QL world
There's no doubt that
globalisation has been the
buzzword of the decade.
Journalists, politicians,
business executives,
academics, and others are
using the word to signify
that something profound is
happening, that the world is
changing, that a new world
economic, political, and
cultural order is emerging.
Even though globalisation has
many aspects, one of those is
a global culture.
The rise of global culture is
an especially salient feature
of contemporary
globalisation. Global culture
includes the proliferation of
media technologies that
veritably create Marshall
McLuhan's dream of a global
village, in which people all
over the world watch
political spectacles like the
Gulf War, major sports
events, entertainment
programs, and advertisements
that relentlessly promote
capitalist modernization
(Wark 1994). At the same
time, more and more people
are entering into global
computer networks that
instantaneously circulate
ideas, information, and
images throughout the world,
overcoming boundaries of
space and time (Gates 1995).
Global culture involves
promoting life-style,
consumption, products, and
identities.
Acting in the present age
involves understanding the
matrix of global and local
forces, of forces of
domination and resistance,
and of a condition of rapid
change. Today’s youth are
people of the period which is
characterized by unevenly
developing multiple levels of
changes. The vivid sense
of "betweenness," or
transition, requires that one
grasp the connections with
the past as well as the
novelties of the present and
future. Thus, it is important
to capture both the
continuities and
discontinuities of the post-
modern with the modern, in
order to make sense of
current predicament.
Therefore it is indeed very
interesting to actually see
how young people are being
influenced and through what
mostly. Which aspects are
forming youngsters ideas,
ideologies, thoughts… Is open
future hopeful or troubling
for them? Does past stay to
be something far away in
relation to the closeness of
everything else?