Blog 1:What is Globalization?——ZHANG ZIHAN

1. Summary

Before taking this class, I thought globalization mainly meant that countries trade with each other and that international companies sell their products around the world. However, after learning about globalization in class and reading Robertson and White, I realized that globalization is much broader than international business.

Globalization can be understood as a process in which different parts of the world become increasingly connected. These connections are not only economic. They can also be cultural, political, social, and technological. People, information, products, ideas, and cultures can move across national borders much more easily than before. Because of this, events in one country can influence people living very far away.

Another important point is that globalization does not simply mean that every country becomes the same. Global influences can enter a society, but people may understand and use them differently according to their own culture. Therefore, the relationship between the global and the local is important. Globalization can create similarities between countries while local cultures continue to maintain their own characteristics.

Technology and media have made this process much faster. Social media allows trends, news, music, advertisements, and lifestyles to spread internationally within a very short time. A person does not have to travel abroad to experience another culture. We can encounter other cultures every day through our phones.

For these reasons, I now understand globalization as an ongoing process that connects societies while also changing how people understand their own society and the wider world.

2. What I Learned and Found Interesting

The most interesting thing I learned is that globalization is actually much closer to my daily life than I previously thought.

I am a Chinese student studying in South Korea. Before coming to Korea, I already knew many things about Korean culture through music, dramas, beauty products, food, and social media. After I came here, I also noticed many Chinese products, restaurants, apps, and cultural influences around me. At the same time, many global brands are familiar to young people in both China and Korea.

This made me think about my own experience differently. Studying abroad itself is also connected to globalization. I crossed a national border for education, I communicate with people from different cultural backgrounds, and I regularly use information from more than one country. Sometimes I watch Chinese content while living in Korea, and sometimes I discover Korean trends that are also becoming popular in China. My everyday life is connected to more than one society.

As an advertising and public relations student, I also find the relationship between globalization and advertising interesting. A global company cannot always use exactly the same advertisement in every country. Language, humor, values, popular celebrities, and consumer habits can be different. Companies may have a global identity but still need to adapt their communication to local audiences.

This helped me understand that globalization is not simply the disappearance of national differences. Instead, global and local cultures constantly interact with each other.

3. My Question and Critical Reflection

However, globalization also makes me think about cultural diversity.

When young people in different countries use similar social media platforms, follow similar trends, buy similar global brands, and watch similar content, their lifestyles may gradually become more similar. This can make communication between people from different countries easier, but it may also create pressure on smaller or traditional cultures.

At the same time, I do not think globalization simply destroys local culture. Sometimes global communication can actually give local culture a larger audience. For example, food, music, fashion, films, or traditions that were once mostly known within one country can now become internationally recognized through social media.

Therefore, the question I would like to discuss is:

Does globalization protect cultural diversity by helping local cultures reach the world, or does it gradually make different cultures more similar?

I do not think there is one simple answer. Globalization can create opportunities for communication and cultural exchange, but it can also create challenges for local identities. For me, this is what makes globalization interesting. It is not only something happening between governments or large companies. It is a process that can be seen in education, media, consumption, culture, and even in our everyday choices.