[Fineus]

Hey guys,

As part of my final year University coursework (yeah, that's where I've been), I have to write a 3000 word essay on this subject:

"Is the increasing spread of cheap, high-bandwidth and near instant, global communication likely to encourage diversity or lead to the McDonaldization of Global Culture?"

I'm looking for the following:

Thoughts on the topic.

Articles either in favour or against the idea that faster, easier communication will lead to a "pandering to the masses" in global culture.

Websites of a highly specific cultural nature, supporting the idea that culturally specific websites exist

Websites of a highly "bland" cultural nature, in effect pandering to what has become socially acceptable. IE: McDonalds meals are the same or presented almost identically in most countries. Do websites follow the same trend?



Many many thanks in advance. I am of course doing my own research, but the more heads I can get working on this, the more likely I can turn out a good essay.

[Mobius]

I don't get it...you have to write an article or to quote other articles?

[Flipside]

@Mobius

In degree work, you are expected to back up your views using references to other similar journals and publications, so you can't simply say 'The Internet has led to an increase in generic marketing', you have to provide sources that prove it.

[vyper]

Jesus Christ you're in honours year already? It doesn't seem so long ago you were starting...

[BloodEagle]

I think he's asking everyone to help him find sources.

[Flipside]

That's a pretty big scope to fit into 3000 words, I must admit.

[Fineus]

Tell me about it, but if there are few URLs to get me started that'd be enough. This has to be done by Jan. anyway so it needn't be fantastic and it's not my final project work.

But anything anyone thinks would be useful would be... useful. Heh. If nobody has anything then fair enough of course!

[Mobius]

@Mobius

In degree work, you are expected to back up your views using references to other similar journals and publications, so you can't simply say 'The Internet has led to an increase in generic marketing', you have to provide sources that prove it.

Which means both things.

I don't know...maybe I could find something. Do you accept quotes from Italian sites? They will give quite an impression. "OMG! Alex speaks Italian!"

[JGZinv]

Go read the news and archived news at http://www.dslreports.com/
You should find plenty of things to get you started.

If not, get on the forums and I'm sure there's more than enough
opinionated folks that can dig up articles.

[Rictor]

I'll definitely contribute a few thoughts...I'll try to make them as coherent as possible give the scope.

One person who might have something highly interesting (and usually offensive) to say on the subject would be Warren Ellis. Kind of like a comic-book writer/futurist/ deranged Net prophet. I'll try to dig up some cool quotes.

[castor]

Personally, I don't care too much about preserving the current diversity of McDonaldizations of the world. I mean, does it matter whether there are many stereotypical main stream cultures or just one? Some may miss all them old traditions and such, but bah.

Actually, McDonaldization it self may eventually clear way for new, genuine diversity, by wiping out constraints of hudreds of years old habits and national (etc) ways of thinking and doing.

[MP-Ryan]

Aren't you required to use academic sources, rather than open sources?  That's usually the university standard but your course may be admittedly different.

At any rate, you should have access to academic journal databases through your library.  Try using the sociological databases through EBSCOHost or Academic Search Premier.  The type of topic you have is more likely to be covered in sociological research than in strictly technical research in the hard science disciplines.  Psych may have a little bit to offer too, but that's more doubtful.

In general, if I were writing a paper like that I'd start in the soc journals (try basic keywords in combination: internet globalization culture) and narrow it down from there - you'll probably find a few prolific authors you can use and dig through their references to track back to more sources.

It goes without saying, but with a topic like that you won't want to be using any sources more than 3-5 years old.

[Inquisitor]

I daresay, this place has some bearing on the subject. From developing its own culture to real world culture and political clashes.

[Retsof]

I'd say that HLPers may qualify as a culture of their own.  You've got a source of right here! 

[karajorma]

I'd point out that the net is leading the the formation of new cultures while you're at it.

[Sarafan]

"Is the increasing spread of cheap, high-bandwidth and near instant, global communication likely to encourage diversity or lead to the McDonaldization of Global Culture?"

Anyway, about the subject: I think that what will happen is both actually, the internet will become more diverse with greater access but not everyone will be able to contribute with "new" things or ideas on many subjects leading to them posting only more of the same, so to speak. As such and one thing that perhaps will be interesting for you to point it out, I think it will become more important if not crucial to learn and make new ways to find the truly diverse things among the sea of "common" views. 

BTW this is your preliminary work for your thesis?

[Fineus]

Thanks guys, I really do appreciate the input

Mobius, I'll accept quotes from anywhere but they should be properly translated into English if I'm going to publish them

(and of course, they need to be relevant). If you can point me in the right direction though, that of course would be

great.

JGZinv, thanks for the link but I fear that's not exactly what I'm looking for. I'm studying the cultural effects of high

speed communication, not so much the high speed communication itself.

Rictor, cheers for the name and the effort. I'll make a note and do some digging of my own.

Castor, thanks for the opinion.

MP-Ryan, I should be using academic sources in some places but in so far as brainstorming goes - this is a great start.

What I have here are ideas and possible avenues of thought that I can follow up. I can look up information far more

accurately with this as it helps me to know what I'm looking for. My next move is to look at academic libraries but I don't

want to start trawling through them without having some idea of where to start. Good point about making sure the

information is current though.

Inq, good call and indeed - though I'm not sure I dare reference it in my paper by name

Karajorma, Yup - that may be where I head towards the conclusion.

Sarafan, Again thanks for the ideas there, and to answer your question, no this is just one unit in the final year of the course. The breakdown is that I have two 30 credit units this year, and a number of other lesser units running at the same time. This is one of the lesser units but I still have to pass it to pass the year and - of course - getting a good grade matters!

[Rictor]

Initial thoughts (tell me if I'm ranting too much to be useful):

"Is the increasing spread of cheap, high-bandwidth and near instant, global communication likely to encourage diversity or lead to the McDonaldization of Global Culture?"

Both. The McDonalds culture will be COMPOSED of all the world's diverse cultures. So it is diversity itself which will be monolithic. Where the Net is headed is extreme niche-ization. Now whether these niches will be based on existing ethnic-cultural lines, or on completely new sub-cultures, is debatable. I lean towards the latter. The global monoculture will absorb within itself the component parts of many, many existing cultures. For example, Japan is extremely Westernized in every practical sense of that word. But it's not a one-way street. Look at the immense impact that Japanese culture, in the form of anime, video games and other cultural oddities, has had on mainstream culture in the United States. Apply the same for all other culture and you can see where I'm going.

It's quite an abstract concept I'm trying to convey, so maybe an analogy would help. Right now you have fifty villages each speaking a different language. That has been the case throughout human history. What the Net Revolution will accomplish is to combine those into one village where the language spoken is an amalgamation of all fifty previous ones. It's a subtle yet profound difference. That's what I mean when I say "global monoculture". The Internet is inherently about communication, so protecting the cultural sovereignty of any discrete culture (whether traditional or one spawned on the Net) is a futile task by definition.

Cheap, global broadband can pretty accurately be described as the single greatest force for social change in our history. For example: ff you feel overwhelmed by the number of blogs online today, and I think that any reasonable person who stops to consider the matter does, you ain't seen nothing yet. Wait a few decades until a billion Chinese, a billion Indians and a billion Africans come online. Then, you will truly see cultural pandemonium. Whatever output the Internet produces today, and I think we can all agree that it's vast, is only a tiny part of the potential output. Those wealthy enough to afford broadband, or any Internet at all, are a tiny minority. When we start seeing the other 70% of the world's population going online, the cultural output of the Internet (culture being the primary output of the Internet) will spike dramatically.

[Inquisitor]

Inq, good call and indeed - though I'm not sure I dare reference it in my paper by name

Yeah, but its got of material. Both good and bad. Besides, if you reference it, you suddenly have something that the others in your class don't (and possibly the prof). Experience in the subject matter. You'll be speaking from a position of authority.

I'd honestly look at some of the best (and worst) HLP has, and start drawing conclusions there, then go look and see if any of the "professional" opinions have any basis in reality.

This "community" has proved a number of things, IMHO. It CAN find common ground DESPITE its differences and in the same breath scream bloody murder about those differences. Its also got a fair amount of "me too" homogenization.

I think you have the whole spectrum here

[Polpolion]

I don't think there would be too big of a difference. The mass of people on the internet will doubtlessly increase, but there will still be little enclave communities such as our own. I'm sure everyone agrees the average person is not a member of anything's equivalent of HLP. I can conjecture (pr0n notwithstanding) that the vast majority of internet usage is simply communication such as e-mail, then comes either shopping or information. Then comes entertainment. IMHO, entertainment is where the biggest impact of this will occur. Lastly, I'd say that there is work.

Another thing: To be able to use the internet, you need to have a steady source of electricity and a computer. I can also conjecture that cheapening high speed internet will mostly only increase saturation of internet users, as opposed to drawing them in from places there are none. Of course this doesn't mean there wouldn't be people who do become avid internet users just because of this, but for the most part, decreased prices of fast internet will only increase the number of internet users in places where there already are internet users.

Getting back to the idea about entertainment and such, given what I said in the previous paragraph, I can assume that the internet after the availability increase would be for the most part a scaled up version of what it is now. Now I don't go on what you would call "mainstream internet" all too often, so I'm not a reliable source of the following statements, but I'd imaging another boom in youtube, those small, free gaming sites, maybe a small increase in activities on e-mail and communication related sites. As per content, I'd say we would get the content the same ways we used to. From the users themselves in youtube's case, and something else (:/). There might be a small increase in diversity in youtube videos and other mainstream things like that, but really no increase in small sites like HLP.

To sum up what I just said, I don't think either of the things you said would happen would happen.



I hope I helped. :/