CHAPTER 4

A World of Ideas

Global Media Cultures The media have a very important impact on cultural globalization
in two mutually interdependent ways: Firstly, the media provide an extensive transnational
transmission of cultural products and, secondly, they contribute to the formation of
communicative networks and social structures. The rapidly growing supply of media products
from an international media culture presents a challenge to existing local and national cultures.
The sheer volume of the supply, as well as the vast technological infrastructure and financial
capital that pushes this supply forward, have a considerable impact on local patterns of cultural
consumption and possibilities for sustaining an independent cultural production. Global media
cultures create a continuous cultural exchange, in which crucial aspects such as identity,
nationality, religion, behavioral norms and way of life are continuously questioned and
challenged. These cultural encounters often involve the meeting of cultures with a different
socio-economic base, typically a transnational and commercial cultural industry on one side and
a national, publicly regulated cultural industry on the other side.

Due to their very structure, global media promote a restructuring of cultural and social
communities. The media such as the press, and later radio and tv have been very important
institutions for the formation of national communities. Global media support the creation of new
communities. The Internet, for example, not only facilitates communication across the globe, but
also supports the formation of new social communities in which members can interact with each
other. And satellite tv and radio allow immigrants to be in close contact with their homeland's
language and culture while they gradually accommodate to a new cultural environment. The
common point of departure is the assumption that a series of international media constitutes a
global cultural supply in itself and serves as an independent agency for cultural and social
globalization, in which cultural communities are continuously restructured and redefined.
(Source: Website)

In other words, media cultures take part in the process of globalization, including how
they challenge existing cultures and create new and alternative symbolic and cultural
communities.

Various Forms of Global Integration

Global integration is not a new phenomenon in today's contemporary world. Trade took
place between distant civilizations even in ancient times. This globalization process in the
economic domain has not always proceeded smoothly has it benefited all whom it was offered,
But, despite occasional interruptions, such as the collapse of the Roman Empire or during the
interwar period in this century, the degree of economics integration among different societies
around the world has generally been rising in the past half century, and ever greater than it has
been and is likely to improve.

There are three (3) factors that have affected the process of economic globalization. These are:
 1. Improvements in transportation and communication technology have reduced the cost of
transporting goods, services and factors of production and communicating economically
useful knowledge and technology
2. Tastes of individuals and, societies have generally but not universally, favored taking
advantage of the opportunities provided by declining costs of transportation and
communication through increasing economic integration.
3. The character and pace of economic integration have been significantly influenced by
public policies, although it is not always in the direction of increasing economic
integration. Thus, technology, tastes, and public policy each have important influence on
the pattern and pace of economies in its various dimensions.

Dynamics Between Local and Global Cultural Production

Paulo Emanuel Novais Guimarães pointed out that the advent of the category 'world
music' led to both an unprecedented level of (re)discovery of local music scenes and to an
assemblance of an intricate global musical platform in the contemporary age of globalization.
The processes in which local cultures express and engage themselves with broader global
networks and the other way around can be claimed to be indispensable large-scale societies.
Extremely frequent in debates on globalization is after in the analytical approach of socio-
political concerns, these being of small or all the dichotomic struggle between the concrete and
human 'local' against order to apprehend how this relationship has indeed been marked at times
by the abstract and dehumanizing 'global' (Wilson & Dissanayake, 1996: 22). In oppression and
domination, the critical theories of authors such as Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha and Immanuel
Wallerstein will be applied to cases of local and global music industry operations. This lesson
aims nonetheless, above all, to provide a concise yet consistent introduction to how this relation
goes beyond the criticisms of cultural imperialism and Americanization, to how multifarious this
relation can be. Key issues represented by the binary concepts of authenticity and homogeneity
and of production, distribution and marketing of cultural products, will be referred to. Without
trying to uphold a moderno centric view that admits the rise of globalization as a recent
phenomenon, the commercial dynamics between the global and the local in world music
approached, will be mostly from the 1950's onwards.

Globalization of Religion

One may ask: what is the relation of religion to globalization? First, there is the way in
which globalization flattens out cultural differences, erodes local customs and beliefs, and
spreads a secular, capitalist way of life that us at odds with religions of all sorts. At the same
time, there is the way in which religion serves as the source of globalization's greatest resistance
and as a haven for those standing in opposition to its ubiquitous yet often subtle power.

In both of these views, the relationship between religion and globalization is antagonistic-
one of struggle and conflict.

While opposition is an important aspect of the relationship between religion and

globalization, to see them only as foes misses some of the complexities of their interaction, not
only in the past but in the postmodern world as well.
 Religion and globalization can also be seen as partners in historical change. In times past,
religion, in various manifestations, has been a carrier of globalizing tendencies in the world. The
history of Christianity, of course, can be understood in part as an early effort to create a global
network of believers. Its extraordinary growth and influence as a world religion was a result of a
link between its own global ambitions and the expansion of various political and economic
regimes. It succeeded as a globalizing force long before there was a phenomenon called
"globalization." Elements of this historical pattern can be found in Buddhism, Islam, and other
faiths as well, Religion is hardly epi-phenomenal to the processes of globalization in our own
day. It continues to be a player in intricate and even contradictory outcome of the processes we
call "modernity." Clearly this has not been the ways. To be sure, it was once thought that
secularization was the inevitable case. Religious faith persists in a complex interaction with the
structures. and processes of the modern world and that complexity has only intensified under the
conditions of contemporary globalization.

Globalization Affects Religious Practices and Beliefs

Evolving trade routes led to the colonization of the Asia, Africa, Central and South
America. Religion became an integral part of colonization and later on globalization. Religion
has been a major feature in some historical conflicts and the most recent wave of modern
terrorism.

The Impact of Globalization

 flattens cultural differences

 erodes local customs and beliefs
 spreads secular, capitalist way of life

What is Religion Nowadays?

 it's no longer a set of beliefs that people arrive by reflection

 it's a symbolic system which carries our identity and marks out social/ ethic and other
boundaries
 it marks crucial moments in the life cycle with rituals
 it provides powerful mechanisms for psychological and social tension.

Role of Religion Today

Looking around the world today, it is clear that religion plays a role in many of the major
conflicts going on at various levels. Furthermore, religion plays an important role in people's
lives worldwide, and has become one of the major ways people connect with each other across
the globe. However, the role of religion in contemporary societies is still not sufficiently
understood in academic research and in the work of policy-makers, NGO's and journalists.

Role of Religion in Promoting World Peace

Ven K. Dhammananda of Malaysia wrote an essay of the title above. The essay is produced here:
 Religion has a definite role to play in the people's search for world peace. moral
principles and values contained in the teachings of great religious are essential factors for the
reduction of and ultimate eradication teachers conflicts and wars, both within and without.
Within oneself, these three evil of greed, hatred, and delusion-which form the root cause of
various unwholesome roots bring about great unrest in the mind, resulting in physical outbursts
of violence culminating in global warfare. or "Since wars

The fact that war begins in the minds of people is well recognized by certain peace-
loving people. The preamble to UNESCO's constitution says: begin in the minds of men, it is in
the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed." That is, if one wishes to have
peace of mind, one must also construct defenses of peace in one's own mind.

The world cannot have peace until nations and people begin to reduce their selfish desires
for more and more material possessions, give up racial arrogance, and eliminate their madness
for worldly power. Material wealth alone cannot bring peace and happiness to the minds of
people. The key to real and lasting peace lies in "mental disarmaments"--disarming the mind
from all kinds of “poisonous" defilements such as greed, hatred, jealousy, egotism, etc.

Religion not only inspires and guides people but also provides them with the necessary
tools to reduce greed with the practice of charity; to overcome hate and aversion with loving-
kindness; and to remove ignorance with the development of wisdom and insight in order to
understand the true nature of beings and "see things as they really are."

The negative aspects of religion lie in the madness of some so-called religionists who try
to convert and win followers by hook or by crook, rather than adhering to proper instruction and
guidance. The purposeful misinterpretation of scriptural texts for various ulterior motives has led
to religious persecutions, inquisitions, and "holy wars." These terribly awful experiences have
really marred the very name "religion."

In the context of today's spiritual need, religionists should work together in earnestness
and not in jealous competition with one another. They must work in harmony and cooperate in
the true spirit of service-for the welfare and happiness of the many. It is only then that they can
effectively influence the opinions of the masses and truly educate the people with some higher
values of life, which are very necessary for peaceful co-existence and integrated human
development.

Differences in religious beliefs and practices should not hinder the progress of various
religionists working for a common cause, for world peace. Let all religions teach people to be
good and proclaim the brotherhood of humankind. Let religions teach people to be kind, to be
tolerant, to be understanding.

Enough suffering and destruction have been caused by human religion and seek proper
spiritual guidance to develop our "goodness," to "cleverness." It is time that we pause and reflect
upon the true values of work for peace and harmony instead of war and disunity.
 For the cause of humanity and of peace, let us hope that all our leaders will stretch out
their hands in friendship to one another and to all people irrespective of race or creed-with a
genuine feeling of love and brotherhood--to work for a peaceful world and to work for humanity.

The Rise and Fall of the ISIL or ISIS

Pushed out from many of its strongholds in Syria and besieged on all sides in the Iraqi
city of Mosul, the Islamic State of Iraq and Levants Group (ISIL also known as ISIS) is losing its
territorial base in the very region that once incubated its growth. In May 2018, the US Defense
Intelligence Agency estimated that ISIL has lost 65 percent of its land in Iraq and 45 percent in
Syria since 2014.

With the group's presence in the region greatly diminished, questions arise over who will
fill the vacuum left by its retreat. IN 2017, Marawi City was besieged by extremist terrorists - the
ISIS.

ISIL's rapid expansion has irrevocably changed the political dynamics governing the
region - but in order to know how, one must first understand the conditions that contributed to
the group's rise.

ME- This presentation explores the intricate relationship between global media, culture, and

This presentation explores the

religion.

intricate relationship between global

media, culture, and religion.