Globalization, which has gradually become the preeminent phenomenon of politics, economics, society and culture in the 21st century, uniting the planet into a single community, has changed the concept of physical time and space, and is being further a...
Globalization, which has gradually become the preeminent phenomenon of politics, economics, society and culture in the 21st century, uniting the planet into a single community, has changed the concept of physical time and space, and is being further accelerated in line with the new media that have emerged recently. Other cultures, things exotic, or things from overseas are no longer strange. The global elements in our surroundings have become part of our daily routine. This means that our own culture, our local traditional culture, has mixed with the “global” without our perceiving it. Therefore, we are now highly familiar with hybrid trends in products, films, music, fashion and architecture, as well as foreign words, signs in foreign languages, and such leading multinational businesses or brands as Starbucks and McDonalds. Of course, not all of these hybrid fusions of local and global cultures arising from globalization have been successful. This means that Korean society or culture did not accept the hybrid culture indiscreetly when global things switched into local through mixture or, in other words, when they settled into (or became localized within) Korean society or culture. Such selective localization of Korean society or culture may be said to represent their novelty, diversity and desire for evolution. Furthermore, the process of globalization also distributes our traditions, Korean things, and the ‘Korean’ that are represented by Korean culture. Western society has been obsessed with “orientalist” thoughts about eastern society. Such “orientalist” thinking represents that the western view of the Orient as twisted, deformed and typecast. Such views may be divided into negative and affirmative views. With the affirmative view, western people view the East from the perspective of novelty, including ideas of mystique, fantasy and exoticism. This implies a sense of obsession about their lacking that which the East has. To overcome such an obsession, western people made oriental [society or culture] appear more fascinating and fantastic. ‘Japonism’ is the most representative example of this phenomenon of “orientalism.” Japan has made a global hybrid culture called ‘Japonism’ by mixing its local traditional culture with diverse global [elements]. ‘Japonism’ has been a communication channel between Japanese culture and western culture. The orient has been such a symbol of novelty from the western viewpoint. Such novelty can generate a channel of communication with the world by developing a new global hybrid culture based on the mixing of the local with the global through hybridity. Such local cultures have emerged around the world as hybrid cultures in such diverse fields as film, music, fashion and architecture. Such hybridity has attracted attention as a means to satisfy diverse desires in society and culture, to pursue novelty, and to achieve objectives in terms of development. Hybridity aiming at evolution, and surpassing the level of mere mixing, has emerged in nearly all fields, including film, music, painting, architecture, media, food and fashion, though varying names have been attached to it.
21세기 정치, 경제, 사회, 문화의 지배적 현상으로 자리 잡은 ‘세계화(Globalization)'는 지구를 하나의 공동체로 통합하며 물리적 시공간의 개념을 바꾸어 놓고 있으며 뉴미디어의 출현과 맞물... |
