Culture is a very broad concept, including the beliefs, values, and lifestyles of people. It is an integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior. It is also the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.
All cultural interactions become market-oriented. Once a culture lacks market value, it will be excluded. Therefore, local traditional cultures are often neglected. The central argument of cultural imperialism refers to the idea that certain dominant cultures threaten to overwhelm other more vulnerable ones. Cultural imperialism triggers other discussions on cultural expansion and invasion. It is also argued that cultural imperialism leads to the diffusion of Western values through the cultural products produced by transnational corporations, replacing other cultures.
Tradition consists of habit, which is part of the culture. As time goes by, members of society have developed a set of traditions. Those traditions are accepted by society. As people may inherit those habits from their ancestors, those habits may become traditional customs.
Cultures are affected by the interests of dominant groups in societies, which seek to explain and validate their positions in particular structures. One of the ways in which groups do this is through the construction of traditions and their promulgation through the population.
How are culture affected by the interests of Japan through their promulgation through the population?
The cultural output of Japan, including sushi, instant food (cup noodles, Nissin), electronic products (Panasonic), computer (Fujitsu), car (Toyota), is not weaker than the US.
Japanese animation rises in just a few decades. Under the strong support of ...
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...in nature. Popular culture can be defined as the mass production of products based on the taste of the majority; it changes all the time, entertaining and commercial in nature. The mass media is owned and controlled by multinational corporations, affecting the economy, politics and people’s mindset. They aim to persuade people all over the world to accept the product. The pre-condition is that people from different countries accept the same culture (e.g. KFC, McDonald’s, Nike, Levis).
Conclusion
The history of the expansion has a variety of means but the most effective one is cultural output. Cultures are affected by the interests of dominant groups in societies, which seek to explain and validate their positions in particular structures. One of the ways in which groups do this is through the construction of traditions and their promulgation through the population.
Japan is a country made from four major islands. Though its area is small, each region has different tastes. The country has the population of 123.6 millions according to the 1990 census, or 2.5 % of the world total, and it is the seventh most populated nation according to The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Japan.(5, p.25). Japanese political and economical world power has been one of the success stories of the twentieth century. Though small in geographic area, its popularity is the seventh greatest; its inhabitants crowd themselves into an area the size of the state of Montana or California in the United States. Its natural resources are almost non-existent; however, today it ranks only second after the much larger United States as the most affluent and economically productive nation in the world. Japan was traditionally more self-sustained and semi-isolated in its islands, and it pursued its own historic path on the periphery of a great Chinese civilisation. The Japanese borrowed some cultural ideas from China. (4,p.1-2). Although the population is largely homogeneous, there is considerable regional diversity. This diversity is reflected in life-styles, dialects and speech differing patterns of historic and economical development. The four largest islands are Hokkaido(2), Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu. Honshu, the largest island, is usually divided into five regions; Tohoku (3), Kanto (4),Chubu (5), Kinki(6), and Chugoku (7).
The culture of a community invariably determines the social structures and the formation of a society. Developed over time, culture is the collection of beliefs and values that a group of people maintain together. Culture is never constant, and thought to be continually renewed over years as new ideas and concepts become mainstream. It ranges from how people live, day to day topics for conversations, religion, and even entertainment. It is analogous to guidelines, or the rulebook of the said group of people. Society, on the other hand, emanates from the social structure of the community. It is the very institutions to which create a regulated and acceptable form of interaction between peoples. Indeed, culture and society are so perversely intertwined in a
Japan appear to believe in the theory of universalism, in which is “the beliefs that ideas and practices can be applied everywhere in the world without modification” (129). This theory could have been used less while both cultures could have used the theory of simplification more. The theory of simplification is” the process of exhibiting the same orientation toward different cultural groups” (154). They could have avoided much conflict by having an understanding of how they do business before they opened the factory.
As we progress through the twenty first century, the once feudal country of Japan has raised its status to the world's third largest industrial producer. It has been one of the most significant and unexpected changes of its recent history since World War II. Plans to overtake the leading industrial countries like the United States, and the European union, by building powerful and technologically advanced industry almost from scratch, and to establish a leading position in the world market, has attracted wonder, and admiration from all over the globe. Japan, a well-known destination, the home of the world’s advanced technologies, and Asia’s wealthiest country, also had its beginnings before becoming a sought after industrialized nation. Japan’s
Culture: A seven-lettered word with a much larger and abysmal meaning. But how exactly does one define culture? Is it the religious beliefs that carry over from tradition to tradition? Or how about the roots and upbringings that define who you are, unique to each and every individual? Everybody has some sort of different definition of culture, and we were exposed to that in the reading by Ethan Watters. “The Mega Marketing of Depression in Japan”, a vivid and engaging text, presents us with a new idea of culture. Watters shows readers that culture is not only this idea that is embodied in our minds, but it is more of what we are able to make of it. The author states, “One culture can reshape how a population in another culture categorizes a given set of symptoms…” (Watters, 519). This proves to us how easy it was for the Japanese values and beliefs to be altered to the likings of an invasive unit. Based on the reading, I define culture as this living and breathing entity that grows as we grow, and is subject to change as we move along the journey of life.
The thoughts expressed in this article can be related to a lot of events throughout history. The thesis of this article is that Western culture in itself is a unique and diverse culture, but it is not, nor will it ever be, the culture of the rest of the world. Two theories are introduced, the Coca-colonization theory and the modernization theory. However, the Coca-colonization theory is disreputated as the true meaning of culture revolves around religion, language, societal customs, and moral values.
When in a different place with a different culture, people often conform to new traditions
Culture can be just about anything passed down from one generation to the next. It can also be categorized as a norm, value, body of knowledge, behavior pattern, and/or an artifact. This cultures are said to be unique to each society with no two culture holding exact resemblance (Appleby, 2011).
Mass or popular culture is derived from high culture, so for every item in high culture, there is a corresponding item of lesser importance in popular culture. Forms of popular culture include television, comics and magazines, pop music and the cinema.
External influences affect the types of products developed, the nature of positioning and market segmentation strategies, the type of services offered and the choice of business to acquire. The increasing complexity of business today is evidenced by more countries developing the capacity and will to compete aggressively in world markets. The external influences that affects a business venture in the global market varies from country to country. Establishing a new business venture in an area such as Japan would require an analysis of its cultural and economic environment. The Japanese market is considered to be the world’s most lucrative market. The biggest problem is how to get into it. Japan is known throughout the world for its economic successes, yet Japanese society remains an enigma to many outside its borders. The analysis conducted in this paper will present the positive and negative aspects of opening a in the Japanese market.
The false analogy is the idea that bad culture drives out good culture like bad money does to good money. At this point one cannot help but think about the definition of “good” or “bad” culture. Good according to whom? Even if there was a certain way to distinguish them, it can be said that all aspects of culture are expanding, be it “bad” or “good”.
What is culture? The answers to this question reveals the complexity of its meaning. Every field of knowledge has its own answer: philosophers, anthropologists, historians, and economists have their own concepts of culture. (Kluckhohn, 19) One suggested answer is: “The behavioral norms that a group of people, at a certain time...
What is culture? Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving
Culture is a process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development that can also be the particular way of life for a group or a time period that is often manifested through the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity. Culture exists in high post because ideology is a core component of cultural studies.