5.2 Literature Review and Theoretical Perspectives..............
5.2.1 Globalization and Culture
Globalization is multi-dimensional and, therefore, requires diverse definitions.
Many scholars state clearly that the globalization process in fact has been an
ongoing process since the archaic time. According to Hopkins’( 2002 :1–10)
explanation, the globalization process is a historical process that started before the
1500s. The“archaic globalization”period occurred from Byzantium and Tang to
the renewed expansion of Islamic and Christian power after the 1500s. Hopkins
identifies the“proto-globalization”period with the political and economic devel-
opment that became especially prominent between about 1600 and 1800 in Europe,
Asia, and parts of Africa. The third period,“globalization,”is the colonial period
from 1760 onward. Globalization that can be related to modernity started from
1800; it refers to the rise of the nation-state and the spread of industrialization. The
last process, postcolonial or contemporary globalization, refers to the historical
process from the 1950s till now. Hopper’s( 2006 :4)definition of contemporary
globalization is the process by which the world has become interconnected, and that
leads to the formation of global networks, transnationalism, deterritorialization,
time-space compression, and the speeding up of everyday life. Held and McGrew
( 2007 :2–3) arrive at similar characterizations:“Globalization denotes the intensi-
fication of worldwide social relations and interactions such that distant events
acquire very localized impacts and vice versa.”Scholte ( 2005 ) further reports
eleven categories or manifestations of contemporary globalization: communication,
travel, productions, market,finance, organizations, military, ecology, health, law,
and consciousness (for more details, see Scholte 2005 :49–84).
5.2.2 Globalization and Mediatized Society
Globalization involves the reduction of barriers physically, legally, linguistically,
culturally, and psychologically and that makes people engage with one another
without space-time barriers (Scholte 2005 : 59). Local culture has been infiltrated by
a new cognitive dimension such as knowledge and power, especially the soft power
from major cultural product^3 exporters such as the US, Western Europe, Japan, and
(^3) They are printed media enterprises, radio and television companies, news and features agencies,
advertising and public relationsfirms, syndicates and independent companies producing and
distributing print, visual and recorded material for print and broadcasting conglomerates, public or
private information offices, data banks, software production, manufactures of technological
equipment and so on. Productions from the communication industry are also known as the cultural
industry because they record and reproduce cornucopia of social interactions, representations and
organization systems in diverse media forms such as books, arts,films, recordings, television,
radio, the internet, plays, concerts and music (MacBride 1980 :96–97).
74 5 Tourism, Digital Social Communication and Development...