RTF 305- Blog Post 10

Put simply, globalization is the process of increasing interconnectedness among nations, cultures, and people. One of the subjects we talked about in class was cultural imperialism, which is the effect that one nation's culture has on another. Cultural imperialism fits the definition of globalization because having one nation's culture affect the culture of another nation increases the connection between the nations, and makes them more similar.
Cultural imperialism, however, tends to be mostly driven by the United States because it is such a large media hub. The United States exports unimaginable amounts of movies, music, and many products (although they may not be manufactured in the United States) to other countries, which in effect, brings a bit our culture to those countries.
One example of this is the exporting of the iPod to other countries. In a 2007 quote from Apple COO Tim Cook, he stated the following about Apple's market share for mp3 players, “We’re doing very well outside the U.S. We’re now over 60% in Australia and Canada,” said Cook, citing over 50% share in Japan and now Hong Kong, “in the 40-50 range in the UK, Switzerland, Singapore, and Denmark. We hit a high in Germany of 28% in the most recent numbers. And so, pretty much everywhere you look on a year-over-year basis you would see really good progress.”
 This exportation of the iPod is a perfect example of cultural imperialism and globalization because part of our culture is being exported to other countries, connecting our nations, and is allowing our American culture to be represented in their own cultures.

Ipod ad in Japan- http://www.cultofmac.com/japanese-youths-prefer-ipods-to-cars/1814