Globalization and Glocalization

Globalization, as defined by Professor Straubhaar in lecture, is the process of increasing interconnectedness among nations, cultures, and people.  The dominance of the United States in areas of cultural technology, such as film, has led to what many refer to as the “Westernization” or “Americanization” of the world.  The idea of globalization is reinforced by the rapid advancement of technology in the world today.   These new technological developments have made intercontinental communication easier (world wide News networks, Skype, etc), essentially making the world appear a smaller place.

Globalization is connected to what we call glocalization.  Glocalization is when someone will take an idea or formula that has been successful in one place and adopts that idea to fit the culture of another.    One could see this process as a barrier to the idea of cultural imperialism where the US seemingly has started to overpower some local cultures to near extinction, because glocalization is in a sense a way of preserving local cultures. You take one media and change it to suite the culture of another.

Glocalization can be done on a smaller scale but for me where it is most powerful and noticeable is in the film industry.  The United States has “glocalized” several foreign films from many different nations to become major box office hits in the US.  For example, in 2009 the Swedish film Let the Right One In was remade in the US to better appeal to the American crowd as Let Me In, a vampire tale.  Another remake that proved a major success was when the 1968 French film of adultery and the chaos that resulted, Le Femme Infide?Le was remade in the US in 2002 into Unfaithful.  These films all proved big successes across cultures although they were remade to better suit each audience’s cultural differences.