Individuals and families are now more directly plugged into news from the outside world – some of the most gripping events of the past decade have unfolded in real time in front of a global audience. Central to this is the growth of similar styles of shopping malls, and leisure parks which provide a homogeneous cultural experience in different regions across the world.
Also, more and more people in Asia and South-America are coming to enjoy high-consumption lifestyles like in the West – car ownership and tourism are both on the increase globally for example. Today you can go to pretty much any major city in the world and share in a similar ‘consumption experience’. The Globalisation of sport is another fairly obvious example of cultural globalisation – think of all the international sporting events that take place – most notably the World Cup and The Olympics, and Formula 1, which bind millions together in a shared, truly global, ‘leisure experience’. The spread of these global food corporations has arguably led to the decline of local diets and eating traditions. The globalisation of food is one of the most obvious examples of cultural globalisation – food consumption is an important aspect of culture and most societies around the world have diets that are unique to them, however the cultural globalisation of food has been promoted by fast food giants such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Starbucks. However, in the last 30 years, the process of cultural globalisation has dramatically intensified due technological advances in both transportation and communications technology. Migration is an important aspect of cultural globalisation, and in this sense, this process has been going on for several centuries, with languages, religious beliefs, and values being spread by military conquest, missionary work, and trade. This post has primarily been written for sociology students studying the Global Development module, a second year option within A-level sociology. It refers specifically to idea that there is now a global and common mono-culture – transmitted and reinforced by the internet, popular entertainment transnational marketing of particular brands and international tourism – that transcends local cultural traditions and lifestyles, and that shapes the perceptions, aspirations, tastes and everyday activities of people wherever they may live in the world’ ‘Cultural globalisation refers to the rapid movement of ideas, attitudes, meanings, values and cultural products across national borders.