Globalization

Globalization is the process of different nations and peoples coming together and fusing cultures through technological expansion. As popular culture is diffusing into more countries through technological diversification, cultures are beginning to be fused together as popular things in the one country, are also the same popular thing in another country.

            One of the concepts described in class that relates to globalization is cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism is pretty much the process of several large corporations owning popular culture and selling merchandise of popular culture to western audiences.  Cultural imperialism is affected by globalization because as globalization increases across the world, conglomerates that own the production rights of pop culture products gain markets all over the planet. The popular culture in one country affects the popular culture in another, and therefore the nation that has newly adopted this pop culture becomes a new market for western companies to profit from. This causes local culture and traditions to become less popular, and even fade out completely, making regional cultures non-popular in their own areas, reducing diversity.

            An example of cultural imperialism is Disney. This company has created some of the most popular children’s films of all time and is known all over the world. As a result, when a Cinderella doll or Mickey Mouse cup is sold in Germany, part of the profit is going all the back to Disney in the United States. This process of cultural imperialism, while good for western conglomerates, unfortunately reduces local culture diversity and ruins regional diversity.

I Don't Usually Like Ads, But When I Do, I prefer Dos Equis.

I usually don’t pay attention to most ads that I see on TV because they are either annoying or plain stupid, but there is one series of ads that I particularly enjoy and it is the ad campaign for Dos Equis beer, “the most interesting man in the world.”



I feel these commercials (especially the one at 1:14 in the above video) are very appealing to consumers in much the same way as the Old Spice ads are. They are not only funny, but appeal to consumers in a certain way. Based on the types of appeals we talked about in lecture, these beer ads appeal to consumers through achievement, prominence and attention. These types of ads show prominent figures or groups of people who stand out and demonstrate their product in a way that makes people want to strive to be like them. In that sense, the goal is for them to buy whatever product the person is advertising. This ad is expressing all the achievements of the “most interesting man in the world” and draws attention to his amazing, almost super-human personality. He makes men want to be like him, or at least do what he does (this is where the beer comes in). This ad definitely shows a man who is extremely interesting, appealing, cool, and has achieved many things that normal men can only dream of, but the one thing they can hope to do is drink the same beer as him, which is exactly what the ad accomplishes.