Global cultural flow involves the flow of people,
artifacts, and ideas across national boundaries as result of
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (Commonwealth English; see spelling differences), is the process of interaction and integration among people, companies, and governments worldwide. The term ''globalization'' first appeared in the early 20t ...
.
[Tzanelli, Rodanthi. 2011. "â]
Cultural Flows
€™." In ''Encyclopaedia of Consumer Culture'', edited by D. Southerton. Sage.CQ Press.[Appadurai, Arjun (1990).]
Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Economy
" ''Theory, Culture & Society'' 7:295–310. . Global cultural flows can be observed in five
interdependent
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
'
Landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
s', or dimensions, that distinguish the fundamental disjunctures between economy, culture, and politics in the global
cultural economy.
The five dimensions of global cultural flow include:
# ethnoscapes — flow of people
Human migration
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (ex ...
s;
# technoscapes — flow and configurations of technology;
# financescapes — flow of money and global
Business network
A business network is a complex network of companies, working together to accomplish certain objectives. These objectives, which are strategic and operational, are adopted by business networks based on their role in the market. There are two categ ...
s;
# mediascapes — flow of
cultural industry
The term culture industry (german: Kulturindustrie) was coined by the critical theorists Theodor Adorno (1903–1969) and Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), and was presented as critical vocabulary in the chapter "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment ...
networks; and
# ideoscapes — flow of ideas, images, and their nexuses.
These dimensions restructure "the means by which individuals establish personal and collective identities."
The common suffix denotes these terms as being "
perspectival
Perspectivism (german: Perspektivismus; also called perspectivalism) is the epistemological principle that perception of and knowledge of something are always bound to the interpretive perspectives of those observing it. While perspectivism reg ...
constructs inflected…by the historical, linguistic, and political situatedness of different kinds of actors:
nation-states
A nation state is a political unit where the state and nation are congruent. It is a more precise concept than "country", since a country does not need to have a predominant ethnic group.
A nation, in the sense of a common ethnicity, may i ...
,
multinationals,
diasporic
A diaspora ( ) is a population that is scattered across regions which are separate from its geographic place of origin. Historically, the word was used first in reference to the dispersion of Greeks in the Hellenic world, and later Jews after ...
communities, as well as
subnational Subnational or sub-national may refer to:
* Administrative division, all administrative divisions are under the national level
* Subnational legislature, a type of regional legislature, under the national level
* Subnational state, a type of state, ...
groupings and movements (whether religious, political or economic)," as well as "intimate face-to-face groups, such as villages, neighborhoods and families."
The five dimensions were introduced by anthropologist and globalization theorist
Arjun Appadurai
Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization. He is the fo ...
in his essay "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy" (1990).
Because
cultural exchange
Cultural diplomacy is a type of public diplomacy and soft power that includes the "exchange of ideas, information, art, language and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples in order to foster mutual understanding". The purpos ...
and transactions have typically been restricted in the past due to geographical and economical obstacles, Appadurai's five dimensions allow for cultural transactions to occur.
Global cultural flows
The concept of global cultural flows was introduced by anthropologist
Arjun Appadurai
Arjun Appadurai (born 1949) is an Indian-American anthropologist recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies. In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation states and globalization. He is the fo ...
in his essay "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy" (1990), in which he argues that people ought to reconsider the
Binary opposition
A binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one ...
s that were imposed through
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, such as those of ‘global’ vs. ‘local’, south vs. north, and
metropolitan
Metropolitan may refer to:
* Metropolitan area, a region consisting of a densely populated urban core and its less-populated surrounding territories
* Metropolitan borough, a form of local government district in England
* Metropolitan county, a typ ...
vs. non-metropolitan. He instead proposes that "flows" or "scapes" move through the world, carrying capital, images, people, information, technologies, and ideas.
As these flows travel through national boundaries, they form different combinations and interdependencies, mutate, and divide cultural ideas into "nation" and "
state
State may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''State Magazine'', a monthly magazine published by the U.S. Department of State
* ''The State'' (newspaper), a daily newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina, United States
* ''Our S ...
."
Appadurai further states that, despite disjunctures having always existed between the flows of people, machinery, money, ideas and images, the world is at a crossroads where this is happening to a larger extent; he thus points to the importance of studying the "-scapes."
[Appadurai, Arjun. ]990
Year 990 ( CMXC) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place
Europe
* Al-Mansur, ''de facto'' ruler of Al-Andalus, conquers the Castle of Montemor-o-Velho (mode ...
2015. "Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy." Pp. 94–102 in ''The Globalization Reader'' (5th ed.), edited by F. Lechner and J. Boli. Malden: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. . These disjunctures also contribute to the central idea of
deterritorialization
In critical theory, deterritorialization is the process by which a social relation, called a ''territory'', has its current organization and context altered, mutated or destroyed. The components then constitute a new territory, which is the proces ...
, which Appadurai describes as the main force affecting globalization in the sense that people from different countries and
socioeconomic
Socioeconomics (also known as social economics) is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how modern societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local ...
backgrounds are mixing with one another; namely, the lower classes of some countries integrating in to wealthier societies via the workforce.
Subsequently, these people reproduce their ethnic culture, but in a deterritorialized context.
Appadurai claims that global flows occur in and through the growing disjunctures between the scapes. The
Olympic Games
The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...
, for instance, organize financescapes (regional, national, and international business networks come in to invest in the
host city) and mediascapes (the
opening
Opening may refer to:
* Al-Fatiha, "The Opening", the first chapter of the Qur'an
* The Opening (album), live album by Mal Waldron
* Backgammon opening
* Chess opening
* A title sequence or opening credits
* , a term from contract bridge
* , ...
and
closing
Closing may refer to:
Business and law
* Closing (law), a closing argument, a summation
* Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction
* Closing (sales), the process of making a sale
* Closure (business), Closing a ...
ceremonies showcase national cultures), as well as ideoscapes (images of the host city and country, their history, and customs circulate worldwide to attract tourists) and ethnoscapes (migrations of business networks and localities that are removed from parts of the city to make space for Olympic venues). Finanscapes can become in disjunction with ethnoscapes, as networks of global
Social movement
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may ...
s often protest against
Human Rights Violations
Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...
that take place during the Games; as result, ideoscapes then clash with ethnoscapes, as
city brands and narratives are disrupted by these demonstrations and subsequent negative press.
The five dimensions
Ethnoscape
The ethnoscape refers to
human migration
Human migration is the movement of people from one place to another with intentions of settling, permanently or temporarily, at a new location (geographic region). The movement often occurs over long distances and from one country to another (ex ...
, the flow of people across boundaries. This includes migrants, refugees, exiles, and tourists, among other moving individuals and groups, all of whom appear to affect the politics of (and between) nations to a considerable degree.
Ethnoscapes allow for one to recognize that their notions of space, place, and community have become much more complex—indeed, a ‘single community’ may now be dispersed across the globe.
Appadurai claims that this is not to say there are no relatively stable communities and networks of
kinship
In anthropology, kinship is the web of social relationships that form an important part of the lives of all humans in all societies, although its exact meanings even within this discipline are often debated. Anthropologist Robin Fox says that ...
,
friendship
Friendship is a relationship of mutual affection between people. It is a stronger form of interpersonal bond than an "acquaintance" or an "association", such as a classmate, neighbor, coworker, or colleague.
In some cultures, the concept o ...
, work, and leisure, as well as of birth, residence, and other filial forms. Rather, it highlights that the shape of these stabilities is warped by human motion, as more people deal with the realities of having to move or the desires of wanting to move.
Tourism, in particular, generally provide people from developed countries with contact to people in the
Developing World
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
.
Technoscape
The technoscape is the flow of technology (
mechanical
Mechanical may refer to:
Machine
* Machine (mechanical), a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement
* Mechanical calculator, a device used to perform the basic operations of ...
and
informational) and the ability to move such technology at rapid speeds.
The flow of technology especially increases as the pace of
technological innovation
Technological innovation is an extended concept of innovation. While innovation is a rather well-defined concept, it has a broad meaning to many people, and especially numerous understanding in the academic and business world.
Innovation refers t ...
increases.
Accordingly, the introduction of new technology (e.g., the Internet) increases cultural interactions and
exchanges. For example, smartphones are moved across boundaries and radically affect day-to-day life for individuals all along the
commodity chain A commodity chain is a process used by firms to gather resource
Resource refers to all the materials available in our environment which are technologically accessible, economically feasible and culturally sustainable and help us to satisfy our ...
.
Financescape
Financescape refers to the flow of money and global business networks across borders.
Appadurai poses that when considering the financescape framework, one must consider how
global capital today moves in an increasingly fluid and non-
isomorphic
In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word is ...
manner, thus contributing to an overall unpredictability of all the five aspects of global cultural flows as a whole.
The fluidity of capital has been expounded on further by sociologists such as
Anthony Giddens
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is t ...
, who, in his 1999
BBC Reith lecture on globalization, claims that the advent of
electronic money
Digital currency (digital money, electronic money or electronic currency) is any currency, money, or money-like asset that is primarily managed, stored or exchanged on digital computer systems, especially over the internet. Types of digital cu ...
has rendered the transfer of capital and finance around the world subject to an increasingly easy process that posits a major paradigm shift. Giddens suggests that this ease has the potential to destabilize what would be considered prior as stable economies.
Today, the global transfer of money has only accelerated in pace, with transactions in various large, international finance hubs (e.g.
NYSE
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the List of stock exchanges, world's largest s ...
) have almost immediate effects on economies around the globe.
Mediascape
The mediascape refers to the scope of
electronic
Electronic may refer to:
*Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor
* ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal
*Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device
*Electronic co ...
and print media in global cultural flows; it refers both to the distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce and disseminate information (newspapers, Magazines, television, Films, etc.), as well as to "the images of the world created by these media." Such mediascapes provide vast deposits of images, narratives, and ethnoscapes to viewers, profoundly mixing the "world of commodities" and the "world of news and politics."
In particular, advertising can directly impact the landscape (in the form of posters and billboards) and also subtly influence—through persuasive techniques and an increasingly pervasive presence—the way that people perceive reality.
The term ''mediascape'' predates Appadurai's use; it was first used in trade by the American company
Mediascape Corporation, formed in 1992, for the purpose of delivering
rich media
Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, moving image, animation, video and audio. Since its early conception, various f ...
through the Internet and Web. The corporation is the U.S. owner of the federal trademark for use of that mark in relation to
multimedia
Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...
products in commerce.
The term ''mediascape'' may also describe
visual culture
Visual culture is the aspect of culture expressed in visual images. Many academic fields study this subject, including cultural studies, art history, critical theory, philosophy, media studies, Deaf Studies, and anthropology.
The field of ...
. For example, ''"the American mediascape is becoming increasingly partisan"'' or simply to denote "what's on" as in ''"a quick survey of the British mediascape shows how much
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
has lost its way"''. It is also used as a
generic term
Trademark distinctiveness is an important concept in the law governing trademarks and service marks. A trademark may be eligible for registration, or registrable, if it performs the essential trademark function, and has distinctive character. Re ...
to describe a
digital media
Digital media is any communication media that operate in conjunction with various encoded machine-readable data formats. Digital media can be created, viewed, distributed, modified, listened to, and preserved on a digital electronics device. ' ...
artifact where items of digital media are associated with regions in space and can then be triggered by the location of the person experiencing the media. Thus, in a mediascape, a person may walk around an area and as they do so they will hear digitally stored sounds associated with different places in that area.
Ideoscape
The ideoscape is the flow of ideas and
ideologies
An ideology is a set of beliefs or philosophies attributed to a person or group of persons, especially those held for reasons that are not purely epistemic, in which "practical elements are as prominent as theoretical ones." Formerly applied pri ...
, and is composed of concepts, terms, and images. This movement of ideas can take place on a small-scale, such as an individual sharing their personal views on Twitter, or it can take place on a larger and more systematic level (such as missionaries).
The ideoscape is often political and usually has to do with the ideologies of states along with the counter-ideologies of movements explicitly oriented towards capturing state power *or a piece of it).
Ideoscapes therefore can consist of such ideas as "freedom, welfare, rights, sovereignty,
representation
Representation may refer to:
Law and politics
*Representation (politics), political activities undertaken by elected representatives, as well as other theories
** Representative democracy, type of democracy in which elected officials represent a ...
, and democracy."
See also
* Media-related:
**
audio tour
An audio tour or audio guide provides a recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum. They are also available for self-guided tours of outdoor locations, or as a part of an organised to ...
**
GPS tour
An audio tour or audio guide provides a recorded spoken commentary, normally through a handheld device, to a visitor attraction such as a museum. They are also available for self-guided tours of outdoor locations, or as a part of an organised tou ...
**
podguide
**
Media Scape
**
Mscape
Mscape was a mobile media gaming platform developed by Hewlett Packard that could be used to create location-based games. The development of Mscape was discontinued (and its website ''mscapers.com'' shut down) on March 31, 2010.
The Mscape platf ...
References
Global cultural flows
Global cultural flows
Technoscape
Global cultural flow involves the flow of people, artifacts, and ideas across national boundaries as result of globalization.Tzanelli, Rodanthi. 2011. "âCultural Flows€™." In ''Encyclopaedia of Consumer Culture'', edited by D. Southerton. Sage.CQ ...
Global cultural flows
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