Cultural Homogenization's Impact on Identity & Diversity

At the moment there are continuing argues regarding cultural homogenization as far as loss of one’s cultural identity and diversity. Globalization has affected every nation in the world and also almost every aspect in life. From culture to social to economic, this universal exchange of service, goods and ideas has affected the globe. Although, the cultural influence in globalization is of slight significance to policy makers. It’s power has a massive aftermath to the people and nation involved. Food is a main element in defining culture, and also the language that they share with each other.

One of the largest influential came with the introduction of fast food restaurants like McDonald’s into overseas countries, before the foundation of McDonald’s Junk food was almost unknown. McDonald’s was the first company to try to export America’s love of fast food and adjusts in eating routine of other nations, there was a study done by Catherine Schnaubelt and shows that McDonald’s has over than 1.

5 million branches in the US and about half of the total subsidiaries are outdoor the United States in more than 120 countries, McDonald’s became famous because they provide cheap food for busy people who don’t have time to cook food at home.

Therefore, they are very popular and had grown into multinational restaurant and food chain all over the world! Let’s take cars parts as another example, all the parts of cars are coming from different countries, such as: Germany, Japan, Korea etc.

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And they are being assembled in a lot of different countries. Another example is the way businesses operate today with having many satellite locations or call centres in other parts of the world to answer questions; for instance, someone from the US can answer a call from Morocco about a product or service. The communication between people is becoming more easier everyday because we have a lot of ways that can make us communicate with each other as if we were together in one room. Globalization affects culture because when people of different cultures and different places come together and share what they have, they get to know each other, they bring back what they have learned and it enters into society and culture. For example, if a female student from a society that does not let women do much goes to America as an exchange student, she might learn about how their society works. Then she may might go back home and decide to start working for women’s rights, eventually her visit could affect her entire culture. An example is, Manal Al-Sharif, which is a women’s rights activist from Saudi Arabia, she was affected by the European and American culture, she wanted to drive a car in a country that their culture does not accept women driving cars (although they don’t have a law against this.) First, she filmed herself driving a car and posted it on social networks such as, YouTube and Face book furthermore she was detained released on the 21st/ May and rearrested the following day.

Finally, Following her driving campaign, She remained an active critic of the Saudi government, tweeting on issues including imprisoned the lack of elections for the Shura Council, female foreign workers, and also the murder of Lama al-Ghamdi. Her work has been recognized by Foreign Policy, Time, and the Oslo Freedom Forum. To put it more simply, just like other things globalization has its own advantages and disadvantages we just have to be aware of what we are involving in and how we can protect our ourselves from the bad things that will influence us in a bad way in the future. Over the last 500 years, the influence of media has increased because of the advance of technology. First there were books then newspapers ,magazines, radio, television and many other things, now we don’t only have Internet but also social networks. Everyone in the world started to depend on media to get new information and to keep up with what’s happening in the world, however, we must be mindful of what we watch or hear on the media. We need to be aware that the values we hold, the beliefs we believe in and the decisions we make are based on our experiences, our education, our assumptions, and what we know for a fact.

We must not let the media affect us or change what we believe in, and the most important thing that we need to know is who controls the media and what is the message they are trying to send. Let’s take ads as an example, the media in general takes Billions of Dollars in order to advertise for companies, the ads that we watch or hear tell us that we can trust a product or service and that many people we know are buying the product or service and liking it. Here’s an example; Advertising can have a negative influence on teenagers through the picture of movie stars using tobacco products. Another sad example is that many girls and women of standard proportions have been influenced to want to look similar to the photo of super-skinny models and celebrities they see in media, so they enable themselves to buy unhealthy things, which lead to health issues and even death.