Relation between culture and globalization -- Kim younggyun

 1) Summarize

From my understanding, the relationship between globalization and culture is a process in which cultures that were bound to borders or regions move and reorganize in global trends. Culture is not just a victim of globalization. Culture in itself becomes an axis of globalization. People often think that culture is the result of globalization. However, according to John Tomlinson, culture is not only the result of globalization, but also deeply involved in the way globalization works. As Tomlinson said, I think culture can act as a driving force for globalization. The act of purchasing clothes from overseas brands is not just the result of globalization, but an expression of cultural meaning that expresses my personality. When these consumer expressions are gathered, it will create a huge trend of fashion trends and influence globalization.

John Tomlinson seems to have seen the phenomenon of expanding cultural experiences as time and space constraints weaken. From the early communication technology to the current streaming platform, communication technology has gradually developed. As a result, humans can experience more vividly images from far away and have a stronger cultural experience.

Putting together what John Tomlinson said and my experience, culture and globalization seem to be not a one-way relationship, but an interactive and complex relationship. Globalization does not eliminate local cultures. Various cultures interact with each other and new cultures are born.

2) Interesting point

What was interesting about this topic is the view that 'culture is not the victim of globalization'. When you think of globalization, you will usually think of the spread of culture in Western powers such as the United States and the resulting destruction of their own culture. However, cultural researchers such as John Tomlinson seem to be paying attention to culture and how to respond to globalization and create new meanings. Looking at this, I found out that I have been narrow-minded about globalization.

 It is also interesting to see that globalization does not homogenize everyone. Now, it is not a conflict between cultures, but a new meaning created by cultures meeting each other. Taking K-pop as an example, Korean culture is not exported all over the world. Korean culture contained in K-pop will be reinterpreted and transformed in the cultural context of each country, creating another cultural trend.

3) Concern and Discussion

Personally, I think John Tomlinson's point of view is very valid. So, rather than refuting his opinion, I would like to explain the wrong attitude toward culture he pointed out. He pointed out that the problem is the attitude of being packaged in a trial that a particular culture is a universal human culture. Perhaps many people have this attitude unconsciously. So I recognized this attitude as a point of concern related to the subject. When an element of Western culture spreads globally, if it is presented as 'a culture that we should follow positively', there is a risk that other cultures will be evaluated as 'inferior'.

In fact, it is not easy to get out of this attitude. As Tomlinson explained, influential ideas such as Enlightenment and Marxism all advocated universalism, such as 'our world is the world of all mankind'. However, this attitude is dangerous because it can strengthen intercultural inequality or cultural domination.

 Meanwhile, I would like to discuss the impact of media and technological advances on culture and globalization. Like the phenomenon of de-territorialization that Tomlinson said, technological development accelerated the cultural flow. However, we should not overlook the changes in the way culture is consumed or the monopoly of certain platforms. Now, it seems that people consume short videos focused on interest and not deep and philosophical content. In addition, the diversity of content may be violated during the creative process if the influence of global mega-platforms such as Netflix and Amazon increases. Should we accept these changes because they are the result of cultures interacting? I wonder what other students think.

4) References

 Tomlinson, John. Globalization and Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

5) Using Ai

I received gpt-5's help when translating writing in Korean into English. Other than simple translation , I did activities such as writing and composing paragraphs on my own.