How Advertising and Consumer Culture Are Contributing to the Creation of a Homogeneous Global Culture

Essay aus dem Jahr 2005 im Fachbereich Medien / Kommunikation - Massenmedien allgemein, einseitig bedruckt, Note: 1,7, Veranstaltung: Advertising, Culture and Communication , 16 Eintragungen im Literaturverzeichnis, Sprache: Englisch, Abstract: Many inhabitants of Western towns have witnessed a change of their cityscapes recently. Small independent stores, restaurants and coffee bars have been replaced by stores of multinational companies, such as Tesco, McDonald's, Burgerking, Starbucks, H&M and The Gap. No matter if you are exploring the city centre of Leicester, London or Hamburg, you find more and more of these business companies, attempting to attract consumers with their big, bright logos. The same process can be found in the media - global brands such as Hewlett-Packard and Coca Cola advertise all around the globe, or in the terms of Barnet et al (1995: p. 164): "Marlboro country is everywhere". This definitely leads to a unification of city centres, and maybe even of the media. Particular questions are arising around this issue: are these phenomena results of globalisation? Which consequences do they have for the life in a Western society? Is there a global homogenisation of culture, and if so, to what extent? Which role does advertising play in this process? These and other questions shall be discussed in this paper.