Globalisation

As technology continues to advance through time, the concept of globalisation becomes increasing evident. Globalisation “refers to an international community influenced by technological development and economic, political and military interests” (O’Shaughnessy 2012 p. 458). Basically, it is the increasing interactivity between the different nations of the world which is becoming simpler due to the ease in which people can contact anyone, anywhere at any time. The video below provides a useful explanation of the concept.

Appadurai (1949) breaks the cultural flows of globalisation into 5 areas;

Ethnoscapes refers to the flow of people throughout different countries, resulting in more multiculturalism.

Mediascapes refers to the flow of media content throughout the world. This is easier than ever today with the internet.

Technoscapes refers to the advancements of technology which are being shared throughout the world, resulting in more and more connectivity.

Financescapes refers to the inter connectivity of finances and the flow of this throughout the world. Thing such as being able to purchase shares in a foreign company within seconds.

Ideoscapes refers to the movement of ideologies throughout the world, which can vary from thing such as political ideology to economic ideology.

However while there are these positives, there are also negative aspects. O’Shaughnessy (2012) argues that globalisation has led to the westernisation of many cultures, which has seen many of their traditions fall by the wayside for western values such as consumerism. The importation of western films has also seen a change in the way many of these cultures speak, as well as their taste in media. This concept is known as cultural imperialism

Globalisation has brought about many positives that were previously though unattainable, however we also have to be careful that this doesn’t result in the loss of tradition and cultures.

Sources:

O’Shaughnessy, M 2012, “’Globalisation’, in Media and Society”

Appadurai, A 1949, “Modernity at large: cultural dimensions of globalization”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPD477FuqtY

Image – http://theconversation.com/britain-fails-to-understand-the-nature-of-globalisation-at-its-peril-61392

 

The International Student Experience

Many English speaking countries are seeing a huge influx of international students to their universities. Australia is no different, with just under 230,000 international students enrolled in its universities in June 2016.

Universities love international students as they have to pay their fees up front rather than being deferred through HECS. Because of this, they try to market the experience to potential students as a wholly positive one such as the video below.

However this is not always the case. These students face issues that are not as common with most domestic students. Being so far away from home, with no support network and in an unfamiliar culture is a big thing for these students to deal with. Marginson (2012) suggests that Australian students are not helping with this problem as many are not interested with interacting with the international students which increases the isolation that they feel. This leads to many interacting with other students from their country which takes away from the experience they should be enjoying.

This is compounded by the pressures they have from home. These students don’t have the option of deferring their fees through HECS so they have to pay upfront. This places a large amount of stress on them as they are dealing with heavy expectations from their families back home to do well due to the large financial outlay

The mix of cultures at university is one of the great experiences that we benefit from while we are here. As local students, we need to understand the difficulties that many of these international students are facing and do our best to make them feel a part of the community. Without the international students, fees for domestic students will rise and the current multiculturalism at universities will cease to exist.

Sources

Marginson, Simon 2012, ‘International education as self-formation: Morphing a profit making business into an intercultural experience’

https://internationaleducation.gov.au/research/International-Student-Data/PublishingImages/IST_2016/2016Graph_Table3.png

Image – https://www.postgrad.com/blog/new-rules-for-international-students-in-the-uk/

 

 

 

 

The Rise of Nollywood

If you asked most people to name the three biggest film industries in the world most would get Hollywood and Bollywood, but how many would be able to name Nollywood? This is surprising considering Nollywood is by volume the second largest film industry in the world behind Bollywood.

The Nollywood movie industry is very different to others around the world. Firstly, movies are not screened in cinemas, they go straight to video and are shown on street corners or video parlours. The street corners are a place where the general public can congregate and watch the films, though these are without the comforts of a cinema as they stand the entire time (Okome 2007). The video parlors are locations that groups can get together, which can be anything from a small room to a hall and the technology can be very limited (Okome 2007)

One complaint of these films is that they are of low quality, however this is due to the limited budget and time frame that filmmakers have to work with. They will often only have a very limited budget and will have to finish the film with in time frames as short as week. However the filmmakers will adopt new technology as soon as it is affordable, until then they make do with what they have (Khorana 2016)

While not hugely popular worldwide, Nollywood is wildly successful in Africa. Most of the movies cater to that audience by presenting themes that appeal to them, as well as audiences being happy to view films made by other Africans. Due to this, they are happy to forgo the fancy effects and top name actors as they would prefer the previous. It is a local industry that caters to their wants and they respond by steadfastly supporting it.

Sources

Okome, O 2007. Nollywood: Spectatorship, Audience and the Sites of Consumption

https://www.britishcouncil.org/voices-magazine/nollywood-second-largest-film-industry

Meet ‘Nollywood’: The second largest movie industry in the world

Khorana, S 2016 – BCM111 Lecture Slides Week 4

Image – https://www.one.org/us/2015/06/15/first-hollywood-then-bollywood-now-nollywood/

Image – http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/insider/how-the-times-named-nollywood.html?_r=0