Compare the Perspectives of the Un and Arnett on What Constitutes the 'Global Culture', Including the Role of the Media.

Today, nations are interlinked with each other irrespective of how remote from others, and influence deeply other countries’ economic, political and cultural activities through global media as a flow of globalisation. Within this flow, global culture has become a significant phenomenon and a crucial issue in various fields in terms of worldwide cultural integration. Moreover, cultural globalization has expedited extremely over the last decades due to the increasing global economy and the rapid dissemination of the media. Although, in broad terms, globalization essentially produces the effects throughout the world, academics may not have the same perspectives on the global culture. A number of issues, in relation to youth, consumerism, western values, individualism, free market economy and the role of the media, focusing on global culture have been raised by scholars.

Two articles that examine global culture from different perspectives are the UN’s “Young People in a Globalizing World” (2003) and Jeffery Arnett’s “The Psychology of Globalization” (2002). In its article, the UN asserts that global culture can be identified with consumer culture, youth culture and western culture, which are primarily spread by global audio-visual media. The UN adds that the media play a vital role in the construction of the cultures. In this context, the dominance of cultural power through the media, especially of western culture, has a considerable influence on cultural globalization, which has been considered a important contributor to homogenization of culture. However, the UN argues that global culture does not present a harmonious approach to synthesise different cultures, but rather causes a struggle for power and a class conflict between global and local culture. In contrast, Arnett, in his article, focuses on the psychological impacts of globalization instead of the impacts of global consumerism. He argues that global culture is closely related to individualism, democracy... [continues]

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