THE GLOBALIZATION OF RELIGION  Similar arguments are being invoked by
contemporary versions of these millenarian
Religion much more than culture has the
most difficult relationship with globalism.
Religion
1. Concerned with sacred.
2. Follows divine commandments
Globalism
1. Places value on material wealth
2. Abides by human-made laws
Religious
 Religious people are less concerned with
wealth and all that comes along with it.
(higher social status, standard living,
exposure to culture, education for children)
 They are ascetics.
 Religious aspires to be a saint
 The religious detest politics
 Religion and globalism clash over the fact
that religious evangelization is in itself a
form of globalization
 Concerned with spreading the holy ideas
Globalist
 Globalist are less worried about whether
they with end up in heaven or hell.
 Globalist trains to be shrewd business
person
 Values politics as both means and ends to
open up further the economies of the world
 Religion and globalism clash over the fact
that religious evangelization is in itself a
form of globalization
 Globalist focus on the realm of markets and
wishes to spread goods and services
 Priestesses and monks led the first revolts
against colonialism in Asia and Africa.
movements that wish to break away from
the hold of the state.
 State seeks to either destroy their people’s
sacred beliefs or distort religion to serve
non-religious goals.
Realities
 In actuality, the relationship between
religion and globalism is much more
complicated.
 Contemporary world is furiously religious –
Peter Berger
 Different religion; Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism,
 Religions are the foundation of modern
republics.
 “Islam is the religion of federation” and the
rulers of each state was also the “head of
the religion of Islam”
 Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini – an Iranian
religious leader who believed that Islamic
rule was the superior form of government.
 Nahdlatul Ulama – moderate Muslim
association in Indonesia has Islamic
schools.
 England – shaped by the rationality of
modern democratic and bureaucratic
culture.
 King Henry VIII – broke away from Roman
Catholicism and established his own
Church to bolster his own power.
 United States – religion and law were
fused together to help build this “modern
secular society”.
 Alexis de Tocqueville – not only do the
Americans practice their religion out of
interest.
 Jose Casanova – religion has always
been at the center of all great political
conflicts.
Religion for and against Globalization
 The two old world religions: Christianity
and Islam - see globalization less as an
obstacle and more as an opportunity.
 Globalization freed communities from
the constraints of the nation-state but
threatened to destroy the cultural
system.
 Religion helps communities cope with
their new situation or organize them to
oppose the major transformation.
 Religion is not the regressive force but
rather it is the pro-active force
 Religious fundamentalism continues to
use “the full range of modern means of
communication and organization”; dislikes
globalization's materialism
 Enabled the spread of promiscuous
propagation of religious forms
 Tension with globalist ideologist
- agreed to support some faith-based
anti-poverty projects
 Institutional advocates of globalization
– could be responsive to the liberationist,
moral critiques of globalization
 Exception of Militant Islam Religious forces
are well aware that they are no position to
fight
 “The preferential option for the poor” of
Catholics (a powerful message) of
mobilization but lacks substance when it
comes to working out of replacement.
Conclusion
 “is about everything”; globalization – have
very little to do with religion
 Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman observed,
“Religion, it seems, is somehow ‘outside’
looking at globalization as problem or
potential.”
 Association of globalization with
modernization – concept of progress that
is based on science, technology, reason,
and the law.

 Muslims - view globalization as a trojan  Religion – anathema to modernization

horse
 Secularization theory – thesis that
 The world council of churches modernization will erode religious practice.
(association of different Protestant
 Samuel Huntington – strongest defenders
congregation) - criticized economic
of globalizations
globalization’s negative effects
The Clash of Civilizations –
 The catholic church - “throw-away
civilizations can be held together by
culture” that is “fatally destined to suffocate
religious worlviews.
hope and increase risks and threats”
 “Ideological Armature” – used religion by
 The Lutheran World Federation -
Jesuits and Dominicans to legitimize
message from 10th assembly 292 page
Spanish empire.
declaration message included economic
and feminist critiques of globalization.  Max Weber observed the correlation
between religion and capitalism as an
 Economic globalization eventually gained
economic system.
the attention of global institutions.

 World Bank (1998) – global poverty

leading to a “cautious muted, and qualified”
 Calvinism – branch of Protestantism,
believed that God had already decided who
would and would not be saved.
 Calvinists – made it their mission to
search for clues as to their fate.
 Inner-worldly asceticism – contributed to
the rise of modern capitalism.
 “For empire comes from God alone” –
Spanish King and of God.
 American President William McKinley –
it was the duty of US to educate Filipinos.
 Religious leaders have used religion to
wield influence in the political arena
 Religions are actually quite malleable
MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION
Media as a main conduit for the spread of
global culture and ideas
Media and its Functions
 Lule – media is a means of conveying
something, such as channel of
communication.
 Medium - person’s voice.
 Media – Technologies of mass
communication
 Print media – books, magazines and
newspapers
 Broadcast media – radio, film, television
 Digital media – internet and mobile mass
communication.
 Internet Media – e-mail, internet sits,
social media, internet based video and
audio
 Marshall Mcluhan - “the medium is the
message”; different media simultaneously
extend and amputate human senses
 Media, as a form of technology, reshape
societies.
The Global Village and Cultural Imperialism
 McLuhan used his analysis of technology
to know the impact of electronic media
 He emphasized that the television is
turning the world into a “global village”
 Cultural Imperialism – American values
and culture would overwhelm all others.
 Herbert Schiller – spread of American
capitalist values like consumerism.
 John Tomlinson – cultural globalization is
simply euphemism.
Critiques of Cultural Imperialism
 Ignored the fact that media messages are
not just made by producers, they are also
consumed by audiences
 Media consumers are active participants in
the meaning-making process, who view
media “texts” through their own cultural
lenses
 1985; Ien Ang – soap opera Dallas
 1990; Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes
 Cultural imperialism thesis has been belied
by the renewed strength of regional trends
in the globalization process
 It is no longer tenable to insist that
globalization is a unidirectional process of
foreign cultures overwhelming local ones
 Globalization will remain an uneven
process
Social Media and the Creation of Cyber
Ghettoes
 Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin – hired
armies of social media “trolls” (paid users
who harass political opponents) to
manipulate public opinion through
 intimidation and the spreading of false
news.
 Putin imitators replicate his strategy of
online trolling and disinformation to clamp
down on dissent and delegitimize critical
media.
 Peter Bayer and Lori Beaman observed
“Religion”, and it seems that is somehow
“outside looking at globalization as problem
or potential.
 Social media have both beneficial and
negative effects.
 Social media have enabled users to be
consumers and producers of information
simultaneously.
 In the early 2000s, commentators began
referring to the emergence of a
“splinternet” and the phenomenon of
“cyberbalkanization” to refer to the
various bubbles people place themselves
in when they are online.
 As consumers of media, users must remain
vigilant and learn how to distinguish fact
from falsehood in a global media
landscape.
 Media will continue to engender social
changes.
 Fake information can spread easily on
social media.
 Unlike newspapers, Facebook does not
have a team of editors who are trained to
sift through and filter information.
 Global online propaganda will be the
biggest threat to face as the globalization of
media deepens.
 Internet media have made the world so
interconnected.
 Certain groups “flee” their communities and
create impenetrable sanctuaries where
they can practice their religions without the
meddling and control of state authorities.
 Certain Buddhist monasteries are located
away from civilization.
 Living among “non-believers” will distract
them from their mission or tempt them to
abandon their faith and become sinners
like everyone else.
Conclusion
The lesson showed that different media
have diverse effects on globalization processes.
Societies can never be completely prepared for
the rapid changes in the system of
communication. Every technological change,
after all, created multiple unintended
consequences. Consumers and users of media
will have a hard time turning back to the clock.
Instead of fearing these changes or entering a
state of moral panic, everyone must collectively
discover ways of dealing with them responsibly
and ethically.
THE GLOBAL CITY
 Globalization is spatial
 Because it occurs in physical spaces.
 Because what makes it to move is the
fact that it is based in places.
Defining the Global City
 Saskia Sassen – popularized the term
global city in 1990s.
 New York, London, Tokyo – three global
cities; hubs of global finance and
capitalism.
 NYSE – New York Stock Exchange
 FTSE – Financial Times Stock
Echange
 Nikkei – Tokyo
 San Francisco – home of the most
powerful internet companies – Facebook,
Twitter and Google.
 China – Shanghai Stock Exchange in late
1990 and become the fifth largest stock
market in the world.
 Sydney – greatest proportion of capital.
 Melbourne – Sydney’s rival global city
because many magazines and lists have
now referred to it as the world’s “most
livable city”
Indicators for Globality
 Economic Power – largely determines
which cities are global.
 Centers of authority
 Centers of higher learning and culture.
 New York – the largest stock market in the
world.(217)
 Tokyo – houses the most number of
corporate headquarters. (613)
 Shanghai – small stock market but plays
critical role in the global economic supply
chain; busiest container port
 China – manufacturing center
 Economist Intelligent Unit – measures
the economic competitiveness of a city.
o Market size
o Purchasing Power of the citizens
o Size of the middle class
o Potential for growth
 Washington D.C. – the seat of American
state power.
o White House
o Capitol Building (Congress)
o Supreme Court
o Lincoln Memorial
o Washington Monument
 Canberra – home to the country’s top
politicians, bureaucrats and policy advisors
 UN:New York; European Union:Brussels
 Jakarta – ASEAN
 Frankfurt – European Central Bank
 Harvard University – world’s top university
 Australia – English language universities
 Copenhagen, Denmark – culinary capital
 New Nordic cuisine
 Manchester, England – dreary, industrial
city
 Singapore – cultural hub for the region
The Challenges of Global Cities
o Sites of great inequality
o Poverty
o Tremendous violence
 Richard Florida - “Ecologists have found
that by concentrating their populations in
smaller areas, cities and metros decrease
human encroachment on natural habitats.
Denser settlement patterns yield energy
savings; apartment buildings, for example,
are more efficient to heat and cool than
detached suburban houses.”
 Gentrification – phenomenon of driving
out the poor in favor of newer, wealthier
residents.
GLOBAL DEMOGRAPHY
The “Perils” of Overpopulation
 Development planners see urbanization
and industrialization as indicators of a
developing society, but disagree on the role
of population growth or decline in
modernization.
 Countries like United States take the lead
in the promotion of global population
control in order to reduce growth rate to
zero.
 The rate of global population increase was
at its highest between 1955 and 1975.
 By limiting he population, vital resources
could be used for economic progress and
not be “diverted” and “wasted” to feeding
more mouths.
 Politics determine these “birth control”
programs. Developed countries justify their
support for population control in developing
countries by depicting the latter as
conservative societies.
It’s the Economy, not the Babies!
 Others pointed out that the population did
not grow fast in many countries in 1960's,
and this growth “aided economic
developing by spurring technological and
institutional innovation and increasing the
supply of human ingenuity.”
 Lately, the middle ground emerged
between these two extremes. Scholars and
policymakers agree with the
neo-Malthusians but suggested that if
government pursue population control
programs, they must include “more
inclusive growth” and “greener economic
growth”
Women and Reproductive Rights
 The character in the middle of these
debates-women-is often the subject of
these population measures.
 The serial correlation between fertility,
family, and fortune has motivated countries
with growing economies to introduce or
strengthen their reproductive health laws,
including abortions
 Most countries implement reproductive
health laws because they worry about the
health of the mother.
 The Philippines, with a Catholic majority,
now has a reproductive health law in place,
but conservative politicians have enfeebled
it through budget cuts and stalled its
implementation by filling a ase against the
law in the Supreme Court.
The Feminist Perspective
 Feminism - is a range of political
movements, ideologies, and social
movements that share a common goal: to
define, establish and achieve political,
economic, personal, and social equality of
sexist.
 Feminist - a person who supports
feminism
Population Growth and Food Security
 Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
– recommends that countries increase their
investments in agriculture, craft-long
policies aimed at fighting poverty, and
invest in R&D.
GLOBAL MIGRATION
 Two types:
o Internal – people moving from one
area to another within one
country
o International – people cross
borders of one country to
another.
 The latter can be broken into 5:
o Move permanently to another
country
o Workers who stay in another
country for a fixed period
o Illegal migrants
o Migrants whose families have
“petitioned” them
o Refugees (asylum-seekers) –
unable or unwilling to return
because of a well-founded fear of
persecution on account of race,
religion, nationality, membership or
political opinion.
 Top three regions of origin:
o Latin America (18 percent)
o Eastern Europe and Central Asia
(16 percent)
o Middle East and North Africa (14
percent)
 Brain Drain – global migration is siphoning
qualified personnel, removing dynamic
young workers
The Problem of Human Trafficking
 Human Trafficking – third largest criminal
record worldwide
 International Labor Org (ILO) – identified
21 million men, women and children as
victims of “forced labor”
