred
- Follows divine commandments
- God, Allah, or Yahweh defines and judges human
actions in moral terms
Globalism
- Places value on material wealth
- Abides by human-made laws
- Human actions will lead to the highest material
satisfaction
RELIGIOUS PERSON
- Less concern with wealth and all that comes along
with it
- Shuns anything material for complete simplicity
- To live virtuous life, sin-less life such that when he
dies, he is assured of a place in the world
- Aspires to become a saint
- Detests politics and the guest for power for they are
evidences of humanity’s weakness
- Concerned with spreading holy ideas globally
REALITIES ABOUT RELIGION
• Peter Burger
- Argues that far from being secularized, the
“contemporary world is… furiously religious”
• There are veritable explosions of religious fervor,
occurring in one form of another in all major
religious traditions – Christianity, Judaism, Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism, and even Confucianism
• Religions become the foundations of modern
republics
EXAMPLE:
1. Malaysian Government – religion at the center
of political system
2. Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini – “there is no
fundamental distinction among constitutional,
despotic, dictatorial, and communistic regimes.”
All secular ideologies were the same that flawed
and Islamic rule was the superior form of
government because it was spiritual
• Religious movements do not hesitate to appropriate
secular themes and practices
EXAMPLE:
1. Muslim association Nahdlatul Ulama in
Indonesia – it has Islamic school; students were
also taught modern science, banking, education,
democracy, etc.

RELIGIOUS EVANGELIZATION • Religion was the result of a shift in state policy

- Various ways on which religious organizations spread EXAMPLE:
out their religion and dogma. It is either door to door 1. Church in England – shaped by the rationality of
or through mass media democratic and bureaucratic culture. King Henry
Is Religious Evangelization a form of Globalization? VIII broke away from Catholicism, established
YES – it does expand and intensify the flow of his own church to bolster his power
information, and to some extent, even people and 2. In the US, religion and law fused to help build
goods (Steger’s Definition) modern secular society
NO – it has nothing to do with the accumulation and Jose Casanova – “Religion has always been at
spending of wealth the center of all great political conflicts and
movements of social reform”
RELIGIOUS GROUPS
1. Followers of Dalai Lama
- Established Tibet
2. Buddhist monasteries
- Located away from civilization so that hermits can
devote themselves to prayer and contemplation
3. Rizalistas in Mount Banaha
- Isolated themselves
4. Israel
- Believers in one God
5. Mormons in Utah
RELIGION FOR AND AGAINST GLOBALIZATION
- There’s hardly a religious movement today that
does not use religion to oppose “profane”
globalization
- Christianity and Islam – see globalization less as
an obstacle and more as an opportunity to
expand their reach all over the world
- Religious fundamentalism – “the full range of
modern means of communication and
organization”
- Some Muslims view globalization as a Trojan
horse hiding supporters of Western Values like
secularism, liberalism, or even communism
- The World Council of Churches (association of
different protestant congregations) – criticized
economic globalization’s negative effects
- Catholic church and its leader, Pope Francis,
condemned globalization’s “throw-away
culture” that is fatally destined to suffocate
hope and increase risks and threats
TOPIC: THE GLOBAL NORTH AND
SOUTH DIVIDE
NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE
- A socio-economic and political categorization of
countries. The division generally do not follow
the geographic location of countries. It is
originated from Three World Divide
GLOBAL NORTH
- Comprised of First World countries and selected
Second World countries
- It is richer and developed countries
- Home to 25% of the total global population and
control 80% of total income earned
GLOBAL SOUTH
- Comprised of Third World countries and the
remaining Second countries
- The poorer and developing countries
- Home to 75% of the total global population and
control 20% of the total income earned
BRANDT LINE
- Devised by former West German Chancellor
Willy Brandt
- Sets the boundaries between the global north
and global south
CRITICISMS ON THE GLOBAL NORTH-SOUTH DIVIDE
- Too Restrictive – brandt did not consider the
possibility of growth or decline of the countries
- A form of Segregation of People
POSSIBLE SOLLUTIONS TO THE CRITICISMS:
- More Flexible Mapping – Global north-south
divide should use broken lines to present the
upward or downward movement of countries
from north to south, and vice versa
- Globalization
TOPIC: A WORLD OF REGIONS
Regions
- Group of countries located in the same
geographically specified are
- An amalgamation of two regions or combination
of more than two regions
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REGIONALISM AND
REGIONALIZATION
Regionalization
- Refers to the regional concentration of
economic flows
Regionalism
- A political process characterized by economic
policy cooperation and coordination
- Often seen as a political and economic
phenomenon
- Examined in relation to identities, ethics,
religion, ecological sustainability and health
- “emergent, socially constituted phenomenon”
- Regions are not natural or given, they are
constructed and defined by policymakers,
economic actors, and social movements
How do countries in the region respond economically
and politically to globalization?
China – offers its cheap and huge workforce to attract
foreign businesses and expand trade (US & JAPAN)
Singapore and Switzerland – developed their countries
into financial and banking hubs
Singapore – developed its harbor facilities and made
them a first class transit port for ships carrying different
commodities from Africa, Europe, Middle E, Southeast A
Why do countries form regional organizations?
- Way of coping with the challenges of
globalization
- Globalization made people aware of the world,
and made Filipinos more cognizant of specific
areas such as Southeast Asia
1. Military Defense
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
- Founded by Western European countries and USA
during Cold War – to protect Europe against the
Soviet Union
• Soviet Union
- Created a regional alliance known as Warsaw Pact
– composed of Eastern European countries under
Soviet domination
- Imploded in 1991, NATO remains in place
2. To pool their resources, get better returns for their
exports as well as expand their leverage against
trading partners
• Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
- Founded in 1960 by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi
Arabia and Venezuela – to regulate the production
and sale of oil
- OPEC power felt in the 1970s – when the said org
controlled production and price of oil
- OPEC’s success convinced nine other oil-
producing countries to join it
3. To protect their independence from the pressure of
the super politics
• Non-Align Movement
- Founded in 1961 by the presidents of Egypt,
Ghana, India, Indonesia and Yugoslavia
- To establish world peace, international
cooperation, human rights, national sovereignty
• NAM had 120 members
4. Economic crisis compels countries to come
together
• Thai Economic Crisis
- Made the ASEAN countries along with China,
Japan and South Korea more unified collapsed in
1996
- Made ASEAN more “unified and coordinated”