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View larger. Get eBook. Out of stock Buy from Amazon. They also lack a clear boundary between facts and myths. Since oral words require the speaker and the hearer to be at the same place, most oral cultural communities are territorial. On the other hand, print cultures - literate cultures after the invention of movable type made it possible for the masses to become consumers of printed media - have a firm grasp of the distinction between history and myth.
The spread of the print media also makes relational communities possible through letter writing and dissemination of books and journals. Griswold asks us to consider what kind of cultural community there would be if the electronic form of communication supplanted the print-based one.
Griswold documents many cases showing the serious impact the third wave of cultural organisation is having on the world's population. She quotes Nicholas Kristoff reporting that the Chinese say one thing to the police who routinely ask them what they watch on their satellite televisions, but it is an open secret that nobody watches only government programme p. The authorities have a really hard time controlling the messages received by the satellite dishes; they also have a hard time controlling the content of the Internet.
Hongladarom communication, especially the Internet, is so powerful as to create new forms of awareness, impulses toward democracy and other values typically associated with the West in cultures where such values are not especially endemic, is it the case that the world' s cultures will become homogenised as a result?
Will global culture swamp out all the local cultures out there? Griswold's answer is both yes and no. The increasing ease of communication creates 'a sense of solidarity' p. Her example is that of Europeans, who sympathised with Americans on the Gulf War issue. On the other hand, the same ease of communication makes it possible that a person with any type of esoteric interests will find those who share the same interest as she does.
This creates a fragmentation whereby increasingly relational communities are formed catering to all kinds of interests. Griswold cites a case where taboos against deviant sexuality are most actively enforced when the community faces threats from outside p. When groups are thus threatened, they turn toward themselves and sort out core traditional beliefs, purifying themselves in the process.
Thus it is conceivable that, faced with the threats coming in the form of electronic media and communication, local cultures could become more traditional. They turn to their stored memories, experiences and values and use them as a foil against the forces of globalisation.
A community does not have to be either purely traditional or purely global. As an individual can be a member of various communities, territorial or relational, global or local, so can a community, which can operate at both levels. Griswold believes that electronic communication 'could strengthen ties at the local level' p.
Thus we have a picture of a community connecting itself to the global arena and at the same time remaining local. Griswold and I largely agree that the Internet probably will not make all the world's diverse cultures disappear, but these cultures do not stay the same either.
A very complex interplay is at hand whereby the local cultures retain their own identities and at the same time become integrated with the global culture brought about by the Internet. Following Walzer, and Clifford Geertz before that, I believe cultures have both their 'thick' and 'thin' parts.
The first one pertains to what makes a culture a unique one - its own particular histories, myths, belief systems and so on; the other one is the part that connects that culture with others so that all are recognisable as parts of one global culture, This junction of the global and the local calls for sustained theoretical effort to sort out what exactly is going on. The 'Yesterday' example I raised a few paragraphs back may well illustrate the complex interplay between the global and the local.
With the advent of technology that can digitise, store and compress sound files, the song is now widely available on the Internet in many different incarnations. One has an experience of opening up a web site, only to be greeted with 'background sound', which may well be a MIDI a musical file format rendition of 'Yesterday'.
In traditional societies music played an important part in the lives of people. For assistance with your order: Please email us at textsales sagepub.
Earlier editions of this book have been in my recommended list for students of cross-cultural ministry for some time, and this fourth edition has enhanced its value considerably. This book will help students to think sociologically, and, paradoxically, to think both critically and generously. This book has given me and the students some preliminary thoughts to understand various cultures and societies across the globe.
I was hoping for a slightly more global approach, but if you don't need that, this is a very interesting work. More likely to prove useful as a research text in the second year, though first years will benefit from guided reading of selected passages or even chapters. This is a very useful book for students to focus on the rapidly changing world of new media. As I am a lecturer from Chinese Culture University in Taiwan, this book will be easy for the students who use English as second language for culture-oriented research.
I positively recommend this book for guiding the students through the questions for study and discussion from this book. A good introduction to culture before embarking upon the application of culture to health studies.
In revision the book for its fourth edition, I have kept the same structure as in the third edition. That edition, published in , included a new chapter on power; this current revision contains no new chapters. Instead I have updated a number of cases and examples, including especially ones drawn from the Middle East. I have added a great many current references 51 in total. This attention to up-to-date references in the sociological literature is primarily to help instructors, although the motivated student will have the ability to dig further into the issues raised in the book.
I have made modest, clarifying changes in the text. These changes should not have much impact on the length of the book.
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