Culture and things of that nature

The loss of traditions and culture is often considered one of the major negative affects of globalisation and the integration of diasporic populations. While I understand and accept this argument as valid, I always like to try and remove some of the negative stigma attached to globalisation.

When we travel internationally, we are creating culture, which then in turn gets discussed in our public sphere. Based on the definition provided by McKee, the public sphere is not a physical place but more of a permeable metaphorical membrane between which members of society can exchange ideas, opinions or beliefs (2005, p. 4). In this increasingly modernised world, the public sphere has worked its way online in the form of social media, blogging etc.

As discussed in this week’s study guide chapter, we are creating culture when we consume or purchase pieces of art/sculptures/general knick-knacks that we believe represent the culture of the place we are visiting. These same pieces of art act as a pathway for the spread of culture as we will naturally return home and undoubtedly discuss these items at great length, much to the boredom and frustration of our friends. In addition to this, people travelling will often post pictures to their social media sites, further sharing that piece of ‘culture’ with others. The picture of the booze vending machine and the overly specific sign are prime examples of this. Through this blog, i am again sharing them with you.

Along with these cultural artefacts, the everyday actions of a society are also considered every bit as ‘cultural’ but often go overlooked as we tend to bring with us our home environment and apply that to everything we see and do (culturaltravel.net). 

I believe that travel and spread of culture is ultimately positive as the resulting cultural acceptance is driving factor for battling racism and creating a more harmonious (not homogenised) world.

Pictures are from my mates Instagram. I asked her so it's okay.

References:

McKee, A 2005, Extract from, The public sphere: An introduction, Cambrigde University Press, p. 4-19

http://www.culturaltravel.net/ (Super official website)

Al Jazeera

As defeatist as this may sound, I believe there is always going to be an unavoidable level of bias in every news producing organisation. Whether it be Fox News, The Times or CNN, the notion of being truly objective is an elusive one. A study on news bias in America found that 35 per cent of the American public perceives the Fox News Company (FNC) as being in favour of the conservative agenda (Turner, 2007, p. 2). In Great Britain, newspaper bias is no secret. Papers such as the conservative Times and the left-leaning Guardian consistently and blatantly deliver their viewpoints on a massive scale (Ackerman, 2001).

Like any news media company, Al-Jazeera is not immune to an occasional bout of bias.

As Walid Al-Omary (cited in Nawawy 2003, p. 53), correspondent for Al-Jazeera explains: 

"To be objective in this area is not easy because we live here. We are part of the 

people here. And this situation belongs to us also, and we have our opinions."

Is this not the case with every Western journalist, reporter or news organisation? Do they not have opinions? To be objective anywhere is not easy. Poor excuse Mr Al-Omary.

The word ‘bias’ tends to conjure up some fairly negative connotations. However, I believe that some positives can be seen when it comes to news bias. Certainly, the blurring of truths and the disregarding of certain information is highly questionable and potentially devastating but presenting information to your audience in a way they can relate and engage with the content is relatively harmless. 

The way Al-Jazeera presents their information may not match the tone of western broadcast media but it resonates with Arab viewers as it more accurately depicts the dominant ideologies of the middle east (Nawawy 2003, p. 53). If Western nations can have their awful bias news networks, why can’t the middle east?

"Agenda setting, biased reporting..." News piece about journalistic bias in Al Jazeera.

References

Ackerman, S 2001, ‘The most biased name in news’, retrieved 15 August, <http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1067/>

El-Nawawy, M. 2003, ‘The battle for the Arab mind’, Al-Jazeera, the story of the network that is rattling governments and redefining modern journalism 2003, Westview Press, Boulder CO, pp. 45-69, 217-218

Turner, J 2007, ‘The Messenger overwhelming the message: Ideological Cues and Perceptions of Bias in Television News’, Political Behavior, vol. 29, no. 4, p. 441-464, retrieved 15 August, Academic Search Complete

The Olympics: A Global Event

At it’s very basis, the Olympics are wholly and unequivocally a global event. As cliché as it sounds, it is a coming together of cultures for a positive reason. People often criticise that because of the way the games are broadcast and the way in which only ‘rich’ nations play host to the games, that it is entirely favouring these powerful nations. According to the critics, it is for this reason that the games are not a truly global event.

I would like to highlight several points:

There are only three nations who will not be competing in the 2012 Olympics; Vatican City (they never compete as citizens of Vatican City often come from neighbouring nations and tend to compete under that flag), South Sudan (the country was only established in 2011 and does not have an Olympic committee yet) and Kosovo (currently not recognised by the UN as a separate nation).

There are over 200 nations competing. Even the tiny nation of Buthan has a team. The team may only be made up of 2 people (who didn't even qualify for the games) but under IOC guidelines; all nations with an Olympic committee can take part, regardless of team size or ability. Simply having the addition of this IOC regulation (chapter 5, part 2,) shows that the games are striving to be a global event by including as many nations as they possibly can. I mean, even North Korea has a team…c’mon.

I understand that nations can only host the games if they have the economic means but isn't this just common sense? If a nation can't afford to build stadiums, an athletes village and other infrastructure upgrades then why have it there? If a nation goes bankrupt after building stadiums eg Greece. The Greek government spent $11 billion on stadium developments and $1.6 billion on a brand new airport capable of handling the traffic for the games (Malfas, Theodoraki & Houlihan, 2004, p. 215). For most small nations the consequences for having the games are much worse than not having them..

References:

Malfas, M, Theodoraki, E & Houlihan, B 2004, ‘Impacts of the Olympic Games as mega-events’, Municipal Engineer, vol. 157, no. 3, p. 209-220, retrieved 10 August, <http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/dspace/bitstream/handle/2100/993/muen.157.3.209.49461.pdf?sequence=1>

<http://www.olympic.org/national-olympic-committees>

<http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics-2012/debt-and-regret-20120515-1yp12.html>