When discussing politics, economics and media one of the most pertinent topics of the modern day is globalization. More specifically a debate appears to unfold in literature about whether globalization is a good thing, a bad thing, or even a thing at all. These perspectives can be cited as hyperglobalist, transformationalist and skeptics (Movius 7). Now, most people would be hard pressed to deny the phenomenon of globalization on all fronts, after all it’s clear that many cultures around the world are at least aware, if not enamored with media that was not produced in their own country. This becomes easily apparent as Fraser exposes stories of North Korea’s fascination with American culture (14-15). In fact, the United States has seemingly had a lot of influence on other parts of the world despite being a fairly new country in comparison to others with long and rich traditions. Erlanger explains how a once traditionally French street in France has become completely overtaken by American businesses (1). In his book, Fraser cites Nye and his coined term of soft power as ‘the ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion (18). Now what this means is that countries must appear appealing to each other in order to gain more power, allowing for the illusion of free will and choice to be maintained.

In his article, Nye explains that there are still several skeptics of the effectiveness of soft power campaign despite examples of effective persuasion in the past. Nye points out that what people may actually be overlooking with the convincing nature of said campaigns or artifacts. He uses the example of tweets from the current United States President Donald Trump. When other civil societies consume these tweets in alignment with other forms of media, a brief state of cognitive dissonance may take place, but for many, they are quick to discount and delegitimize whatever it is that trump has said. Meaning that without credibility, especially in the information age, soft power and influence can quickly be lost. According to Nye, the United States has lost a lot of its previous influence after the invasion of Iraq, and more recently the election of trump. While the United States itself is still often talked about and referenced in global news and media, as news outlets diversify, one cannot as easily maintain their own image, especially without proper plans and campaigns in place. Historically power was often measured and calculated more simply, but in this age it’s clear that economics alone will not give one country higher states of power and influence. A clear comparison of countries current soft power can be found at Softpower30.com, where various elements are measured and compared in order to calculate the overall soft power of different nations.

As mentioned above, within all of this, there are also groups of self-proclaimed transformationalists and even those who are label adverse. Vargas Llosa addresses the fact that globalization actually makes people more free (1). He even goes so far as to say that separate and rigid collective national identities are fictitious and harmful conceptualizations:

“The concept of identity, when not employed on an exclusively individual scale, is inherently reductionist and dehumanizing, a collectivist and ideological abstraction of all that is original and creative in the human being, of all that has not been imposed by inheritance, geography, or social pressure. Rather, true identity springs from the capacity of human beings to resist these influences and counter them with free acts of their own invention” (Vargas Llosa 3).

Also noting that, “… globalization must be welcomed because it notably expands the horizons of individual liberty” ( Vargas Llosa 4).

Vargas Llosa focuses on the very different identities of people who inhabit Latin America, those who are deemed indigenous and those who are interpreted as Hispanic (4). In explaining how different theses identities are to each other, those who proclaim them and those who use the identity to generalize about others it’s easy to see that nationalistic identities easily create concepts of in and out groups.

Something I find very powerful in Vargas Llosa’s argument is the power of choice. While I do believe that globalization is real and that persuasive soft power does exist, as Nye points out, there is an abundance of information available and the attention of people is becoming scarcer. That is to say, more options for consumption are available and more information is available to dig deeper into current realities allowing for more opportunities for diverse perspectives to be heard. This appears to be leading to an abundance of choices in terms of more niche or localized identities. Despite globalization, people continue to more strongly identify with local identities and prefer locally produced media (Movius 12). To me, this states that despite a clear uprising in gentrification and homogenization based on economic power, people themselves appear to be enjoying more personal freedoms.

Works Cited

Erlanger, Steven. “Champs Elysées, a Mall of America”. New York Times, New York, September 14, 2012.

Fraser, Matthew. “Introduction”. Weapons of Mass Distraction: Soft Power and American Empire, Toronto, Key Porter, 2003, pp. 14 – 33.

Movius, Lauren. “Cultural Globalization and Challenges to Traditional Theories”. PLATFORM: Journal of Media and Communication 2(1), Melbourne, 2010, pp. 6-18.

Nye, Joseph. “American Soft Power in the Age of Trump”. Project Syndicate, May 6, 2019.

Vargas Llosa, Mario. “The Culture of Liberty.” Journal of Democracy, vol. 2 no. 4, 1991, pp. 25-33.