Cultural imperialism can be traced way back before the US became the superpower. Imperialism, in this case, refers to the way a country assert its powers over others. However, currently, cultural imperialism mainly describes the role of USA as the cultural superpower across the globe. At the same time, it can refer to how western countries like the UK have culturally dominated other countries in various parts of the world. Americanization is one of the good examples of cultural imperialism. Cultural imperialism led to the spread of culture of culture across the globe and Americanization is still common in various parts of the world (Cismas, 2010).
Cultures have spread across the globe across history in different ways. Cultures have spread across the globe in different ways. The first phase involved the exportation of cultural products, including socio-cultural values from industrialized countries, especially America, which were imposed and poor nations. The spread of culture in this phase was facilitated by the international media that were biased ( Foley & Lahr, 2011) . However, the first phase is different from the second phase of the spread of culture because the latter focused on the commercialization of aspects of cultures. Contrary to the first phase where media was used to spread culture, the second phase involved the use of international corporations. US, for instance, used companies like McDonalds to spread its cultures into various parts of the world. Even though the two phases are different, they were both aimed at dominating less developed and weaker countries. They phases were used to facilitate cultural imperialism by advanced countries like the USA that wanted to maintain the dominance in the world.
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I think is a good thing that so many cultures are around the world are increasingly becoming Americanized. One of the main reasons why I believe it is a good thing is because it leads to the creation of new cultures, which comes about as a result of the merger between American culture and cultures from other countries (Cismas, 2010). For the Americanization of the Korean McDonalds led to the creation of “Bulgogi Burger”, which is the mixture of mixed an American with traditional Korean BBQ. Hence, Americanization of many cultures is beneficial, as it leads to new culture. In addition, Americanization leads to the development of the global unity. For example, it encourages democracy and wide adoption of English language that play important role in promoting international unity. Hence, it is a good thing that many cultures across the globe are becoming Americanized.
However, Americanization also has some negative effects that affect the whole world. First, it reduces the ability to appreciate and embrace cultural diversity. Heterogeneity is lost while at the same time other small cultures are removed when many global cultures are Americanized ( Jaja, 2010) . As a result, American problems become replicated in other parts of the world or they become the global problem. For instance, the problem of obesity is now affecting almost every part of the world due to the American culture of eating fast food made by international companies like McDonalds.
Therefore, even though Americanization and cultural imperialism are yet to fade away, they have both positive and negative effects across the globe. Many culture die away due to cultural imperialism and Americanization. At the same time, some new cultures emerge due to Americanization. With increased advancement in technology, cultural imperialism and Americanization will have more impacts in various parts of the world.
References
Cismas, S. C. (2010, February). The impact of American culture on other cultures: language and cultural identity. In Proceedings of the 9th WSEAS international conference on Artificial intelligence, knowledge engineering, and databases (pp. 388-393). World Scientific and Engineering Academy and Society (WSEAS).
Foley, R. A., & Lahr, M. M. (2011). The evolution of the diversity of cultures: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B . Biological Sciences , 366 (1567), 1080- 1089.
Jaja, J. M. (2010). Globalization or Americanization: Implication for Sub-Saharan Africa. Retrieved from http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/12110/InTechGlobalization_or_americanization_implication_for_sub_saharan_africa.pdf
