The World of Ideas

The Global Media Cultures - the world is globalized in the 19000s upon the advancement of media
and transportation.
Global Village - term coined by Marshall MacLuhan to express the idea that people throughout the
world are interconnected through the use of new media technologies.
Globalization and Media - Five time periods in the study of Globalization and Media
● Oral Communications (Oral Traditions)
○ Human speech is the oldest and most enduring
○ Human adaptation to a new and different environment is facilitated by the sharing of
information of other people through language.
○ Languages as a means to develop the ability to communicate across cultures are the
lifeline of globalization.
○ Without language there would be no globalization.
● Writing Systems (Script)
○ Writing is a system of graphic marks representing the units of a specific language.
○ Writing may have been invented independently three times in different parts of the
world. Near East (Cuneiform), China (Hanzi) and Mesoamerica (Maya).
○ Writing is humankind’s principal technology for collecting, manipulation, storing,
communicating, and disseminating information.
● The Printing Press (Print Media)
○ Printing press is a device that allows for the mass production of uniform printed
matter. Invented by Johannes Gutenberg in the 15th century.
○ Changed the very nature of knowledge (standardized); preserved knowledge which
had been more malleable in oral cultures.
○ Encouraged the challenge of political and religious authority because of its ability to
circulate competing views, also encouraged the literacy of the public and the growth
of schools.
● Electronic Media
○ Refers to the broadcast or storage media that takes advantage of electronic
technology.
○ Ongoing globalization processes were revolutionized by new media in the beginning
of the 19th century (telegraph, telephone, radio.) In the 20th century, the only
available media in villages was the radio.
○ Most popular and pervasive mass media is the television as it brought the visual and
aural power of film and radio
● Digital Media
○ Any form of media that uses electronic devices for distribution; commonly used
software, video games, videos, websites, social media, and online advertising.
○ Phones and Televisions are now considered digital while computers are considered
the most important media influencing globalization. Computers give access to global
and market places and transform cultural life.
○ Our daily life is revolutionized by digital media. People are able to adopt and adapt
new practices like fashion, sports, music, food, and many others through the access of
information provided by computers.; also exchange ideas, establish relations, and
linkages through the use of skype, google, chat, and zoom.
○ One aspect of globalization is music, since it participates in the reinforcing of
boundaries of culture and identity.
 ○ With the development of the global pop music industry, traditional local music is
replaced with popular music. People can buy music records in stores, download MP#
files from the internet, and can use their smartphones to buy music in the app store.
○ Unlike the convenience of pop music, traditional music such as opera and concert
music require time, money and space. People have to go to the theater and spend
hours watching the opera.
○ Popular music is the advancement of traditional music. Pop music is everywhere in
people’s daily life.

Globalization of Religion
Religion - a personal or institutionalized set of attitudes, beliefs, and practices relating to or
manifesting faithful devotion to an acknowledged ultimate reality or deity; human beings’ relation to
that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of special reverence.

The Globalization of Religion

Globalization involves religions in several ways:
● Calls forth religious response and interpretation.
● Religions played important roles in bringing about and characterizing globalization (religious
pluralism)
● Religions identify themselves in relation to one another, and they become less rooted in
particular places because of diasporas
● Globalization further provides fertile ground for the development of religion as a political and
cultural resource.

The Globalization of Religion: Perspectives on the Role of Religion in the Globalization

The Modernist Perspective

● The perspective of most intellectuals and academics
● Its view is that all secularizations would eventually look alike and the different religions
would all end up as the same worldly and “rational” philosophy
● It sees religious revivals as sometimes being a reaction to enlightenment and modernization.

The Postmodernist Perspective

● The core value of postmodernism is expressive individualism (political and social
philosophy that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual)
● The postmodernist perspective can include “spiritual experiences”, but only those without
religious constraints. Postmodernism is largely hyper-secularism, and it joins modernism in
predicting, and eagerly anticipating, the disappearance of traditional religions.
The Pre Modernist Perspective
● Best represented and articulated by Pope John Paul II. The Pope’s understanding is drawn
from his experiences in Poland, but it encompasses events in other countries as well. Each
religion has secularized in its own distinctive way, which has resulted in its own distinctive
secular outcome. This suggests that even if globalization brings about more secularization, it
will not soon bring about one in common, global worldview.

World of Religions
● A category used in the study of religion to demarcate the five largest and most internationally
widespread religious movements.
 ● Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are always included in the list, also
known as the “Big Five”.
● The scholars of religion Christopher R. Cotter and David G. Robertson described the “Big
Five” religions are often listed in an “Abrahamocentric order” which places the largest
three Abrahamic religions (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) before the non-Abrahamic
religions (Hinduism and Buddhism).

Christianity
● A major religion stemming from the life, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth in the 1st
century CE
● It has become the largest of the world’s religions and, geographically, the most widely
diffused of all faiths. It has a constituency of more than two billion believers.
● ITs largest groups are the Roman Catholic Church, The Eastern Orthodox churches, and the
Protestant churches.

Islam
● A major world religion promulgated by the Prophet Muhammad in Arabia in the 7th century
CE.
● The Arabic term Islam, literally “surrender”, illuminates the fundamental religious idea of
Islam (the believer accepts surrender to the will of Allah).
● Allah is viewed as the sole God and the will of Allah, to which human beings must submit, is
made known through the sacred scriptures, the Qur’an (often spelled Koran in English),
which Allah revealed to his messenger, Muhammad
○ Five Pillars of Islam
■ Shahadah - the Muslim profession of faith
■ Salat - prayer, performed in a prescribed manner five times a day
■ Zakat - alms tax levied to benefit the poor and the needy
■ Sawm - fasting during the month of Ramadan
■ Hajj - major pilgrimage to Mecca
Judaism
● A monotheistic religion developed among the ancient Hebrews.
● Characterized by a belief in one transcendent God who revealed himself to Abraham, Jacob,
Isaac, and Moses, and the Hebrew prophets and by a religious life in accordance with
Scriptures and rabbinic traditions.
● The complex phenomenon of a total way of life for the Jewish people, comprising theology,
law, and innumerable cultural traditions.

Hinduism
● A major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and comprising several and
varied systems of philosophy, belief, and ritual.
● The Vedas (1700-500BC) and the Upanishads (750-550BC) are a collection of writings that
describe all the fundamental teachings that are central to Hinduism, including the concepts of
karma (action), samsara (reincarnation), and moksha (nirvana)
● Unlike major religions like Christianity, Islam , Judaism, and Buddhism, Hinduism cannot be
traced back to a certain founder.
○ Four Goals of Life
■ Dharma - be a good, virtuous, moral person
■ Artha - earn material prosperity, money/security
 ■ Kama - seek happiness, pleasure, emotional fulfillment
■ Moksha - seek freedom from ignorance, spirituality, and self-knowledge

Buddhism
● A religion and philosophy that developed from the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. “The
Buddha” (Awakened One), a teacher who lived in northern India between the mid-6th and
mid-4th centuries BCE.
● Spreading from india to Central and Southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, Buddhism has
played a central role in the spiritual, cultural, and social life of Asia, and, beginning in the
20th century, it spread to the West.
○ Four Noble Truths
■ Dukkha - life is a suffering
■ Samudaya - origin of dukkha (tanha - desires)
■ Nirodha - cessation of dukkha (renouncement of tanha)
■ Magga - path leading to renouncement of tanha (Eight Fold Paths)
○ Eightfold Path
○ Wisdom
■ Right Understanding
■ Right Aspiration
○ Morality
■ Right Speech
■ Right Action
■ Right Livelihood
○ Concentration
■ Right Effort
■ Right Mindfulness
■ Right Concentration

Religious Demography

Religion’s World Population (Pew Research Center, 2020)

● Christianity - 2.38 billion
● Islam - 1.91 billion
● Hinduism - 1.16 billion
● Buddhism - 507 million
● Folk Religions - 430 million
● Other - 61 million
● Unaffiliated - 1.19 billion

Glocalization
● The simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in
contemporary social, policial, economic, and religious systems.
● A linguistic hybrid of globalization and localization that was popularized by the sociologist
Roland Robertson
● Glocalization are processes that register the ability of religion to penetrate in different
communities in ways that connect it intimately with global and local relations.
Forms of Glocalization
● Indigenization - connected with the specific faiths with ethnic groups whereby religion and
culture were often fused into a single unit.
● Vernacularization - involved the rise of vernacular language endowed with the symbolic
ability of offering privileged access to the sacred.
● Nationalization - the connection between the consolidation of specific nations with particular
confessions.

The Global Population and Mobility

The Global City

● An urban center that enjoys significant competitive advantages and serves as a hub within a
globalized economic system.
● The term “Global City” was popularized by sociologist Saskia Sassen in her work The global
City: New York, London, Tokyo (1991)
● What constitutes a global city are primarily economic, such as New York, which are hubs of
global finance and capitalism, and are economic centers that exert control over the world’s
political economy.

Indicators of a Global City

● Seat of Economic Power

● Centers of Authority
● Centers of Political Influence
● Centers of Higher Learning and Culture
● Economic Opportunities
● Economic Competitiveness
● Cities as Engines of Globalizations

The Global Demography

● Demography was derived from the Greek words, demos for “population” and graphia for
“description” or “writing” thus the phrase, “writings about population.” It was coined by
Achille Guillard, a Belgian statistician, in 1855.
● Its meaning, demography refers to the study of population, with reference to size and density,
fertility, mortality, growth, age distribution, migration, vital statistics, and the interaction of all
these with social and economic conditions.

Demographic transition - a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth
rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology, education, and economic
development, to low birth rates and low death rates in society with advanced technology, education,
and economic development.

Theory of Demographic Transition

Stage 1 - pre-industrial society, death rates and birth rates are high and in balance. As a result,
population size remains fairly constant but can have major swings with events such as wars or
pandemics.
Stage 2 - death rates drop rapidly due to improvements in food supply and sanitation increasing life
spans and reducing diseases. Birth rates remain high, resulting to rapid population growth, Many of
the least developed countries today are in the stage

Stage 3 - birth rates gradually decrease, usually as a result of improved economic conditions, increase
in women;s status, and contraception. Death rate also keeps declining but at a lower rate. Population
growth continues, but at a lower rate. Most of the developing countries are in this stage.

Stage 4 - birth and death rates are both low, resulting to a stabilized population. These countries tend
to have stronger economies, higher levels of education, better healthcare, a higher proportion of
working women, and a fertility rate hovering around two children per woman. Most of the developed
countries are in this stage.

Stage 5 - original demographic transition model has just four stages, but additional stages have been
proposed. Birth rates have significantly below replacement level while death rate starts to rise due to
the aging population. This results in the Elderly population being greater than the youth population.

THE GLOBAL MIGRATION

❖ Global migration is a situation in which people go to live in foreign countries specially to
find a job. Though it can be often seen as a permanent move rather than a complex
series of backward or onward series.
❖ The term migration is often conceptualized as a move from an origin to a destination, or
from a place of birth to another destination across administrative borders within a country
or international borders.
❖ Internal migration refers to people moving from one area to another within one country
❖ International migration refers to the movement people who cross the borders of one
country to another.

❖ International migration can be broken down into five groups:

➢ The first group are those who move permanently to another country (immigrants).
➢ The second refers to workers who stay in another country for a fixed period.
➢ The third group are the illegal immigrants.
➢ The fourth are migrants whose families have “petitioned” them to move to such
country.
➢ The fifth group are refugees (also known as asylum-seekers), i.e., those “unable or
unwilling to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race,
religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”

Reasons for Migration

Cultural Factors
❖ Cultural factor can be especially a compelling push factor, forcing people to emigrate from
a country. Forced international migration has historically occurred for two main cultural
reasons: slavery and political instability. Millions of people were shipped to other countries
as slaves or as prisoners, especially from Africa to the Western Hemisphere, during the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Some international migration persists because
of political instability as a result of cultural diversity.
Socio-political Factors
❖ Socio-political factors have become a more prominent force to initiate migration activities.
Political instability in some parts of the world is responsible for migration. Situation of
war, oppression and the lack of socio-political rights are the major factors of migration in
contemporary time. Lack of political rights and prevalent exploitation of a particular group
or communities in any nation state act as push factors for migration to get away from such situations.

Environmental Factors
❖ Despite the fact that human relocation is a fundamental piece of history and culture of
world, ecological change assumes a contributing part in influencing populace movement,
especially on a local level.
❖ According to IOM (International Organization of Migration): “Environmental migrants are
persons or groups of persons who, for compelling reasons of sudden or progressive
changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, are
obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or
permanently, and who move either within their country or abroad”.
Economic Factors
❖ People migrated to look for better jobs for their sustenance.
❖ A recent UNCTAD report notes: ‘Remittances are more stable and predictable as
compared to other financial flows and, more importantly, they are counter-cyclical
providing a buffer against economic shocks. In conflict or post–conflict situations,
remittances can be crucial to survival, sustenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. In
providing primarily for household livelihoods, remittances are spent on general
consumption items in local communities that contribute to local economies by supporting
small businesses.

TOWARDS A SUSTAINABLE WORLD

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

❖ “Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
❖ As sustainable development primarily relates to how people’s needs were satisfied
through the consumption and utilization of resources. It is often linked with climate
change which, due to its hazardous effects in the environment, is known to be a major
restriction in achieving sustainability. This link is considered strong. Poor developing
countries tend to be the most severely affected by climate change.
❖ Climate change refers to significant changes in global temperature, precipitation, wind
patterns and other measures of climate that occur over several decades or longer.
❖ Increases in global temperature, sea level rise, ocean acidification and other climate
change impacts are seriously affecting coastal areas and low-lying coastal countries.
❖ Climate change is often seen as a part of the broader challenge in sustainable
development thru a two-fold link:
➢ Impacts of climate change can severely hamper development efforts in some sectors.
➢ Development choices will influence the capacity to alleviate and or worsen the effects
of climate change.
❖ In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, countries express their commitment
to protect the planet from degradation and take urgent action on climate change.
❖ The Agenda also identifies climate change as one of the greatest challenges of our time
and worries about its adverse impacts challenge the ability of all countries to achieve
sustainable development.
❖ Various efforts are underway to deal with climate. However, strong resistance on the part
of governments and corporations counter these.
❖ There are significant challenges involved in implementing various measures to deal with
environmental problems. It is also difficult to find alternatives to fossil fuels. For instance,
the use of ethanol as an alternative to gasoline has an attendant set of problems - it is
less efficient and it has led to escalation in the price of corn, which currently serves as
major source of ethanol.

World’s Leading Environment Problems

❖ Damage caused by industrial and transportation toxins; the corruption of the sea, rivers,
and water beds by oil spills and acid rain; the dumping of urban waste.
❖ Changes in global weather patterns (flash floods, extreme snowstorms, and the spread
of deserts) and the surge in ocean and land temperatures leading to a rise in sea levels
(as the polar ice caps melt because of the weather), plus the flooding of many lowland
areas across the world.
❖ Overpopulation
❖ Exhaustion of the world’s natural non-renewable resources from oil reserves to minerals
to potable water.
❖ Waste disposal catastrophe due to excessive amount of waste (from plastic to food
packages and electronic waste) unloaded by communities in landfills as well as on the
ocean; and dumping of nuclear waste.

❖ Destruction of million-year-old ecosystems and the loss of biodiversity (destruction of the

coral reefs and massive deforestation) that have led to the extinction of particular species
and decline in the number of others.
❖ Reduction of oxygen and increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere due to
deforestation, resulting in the rise in ocean acidity.
❖ Depletion of ozone layer protecting the planet from the sun’s deadly ultraviolet rays due
to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) in the atmosphere
❖ Deadly acid rain as a result of fossil fuel combustion, toxic chemicals from erupting
volcanoes, and the massive rotting vegetables filling up garbage dumps or left on the
streets
❖ Water pollution arising from industrial and community waste residues seeping into
underground water tables, rivers and seas
❖ Urban sprawls that continue to expand as a city turns into a megalopolis, destroying
farmlands, increasing traffic gridlock, and making smog cloud.
❖ Pandemics and other threats to public health arising from wastes with drinking water,
polluted environment that become the breeding grounds for mosquitoes and disease
carrying rodents, and pollution.
❖ Radical alteration of food systems due to genetic modifications in food production

GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

❖ Food security is the measure of an individual's ability to access food that is nutritious and
sufficient in quantity.
❖ “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have access to adequate, safe, and
nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy
Life.”
❖ This widely accepted definition of food security emphasizes the four dimensions of food
security which are as follows:
➢ Food Access: access to adequate resources to acquire healthy diet
➢ Food Use: use of food through adequate diet, clean water and health care to reach
the state of a healthy well-being.
➢ Availability: availability of adequate supply of food, including food aid received from
outside the country.
➢ Stability: access to sufficient food at all times, without losing access to food supply
brought by either economic or climactic crisis.

Food Security: Issues and Public Policies

❖ “The global food security situation and outlook remains delicately imbalanced (surplus
food production and the prevalence of hunger) due to the complex interplay of social,
economic, and ecological factors that mediate food security outcomes.”

❖ The problem of food insecurity is expected to worsen due to many factors such as:
➢ Rapid population growth
➢ Climate change
➢ Rising demand for biofuels
➢ Deforestation
➢ Industrial fishing
➢ Decline in water supply
➢ Pollution

❖ Proactive interventions and policies for tackling food security are to be discussed to
extend the focus on food security within and beyond the agriculture sector, by
incorporating issues such as energy security, reuse and recovery of resources, social
protection programs, and involving civil society in food policy making processes by
promoting food sovereignty.

❖ There are different models and agenda pushed by different organizations to address the
issue of global food security. One of this is through sustainability.
➢ The United Nations has set ending hunger, achieving food security and improved
security, and promoting sustainable agriculture as the second of its 17 Sustainable
Goals (SDGs) for the year 2030.
➢ The World Economic Forum (2010) also addressed this issue through the New Vision
of Agriculture (NVA) in 2009 wherein public-private partnerships were established. It
has mobilized over $10 billion that reached smallholder farmers.

Miscellanea
United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Goals (SDGS) for the Year 2030.

1. No Poverty: End poverty in all its forms everywhere

2. Zero Hunger: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote
sustainable agriculture
3. Good Health and Well-being: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all
ages
4. Quality Education: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong
learning opportunities for all
5. Gender Equality: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
6. Clean Water and Sanitation: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water
and sanitation for all
7. Affordable and Clean Energy: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and
modern energy for all
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth: Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable
economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive
and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

10. Reduced Inequalities: Reduce inequality within and among countries

11. Sustainable Cities and Communities: Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe,
resilient and sustainable
12. Responsible Consumption and Production: Ensure sustainable consumption and
production patterns
13. Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
14. Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources
for sustainable development
15. Life on Land: Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems,
sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land
degradation and halt biodiversity loss
16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions: Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for
sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective,
accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels
17. Partnership for the Goals: Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the
global partnership for

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP

GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP AND GLOBAL CITIZENS

Citizenship
❖ Legal status that bestows uniform rights and duties upon all members of a state.
❖ Membership to a sovereign state (a country)
❖ Allegiance to one’s own country or state

Global Citizenship
❖ Global Citizenship is the idea that, as people, we are all citizens of the globe who have
an equal responsibility for what happens to our world.
❖ Caecilia Johanna van Peski defined global citizenship “as a moral and ethical disposition
that can guide the understanding of individuals or groups of local and global contexts,
and remind them of their relative responsibilities within various communities.”

Global Citizen
❖ “A global citizen is someone who is aware of and understands the wider world – and their
place in it. They take an active role in their community and work with others to make our
planet more peaceful, sustainable and fairer.”
❖ Global citizens are the glue which binds local communities together in an increasingly
globalized world.
❖ Every global citizen has a duty to address issues affecting our being citizens. As there
could be no formal process to become a global citizen, holding this citizenship status is
something that we all have a right to and obligation as well.

❖ A Global Citizen:
➢ is aware of the wider world
➢ has a sense of their own role as a world citizen
➢ respects and values diversity
➢ understands how the world works
➢ is outraged by social injustice
➢ participates in the community at a range of levels
➢ willing to act to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place
➢ takes responsibility for their actions

Salient Features of Global Citizenship

❖ Global citizenship as a choice and a way of thinking
➢ People come to consider themselves as global citizens through various formative life
experiences and have different interpretations of what it means to them.

❖ Global citizenship as a Self-awareness and awareness of others

➢ Self-awareness helps citizens identify with the universalities of human experience,
thus increasing their identification with fellow human beings and their sense of
responsibility toward them.

❖ Global citizenship as a Practice of cultural empathy

➢ Cultural empathy or intercultural competence (ability to function effectively across
cultures) occupies a central position in higher education’s thinking about global
citizenship and is seen as an important skill in the workplace.

❖ Global citizenship as a Cultivation of principled decision making

➢ Global citizenship entails an awareness of the interdependence of individuals and
systems as well as a sense of responsibility that follows from it.
➢ Critical thinking, cultural empathy and ethical systems and choices are an essential
foundation to principled decision making.

❖ Global citizenship as a Participation in the social and political life in a community

➢ There are various types of communities that range from local to global, from religious
to political group. Global citizens feel a sense of connection towards their
communities and translate this connection to participation.

Importance of Global Citizenship

❖ Global citizens are not born; they are created. Children do not have an innate
understanding of their shared humanity; they learn this over time.
❖ Historically, global citizenship was rooted in a common desire to prevent war. Common
reasoning was that, the more we knew about each other, the more likely we would ensure
peace, progress and prosperity.
❖ New technologies also enable us to connect with more people in more ways than ever
before, allowing us to discover our similarities and differences, better understand our
interdependencies, and expand our worldviews.
❖ Yet many people don’t feel this way or have not had such experiences. Around the world,
we see people who lack a sense of belonging: they do not feel a deeper connection to
other places, people or cultures.
❖ In the corporate realm, all too often in recent decades we have seen companies that have
put corporate interests above those of individuals, communities and the environment.
❖ Global citizenship helps bridge these gaps and rectify these realities, and global citizens
are its ambassadors. Doing this is not only about mindset; it is about actions, lifestyles
and building greater connections over time.
Global Citizenship and Global Governance
❖ When it comes to dealing with political globalization, increased accountability and
transparency are the key issues. All political organizations, at different levels, should be
more accountable for their actions. Increased transparency has been aided by various
mechanism such as “International Tribunals”, “Civil Society” and particularly the
“Transparency International”.
❖ Given that there is no world government, the idea of global citizenship demands the
creation of rights and obligations. However, fulfilling the promises of globalization and
the solution to the problems of the contemporary world does not lie on single entity or
individual, but on citizens, the community, and the different organization in societies.