Cultural Flow Road Trip

Whilst traveling people try to find different ways to make their trip fun. Some people read, some watch movies and others listen to music. However, these specific choices are highly influenced by cultural flow. Cultural flow? What is that? Cultural flow is any object skill, belief and practice that moves and travels the world (C.Moore, 2013.prezi.p. 13) As such here in Australia we have the ability to read books from any part of the world. For example,  ’Fifty shades of grey’ a novel written by an American, in which has been globalised all around the world and is now a phenomena with merchandise like mugs and keys chains.  Also now when traveling people often turn to the iphone to play different apps to keep them entertained. The iphone has become a fashion, you do not see any one without one 95% of all my friends and family own iphones with the belief that this is the best phone. This is a product of American company Apple, in which is made in China, with parts from Taiwan, and then shipped to Australia, in which Australia’s will go to the shops to buy them.  This allows people around the world to have the opportunity to have same product.

While interviewing my mum about this concept we spoke about Giddens views on globalisation, where he states that globalisation is ‘the intensification of world-wide social relations, which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.’ (Rantanen, 2005,p.7). Her views were that globalisation was good as it has brought the world together but she felt that as privileged countries like America have more of an opportunity to globalise products then other countries, allowing them to have a higher influence on other countries. So maybe whilst on a road trip we only do activities in which Americans want us to do …? 

References 

Rantanen, T 2005, ‘Theorizing media globalization’, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1–18

Apple INC. 2013. [online] Available at: http://www.apple.com/au/iphone/ [Accessed: 27 July] 

Moore, C 2013, 'Global Flows and Scapes,' Lecture 2, Deakin University Burwood  

Would you like a status with that ?

One place that would be interesting to go see while travelling is McDonalds. McDonald’s are franchises all around the world bring you the same thing, fast food that is the same every time.  Why would you want to go to McDonalds overseas when you have one in your country?  This question is very relevant but McDonalds is different all over the world yet just the same. McDonalds use Prosumption which ‘involves both production and consumption rather than focusing on either one (production) or the other (consumption)’(Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 p.15). This is evident through the consumer having to go to the counter and look at the menu. They are then required  to place their order, wait for their food , take it to a table of their choice and then when finished clean up after.  After working at McDonalds I have learnt that the customer really help the employees. The customers basically run the show. This has become phenomena! Different businesses are now using the same process. For example, many supermarkets such as Coles, have self-serve and people have to put petrol in their car and then walk to the cashier. Zwick et al. (2008) has created the idea that Foucauldian and neo-Marxian theories of prosumption ‘means companies are granting new freedom to consumers’ (Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 p14). They argue that ‘the ideological recruitment of consumers into productive co-creation relationships hinges on accommodating consumers’ needs for recognition, freedom, and agency’(Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 p14)

This has now been globalised and can be seen in a lot of websites on the Internet.

Evidently, it is identified as the Web 2.0, which allows users to have the ability to produce content, plus observe others content and can elaborate and collaborate the information (Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 p18). As a result it can be seen on the social networking site Facebook. The site allows people to have the ability to write how they feel in status, post photos (good place to see holiday snaps!), join different groups and keep in contact with friends and family. Consequently, people have the ability to write comments on other’s statuses and photos, in which replicates the idea prosumption. As a result people have the ability to have freedom to do as they please.  Ensuring that they are providing and interacting with others in an immediate source.  So next time you travel overseas make sure you take a ‘selfie’ in a McDonalds and post it on Facebook, you will then be a double users of prosumption

                                  Image (http://openrevolt.info/2011/08/29/a-new-mcworld-order/) 

  

 Reference: 

Ritzer, George and Jurgenson, Nathan 2010 ‘Production, Consumption, Prosumption: The nature of capitalism in the age of the digital ‘prosumer’, Journal of Consumer Culture, vol. 10 no. 1, pp 13-36.