Landa International Teen Blogger: Take a Moment to Think About how you’re Reading This (Cultural Diffusion)

Take a Moment to Think About how you’re Reading This.

 

The main goal of these blog posts is to further inform whoever reads these on general topics relating to international culture and current events.

To read this you needed Internet access, a computer or phone, and a power source. But what if you didn’t have these things? This information might have been posted in a newspaper that would take maybe 24 hours to be circulated and paid for. In front of you stands the most infinite source of knowledge known to the world, the Internet. The computer or device you’re reading this on has simply facilitated it. You could go to a computer in South Africa and go to this blog and read the same words you are reading now. In Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia and essentially anywhere, people can read the same information we see right here on our computer. In the huge span of the Internet there are search engines, social media, and online encyclopedias guiding the constant stream of information coming from everywhere at once. To say that technology has impacted the spread of information is an understatement; it has completely changed it.

A twitter account can instantly post information that can be viewed all around the world. Think of a common teenager in America. They could be sitting in front of his or her laptop and can click the grey follow button of someone in Egypt, Canada, England, Argentina, Mexico; the list is endless! Instantly, a notification pops up to the owner of the account. There is almost no delay and a new stream of information is then connected to one more person in what we know as the interweb.

International news twitters of course provide instant information on government and cultural news. There are countless twitter accounts that provide accurate, immediate information on news worldwide (some of the best that I’ve found are @cnni and @BBCWorld). While local news twitters narrow down the news to just your area. I could go on and on about everything technology has provided up with.

Let’s take a look at technology affecting world culture. Through technology, western culture has gained extreme popularity. Because English was the language in which much technology is created, the spread of English has spread all over the world. It has now become the most spoken language on earth (a debatable second being a number of Chinese dialects).

Long ago, the process we know as cultural diffusion was usually facilitated through migration, trade, kings imposing a culture on a public, or war. Now, to learn about the culture of another country all you have to do is look at a blog post like this! (Or an online news source).

 Sources (mostly just for background information)

http://www.netreach.net/~wfox/popcult.htm

http://www.economist.com/node/8781427

http://www.academia.edu/1492339/Cultural_Change_and_Diffusion_Geographical_Patterns_Social_Processes_and_Contact_Zones

http://www.aachonline.org/?page=CommunicationBenefit

Ale, 16 years, Landa TLLC/ITC member