Friday, May 28

Does global culture displace local culture?

Stephen Dubner, looking at the work of Fernando Ferreira and Joel Waldfogel, is asking "Has American Pop Music Displaced Local Culture?" The answer, based on their study, is no.

My response is two-fold:

First, pop culture isn't really "American" but "global." Yo mon, trends can form anywhere in the world and easily leap from place to place.

Secondly, from what I've seen in the places I've traveled and worked, global pop culture does not displace local culture, it co-exists with it. Furthermore, as such it has contributed to the formation of a generation of culturally fluid people who can to one degree or another shift between global pop and local cultures with relative ease. This isn't to say that global and local cultures co-exist without tension but that generally speaking we now have a generation of people more willing to live with the tension.

1 comment:

Dave Owen said...

I agree Brad. Our Voices of Micronesia Team is a good example of young people who exist very comfortably in the tension between local music and cultural expressions and global pop culture. Our concerts are a little bit of all of the above.