Consumer Behavior Across Cultures
CHAPTER
1
Consumer Behavior
Across Cultures
W hen the Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the concept of the global
1
village, he was referring to Plato’s definition of the proper size for a city—the number of people who could hear the voice of the public speaker. By the global village, McLuhan meant that the new electric media of his time, such as telephone and television, abolished the spatial dimension. By means of electricity, people everywhere could resume person-to-person relations, as if on the smallest village scale. Thus, McLuhan viewed the electronic media as extensions of human beings. They enhance people’s activities; they do not make people the same. If you assume people are the same everywhere, global media extend homogeneity. If you realize that people are different, extensions reinforce the differences. McLuhan did not include cultural convergence in the concept of the global village. In fact, he said the opposite: that uniqueness and diversity could be fostered under electronic conditions as never before.
This is exactly what technological development has accomplished. Contrary to expectations, people have embraced the Internet and other new technology mostly to enhance their current activities. In the cold climates, where people used to preserve food in the snow, they have embraced deep-freeze technology most intensely. The colder the climate, the more deep freezers. In Korea, where people used to preserve the national dish Kimchi in pots in the ground, they developed a special refrigerator to be able to do this in the home. The mobile phone penetrated fastest in countries that already had advanced fixed telecommunications infrastructures. It was assumed that the Internet would undermine authoritarian regimes, but in fact it is used to strengthen them. The Internet has not changed people. It has reinforced existing habits that, instead of converging, tend to diverge. There is no evidence of converging
1
Consumer Behavior
Across Cultures
W hen the Canadian media philosopher Marshall McLuhan coined the concept of the global
1
village, he was referring to Plato’s definition of the proper size for a city—the number of people who could hear the voice of the public speaker. By the global village, McLuhan meant that the new electric media of his time, such as telephone and television, abolished the spatial dimension. By means of electricity, people everywhere could resume person-to-person relations, as if on the smallest village scale. Thus, McLuhan viewed the electronic media as extensions of human beings. They enhance people’s activities; they do not make people the same. If you assume people are the same everywhere, global media extend homogeneity. If you realize that people are different, extensions reinforce the differences. McLuhan did not include cultural convergence in the concept of the global village. In fact, he said the opposite: that uniqueness and diversity could be fostered under electronic conditions as never before.
This is exactly what technological development has accomplished. Contrary to expectations, people have embraced the Internet and other new technology mostly to enhance their current activities. In the cold climates, where people used to preserve food in the snow, they have embraced deep-freeze technology most intensely. The colder the climate, the more deep freezers. In Korea, where people used to preserve the national dish Kimchi in pots in the ground, they developed a special refrigerator to be able to do this in the home. The mobile phone penetrated fastest in countries that already had advanced fixed telecommunications infrastructures. It was assumed that the Internet would undermine authoritarian regimes, but in fact it is used to strengthen them. The Internet has not changed people. It has reinforced existing habits that, instead of converging, tend to diverge. There is no evidence of converging