UNIT 3 World of Ideas

Unit 3: World of Ideas

INTRODUCTION
This unit will
discuss on how globalization affects cultural life particularly on social media and religion.
“Culture here refers to the way of life people have in their everyday life.” This unit
focuses on how globalization impacted the people’s transition which includes knowledge,
beliefs, traditions, practices, habits that is being acquired by man as a member of a society, its
response to globalization and how it helps in resolving global conflict and restoring peace.

Likewise, this unit will look on how globalization helps in spreading social culture and ideas
among nations . It will look into how media is being used in spreading the channel of
communication transferring music, dances, dramas and in connecting people in different
places making the world borderless and interconnected.

As of today, globalization is being measured by material means while religion is on

immaterial means of living. But despite their differences, religion uses globalization to
extend religious teachings from corners of the world with the help of television channels,
radio broadcasting and even in the face book and other social media. However,
globalization also bring pressures to religion like what Pope Francis said that
“globalization is a throw-away culture and suffocate hope and increase threats and
risk”. Hence, in this unit you are task to analyze how globalization brings changes in terms
on the social life of the people particularly on their use of technology and on their religion.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

At the end of this unit, you are expected to:

1. analyze how various social media drive various integration particularly influencing
cultural integration;
2. explain the dynamic between local and global cultural production;
3. explain how globalization affects religious practices and beliefs and
4. analyze the relationship between religion, global conflict and, conversely, global
peace.

ACTIVATING PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

(Think about it!) Answer the question substantially.

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“Is it possible for

globalization to occur
without media?”

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Topic 1: Global Media Cultures

Learning Objectives :

At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:

 analyze the different kinds of media in driving global i ntegration;
 distinguish the role of global media in creating the global village;
 appreciate the role of media in spreading globalization .

PRESENTATION OF CONTENT

Globalization is a set of multiple, uneven and sometimes overlapping historical processes,

including economics, politics, and culture, that have combined with the evolution of media
technology to create the conditions under which the globe itself can now be understood as
“an imagined community”. The concept of “global imaginary” as coined by Manfred
Steger, refers to the consciousness of belonging to a global community- a consciousness that
has emerged in recent decades with the rapid rise of communication technologies and the
decline of nation-based political ideologies.

The world nowadays is very much different from the world 20 years ago, starting from its
economic status, social life of the people, political practices and the cultural life of the
people. These differences are mainly caused by the rapid changes of the people’s way of life
specifically, because of the continuous improvement of many countries nowadays brought
about by many scientific and electronic discoveries like the information technology.

We are living in a world where technology is one of the most important aspect of life. We use
technology to make our lives easier and our work faster. We rely on technology to be updated
on issues worldwide, thus television, cellphones, radios and social media groups were created
to reach wider and larger audiences and makes one feel that they are connected to each other.

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Globalization necessitates the blowout of different culture and media is a great instrument of
this. Movies from USA like the movie of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt entitled Mr. and Mrs.
Smith is being known not only in USA but even in many other countries. Korean novelas and
dances like “Endless Love and Bam Bam” fever is being felt here in the Philippines.
Knowledge and ideas also is being shared globally through the help of social media. The
concept of accepting the rights of the members of the lesbian, gays, bisexual, and transgender
(LGBT) communities became known to the world through social media, books and any other
means of communication. As well as religious organizations uses media as a means of
proclaiming their teachings and proliferation.

Today, media play a great role in helping globalization to spread global cultures , knowledge
and ideas . Jack Lule was then right asking, “ Could global trade have evolved without a
flow of information on markets , prices, commodities, and more? Could empire stretched
across the world without communication throughout their borders? Could religion, music,
poetry, film, fiction, cuisine and fashion develop as they have without the intermingling of
media and cultures?(Claudio et.al 2018) The contemporary world where we’re living
nowadays shows the undeniable relationship of globalization and media in spreading cultures
globally

MEDIA AND ITS FUNCTIONS

As mentioned earlier media play a great role in spreading cultures globally. There are a lot of
definitions of media, first we have to consider that media is the plural form of medium.
Media was defined by Lule as “ a means of conveying something such as a channel of
communication”. Bloggers define media as a communication channel through which we
disseminate news, music, movies, education, messages and data which are the means of mass
communication like print media, broadcast media and digital media.

Media is a powerful tool in delivering changes within our community hence it is more
important to determine its functions in our lives and to the society. We have to consider that
media can be informative or it provides entertainment to a large audience. According to J. V.
Vil’anilam in the Journal of Kerala Media Academy, there are 6 major functions of state
these are: Surveillance of the environment; Correlation of parts of society and
Interpretation of events and issues; Socialization and transmission of the cultural

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heritage; Entertainment; Mobilization; and Democratic Participation as well as minor

functions such as publicity and public relations; advertisement; and,

Surveillance refers to the collection and distribution of information by the media. Like
for example the Filipino citizens becomes aware of the changing of the Government
structure into Federalism from centralized form of government because of news from
television, radio, newspaper and any means of social media.
Correlation of parts of society and Interpretation of events and issues refers to the
interpretation and analyzation of media and its activities. Like for example citizens
know from the television broadcast on the possible drought due to the weather
forecast of El Niño
Transmission of the social heritage refers to the ability of the media in
communicating the norms, values and behavior of the traditional societies trough a
drama, songs, novels and many others which the society nowadays can appreciate.
Entertainment refers to the ability of the media to divert attention and give
amusement to the audience
Mobilization refers to the ability of media to encourage a community to participate in
a common goal with the use of social media.
Democratic participation refers to how media influence the freedom of the people to
freely air their ideas on what they perceived is right or wrong in a certain issue.
Publicity and public relations refers on the ability of the media to inform the public
about an issue, a person or an activity.
Advertisement refers on how media share and promote new ideas, products and others
to the public.

THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AND CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

McLuhan examines the impact of the electronic media by using his analysis of technology.
He analyzes that that the television brought social changes wherein, this television can make
“a global village”. This means that people can create the same perception on what they
watched as they seat and see in front of their televisions watching same programs. Other
media scholars believe that the global media had the ability to homogenize our culture. They
believe that when global media spread, people from different parts of the world would begin
to watch, listen, and read same things. This has begun when the America’s culture begin to
spread all over the world and when this is combined with the global media brought about by
colonization, the “cultural imperialism form where American culture become superior over
other cultures of the world.

Herbert Schiller (1976) argued that not only the cultures of the world became Americanized
but it also helps the American “capitalist values” like consumerism began to spread. The
same with what John Tomlinson believes that cultural globalization is basically a
understatement for “Western cultural imperialism” since it promotes “homogenized,
westernized, consumer culture.” Additionally, Robert Mc Chesney believes that “economic
and cultural globalization arguably would be impossible without a global commercial media

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system to promote global markets and to encourage consumer values.” These intellectuals
who criticized cultural imperialism have a top-down view of the media as believe by Claudio
and Abinales (2018) considering that they are more concerned with the broad structures of
the media content. These intellectuals had neglected other flows of information that media
can provide because of their focus on America. However, cultural imperialism theory has,
thus, still subject to important critique. Globalization and cultural hegemony vis-a vis
impacted to each other positively and negatively. The positive impact of globalization will
lead to diverse cultures maintaining their diversity and coexisting with each other in this
globalized arena. Globalization will aid in bringing the cultures together. This will lead to a
convergence of world cultures. In other words, we will move to an era of “cultural
hybridity” and “creolization”. The negative impact is that, globalization will lead to the
domination of one culture over another culture. We will see “cultural imperialism “,
“cultural hegemony”, and obsolescence of weak cultures.( Gupta, 2009). We are moving
towards a world in which people practicing monoculture losing their own cultural identity

APPLICATION

Pick an Asian musical dance/ song/ drama that internationally became famous (Psy, Utada,
Hikaru, F4, Meteor Garden, Boom Boom, etc.) and watch it. After watching, answer the
following questions:

1. Where did the musical artist/dance/song/drama originate?

2. In which countries does it become famous?
3. How did the musical artist/dance/song/drama become famous?
4. Why do you think the musical artist/dance/song/drama became famous?

FEEDBACK Directions: Read the following statements provided below and

identify what is ask by the statements. Put your answer on the
space provided before each number.

______1. He describes as a means of conveying something such as channel of

communication.
______2. This means technologies of mass communication.
______3. He declared that the television was turning the world into “global village”.
______4. A context created by media globalization coupled with American Hegemony.
______5. An instrument of globalization for the spread of global culture and ideas.

REFERENCES

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Steger, Manfred B. , Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, eds. 2014. The
SAGE Handbook of Globalization. Two volumes. Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Publications.

Abinales, Patricio and Claudio, Lisandro, “The Contemporary World.”,.(C & E Publishing,
Inc.2018): 72-81.

http://college.cengage.com/history/ayers_primary_sources/creation_cyberg het to1998.htm

https://www.google.com/search?q=cyber+ghettos&source=lnms&tbm=isch
&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG46O3xv7gAhXZAIgKHZJkAvsQ_AUIDigB&biw=1
306&bih=638 https://mediamagazine.in/content/major-and-minor-functions-media

https://www.encyclopedia.com/media/encyclopedias-almanacstranscriptsand-maps/functions-
media

https:// www.researchgate.net

Topic 2:Globalization of
Religion

Learning Objectives
:

At the endof the lesson, you are expected to:

 d istinguish the relationship of religion and globalization;
 e xamine how globalization affects religious practices and belief;
 recognize the role of globalization of religion in bringing global peace and
solving global conflict
 d iscuss the future of religion in the globalized world, and;
 a ppreciate how globalization improves religion.

PRESENTATION OF
CONTENT

In this topic, the relationship of globalization and religion will be discussed. It seeks to
understand how globalization affects religions of the world the same trough with how these
religions respond to the process of globalization in resolving global conflict and restoring
global peace.

Religion is a system of beliefs and practices while globalization refers to the expansion and
intensification of social relations and consciousness across world-time and across world-
space (Steger). Religion and globalization persistently engage to one another in order to
flourish and thrive while at the same time being affected by the other.

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Globalization serves as an instrument for societies to free from the constraints of their nation-
states but in return destroys their culture, on the other hand religion aimed to arrange and
develop the broken culture of societies by giving answers on social conflict to economic
disadvantages to even personal happiness.

As of today, globalization is being measured by material means while religion is on

immaterial means of living. But despite their differences, religion uses globalization to
extend religious teachings from corners of the world with the help of television channels,
radio broadcasting and even in the facebook and other social media. However,
globalization also bring tensions to religion as others view globalization as “throw-away
culture and suffocate hope and increase threats and risk.”

Hence, we are task to analyze how globalization affects religion as well as the responses of
religion to globalization and; what would be the future of religion in the globalize world.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGION AND GLOBALIZATION

The relationship between religion and globalization is much more complicated. According to
Peter Berger, the “contemporary world is…furiously religious. In most of the world, there
are veritable explosions of religious fervor, occurring in one form of another in all the major
religious traditions. The most known religions across the world are: Christianity with 2.2
billion followers; Islam with 1.57 milliard followers; Hinduism with 811 million
adherents; Buddhism with 380 million adherents; and others.

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Religion has entered the “information age” where it became globalized in accelerating its
methods and processes in disseminating teaching and belief system. The continuous
improvement of the information technology has help religion to enter globalization. In reality,
religion nowadays, serves as foundations of many societies bringing people together, on
other ways, religion becomes foundations of modern government; other’s used religion to
become aggressive in power and popularity.

There are a lot of tools which are being used in uniting humans all over the world on religious
basis these are books, movies, cell phone apps, social networks , charity funds, special
internet sites, and religious schools. Through the use of the different technological tools,
religion epitomizes the definition of globalization due to the fact that it can be spread more
efficiently than ever before. Religion becomes globalized because of this, holy scriptures,
religious practices and teachings can be acquired easily using our smart phones on our
facebook account, twitter and even broadcast in the television, hence, this were known by
a large number of audience through out the world. It is now probable for any religion to
spread beyond national borders, allowing even small new religious movements to engage in
overseas activities and leading to new unseen religious developments. Even celebrities
nowadays, are advocating small religious movements that are following and advertising them.

More likely, two of the world old religions- Christianity and Islam used globalization as a
means of expanding, whereby it serve as a great force to reach more communities and help
many people to save their souls. Unfortunately, globalization comes with materialism which
is a taboo for the objectives of religious life like for example materialism goes with the
acquisition of communication means which are important for further dissemination. The rise
of ISIS or Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and the movement of the Born-Again Christians
indicate their defense against the globalizations materialism. These actions of religious
groups show that globalization can be a sort of expanding religion or taking advantage of one
another. The idea of bringing the nations close together through globalization also provides
tensions to some religions like the Islam. They view globalization as an instrument to spread
western values, culture and belief that may displace Islam and are contradict to their
teachings. The World Council of Churches also criticized the materialism brought about by
globalization.
(Claudio, 2018)

Despite the blessings brought about by globalization like economic progress, communication
improvement and religious dissemination, it also manifested the curse it brings. Today, it sees
globalization as the root cause of injustices and violence within the society like: (1) a fast-
expanding gap between rich and poor, (2) the public making this gap widely evident, (3) a
disturbingly fast rate of cultural interpenetrations, (4) worldwide availability of modern
weapons, (5) lack of effective laws to control ruthless international concomitants of mass
production/distribution, and (6) fear of macroecological catastrophes due to excessive
increases in population and in percapita consumption and waste. Hence, it can’t be denied
that terrorism reasons of provoking is due to globalization effect on culture, social, economic,
and political life of many countries.

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APPLICATION

As of the present, what is the relationship of religion to globalization? In what ways does
globalization affects religion?

Activity: Using the nested target list diagram, explain how does globalization affects religion
and in what ways they are related to each other?

Religion vs G lobalization
W hat is religion ?
Relationship between
Religion and G lobalization ?

Ways on how globalization

affects religion and vice versa .

What is globalization ?

FEEDBACK

Diretions: Read the following statement and identify if it’s TRUE or FALSE. Write
True if correct and False if not.

______1. Religion is concerned with the sacred while globalism places values on earthly
treasure.
_______2. Religious evangelization is a form of globalization.
_______3. The constitution of Malaysia explicitly state that Christianity is the religion of
their country.
_______4. Hinduism is one of the two worlds oldest religion.
_______5. Globalization threatened to destroy the religious system of a community.
_______6. ISIS stands for International State of Islamic Society.

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_______7. The proliferation of religion has to do with the globalization. _______8. The
Lutheran World federation condemned globalization as a “throw away culture”.

_______9. The use of technology to spread religion shows great relationship of religion and
globalization.
_______10. The rise of ISIS is a result of the spread of globalization.

REFERENCES

Steger, Manfred B. , Paul Battersby, and Joseph M. Siracusa, eds. 2014. The
SAGE Handbook of Globalization. Two volumes. Thousand Oaks: SAGE
Publications.

Abinales, Patricio and Claudio, Lisandro, “The Contemporary World.”,.(C & E Publishing,
Inc.2018): 62-70.

Lindley et.al; “Current Links between Globalization and Violence”, Journal of American
Sciences. 3(1), 2007.

Film: PBS Frontline: “The Rise of ISIS”

(http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/riseof-isis/)

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