Week 13: Globalization

Quiz Bitcoin Week 13

1. Bitcoin’s creators intended that Bitcoin would remove the need for (a) a trusted third party in financial transactions (b) government regulation (c) personal knowledge of the other party in the transaction (d) money

 2. Bitcoin’s security depends on a technology called (a) Bitgold (b) Sakamoto (c) Blockchain (d) internet

 3. Bitcoin became a hot issue (a) after the development of the internet (b) after the 2008 financial crisis (c) after the development of exchanges for bitcoin (d) after the emergence of other types of online money

 4. Bitcoin experienced which of the following problems in its early years? (a) too many people wanted it (b) it was being used to buy weapons and drugs (c) it had no system for securing transactions (d) the government did not regulate it

 5. In the Blockchain (a) all the transactions are invisible (b) the bitcoin situation is updated in a table and the real identities of Bitcoin owners are known (c) the number of bitcoins is updated in a table and the identities of owners are protected (d) the number of bitcoins can be safely increased as needed.

 6. The largest possible total number of Bitcoins in the world is (a) 64 million (b) 32 million (c) 21 million (d) 12 million

 7. The government regulated Bitcoin because (a) Wall Street wanted to control and invest in Bitcoin (b) the government didn’t want people to use it (c) the government was working for the public’s safety (d) Bitcoin was dangerous to society.

 8. In the movie, one key mystery was (a) who was Craig Wright? (b) Who was Satoshi Nakamoto? (c) How was Bitcoin invented? (d) How does Bitcoin work? 9. Now we begin two weeks on globalization.

9-10. Identify one particularly American thing about Bitcoin....


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READING:
http://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jap/papers/Vol5-issue2/D0521924.pdf
Globalization as Americanization? Beyond the Conspiracy Theory Dr. Wassim Daghrir, the University of Sousse, Tunisia

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Anti-globalism activists often depict the McDonald's, Disney, and Coca-Cola corporations as agents of globalism or cultural imperialism. According to this view of world power the control of culture is seen as far more important than the control of political and geographic borders. Due to the perceived threat of Americanization and that of the transnational corporation, fears exist that a homogenization will wipe out national distinctiveness. Accordingly, Europeans, Latin Americans, and Arabs, left-wingers and right fear that local cultures and national identities are dissolving into an unsound American consumerism. These critics maintain that globalization is nothing more than the imposition of American culture on the entire world.

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It is France that provides the most revealing case of cultural protectionism. France has not only built a bureaucratic barrier against American culture, it has constructed a notorious intellectual case against it as well. For the French cultural and intellectual elite the issue is not just a matter of who watches which films, but rather it is that Hollywood is a Trojan horse bringing with it Disneyland Paris, fast-food chains and free advertising for American products from clothes to rock music. In Les cartes de la France à l'heure de la mondialisation (“France's Assets in the Era of Globalization”), former French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine denounced the United States as a “hyperpower” that promotes “uniformity” and “unilateralism.” Speaking for the French intelligentsia, he argued that France should take the lead in building a “multipolar world”.7 France's commitment to film protectionism became an international issue in the spring of 1994, during the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) talks, the world's leading trading nations negotiated widespread tariff reductions on goods and services. American negotiators promised to remove many trade barriers against European goods, but they asked in return that the Europeans -especially the French- extend impartial treatment to American movies and remove the special taxes and quotas. The French refused. Indeed, keeping out American films became one of the most important French national policies. The well-known French filmdirector Claude Berri reflected a popular attitude when he warned that "if the GATT deal goes through as proposed, European culture is finished".8 The French government even promised to veto any GATT agreement that did not preserve its protectionist policies toward the film industry. Despite the protestations of Hollywood, the Americans backed down and acceded to the wishes of the French government. After the French won the GATT battle, French director Jean Jacques Annaud claimed, "We removed the threat that European culture would be completely eliminated".

III. How “American” is American Culture? 
A. The Cosmopolitan nature of American culture 
The cosmopolitan nature of American culture explains its universal appeal. In fact, Globalization is not a one-way street. The cultural relationship between the United States and the rest of the world has not been onesided. On the contrary, the United States was, and continues to be, as much a consumer of foreign intellectual and artistic influences as it has been a shaper of the world's entertainment and lifestyles. As a nation of immigrants, the United States has been a recipient as much as an exporter of global culture. Indeed, the influence of immigrants on the United States explains why its culture has been so popular for so long in so many places. American culture has spread throughout the world because it has incorporated foreign styles and ideas. What Americans have done brilliantly is repackaging the cultural products they receive from abroad and then retransmitting them to the rest of the planet. That is why a global mass culture has come to be identified, perhaps simplistically, with the United States.10

So, it is most likely a myth that globalization involves the imposition of Americanized uniformity, rather than an explosion of cultural exchange. Americans, after all, did not invent fast food, amusement parks, or cinema. Before the Big Mac, there were fish and chips. Before Disneyland, there was Copenhagen's Tivoli Gardens (which Walt Disney used as a prototype for his first theme park in Anaheim, California). And in the first two decades of the 20th century, the two largest exporters of movies around the world were France and Italy.11 Many other representative "American" products are not as all-American as they seem. Levi Strauss, a German immigrant, invented jeans by combining denim cloth (or "serge de Nîmes," because it was traditionally woven in the French town) with Genes, a style of trousers worn by Genoese sailors. So Levi's jeans are in fact an American twist on a European hybrid.1

What‟s more, even quintessential American exports are often customized to local tastes and have thus conformed to local cultures. MTV in Asia promotes Thai pop stars and plays rock music sung in Mandarin. CNN en Español offers a Latin American take on world news. McDonalds also commonly alters its regional menus to conform to local tastes. McDonalds in Egypt, for example, serve a McFelafel. Indian McDonalds don‟t serve beef at all. And some French McDonalds serve rabbit.

IV. How real is Americanization of Global Culture? (How American is cultural globalization?) Several crucial research questions arise when we focus our attention on the study of globalization and the entertainment dimension of contemporary culture. Chief among them is the need for a theoretical framework for the study of something we might call “cultural blending”: How do people respond to the layered levels of culture to which they are constantly confronted in entertainment media? Is the local level more powerfully felt than the regional, national or global? How do these different levels compete for attention (which is the modus operandi of entertainment)? What effects do they have on cultural identity? Does this American presence mean the insidiousness of cultural imperialism? Are we oppressed by Americanization? Does the American Theme Park become a carrier of ideology, history, myth and beliefs that roll-over the consumers and replace their own value systems? By going to McDonalds or buying a Dr Pepper or wearing a Nike jacket or visiting Euro Disney, is one embracing American values and being 'colonized' in mind and body by them?

Viewing the interrelationship of globalization and culture as ever-evolving toward a monolithic global culture has its limitations and is open to critique. Globalization is a far more complex set of phenomena than is suggested by the stereotype of American imperialism. While a global culture heavily influenced by US values is indeed emerging, it is not directed exclusively by the US; many non-US cultures are contributing to other subglobalization processes. Despite the belief that the United States dominates foreign countries, the practical effects of "Americanization" amount to less than one might suppose. American culture is not the only dominant culture; many other cultures export their products.

Furthermore, there are limitations to the ability of American culture to replace other cultures. Local cultures are inherently resilient and local languages, eating habits, education systems, and other social patterns determine the extent to which American culture is imported and adapted to native needs. People are not only consuming hamburgers and Coke. Britain's favorite takeaway is a curry, not a burger.15 Indian restaurants there outnumber McDonald's six to one.16 For all the concerns about American fast food trashing, France's gastronomic traditions, France imported a mere $620-million in food from the United States in 2000, while exporting to America three times that.17 Worldwide, pizzas are more popular than burgers, Chinese restaurants seem to sprout up everywhere, and sushi is spreading fast.18 Nor are Americans the only players in the global media industry. Of the seven market leaders that have their fingers in nearly every pie, four are American (AOL Time Warner, Disney, Viacom, and News Corporation), one is German (Bertelsmann), one is French (Vivendi), and one Japanese (Sony). What they distribute comes from all quarters: Bertelsmann publishes books by American writers; News Corporation broadcasts Asian news; Sony sells Brazilian music.19

1. What are people who think globalization = Americanization worried about?
2. How did France stop "Americanization"?
3. How did France define Americanization?
4. How does this writer define "Americanization"?
5. What are two arguments the writer uses to say "globalization" does not equal "americanization"?