Diaspora

Diaspora of cultures spread across many countries can be directly attributed to globalisation through the processes of tourism, migration and movement. The motives too for shifting location can also be attributed to globalisation as these include travel, seeking a new life, or even fleeing to a country of opportunity to escape one originally devastated by poverty, war or depression.

The difference between a home and host country can be few and far between as national boundaries denote different traditions. As cultural dislocation notes, often people can feel misplaced when settling into their new homeland as they are unaware of foreign civilisations and their adopted behaviours having never experiences them before. Furthermore, they may feel intimated by these traditions and inclined to adopt them despite fearing having to lose their own cultural heritage as a result.  

On the contrary, the widespread nature of diasporic cultures can also influence other cultures in a positive manner. In some cases we only have to look as far as the person either side of us in the classroom to realise that people from different nationalities are constantly gathered together to celebrate something interconnected and universal. Globalisation doesn’t necessarily weaken ties of ethnicity, but can be seen to strengthen them as it constantly brings different people together.  

Blogosphere? Twitter Sphere? Public Sphere?

In our contemporary culture technological devices are considered the norm and are used increasingly as social platforms to connect friends, family and everyone in between as Sun (2002, pp. 116) notes ‘the size of the mobile population worldwide is increasing’.

The blogosphere is a virtual space not too dissimilar to the public sphere where people can express thoughts, exchange opinions and information although in a much more informal, often non-intellectual, even illiterate manner. It is also an online, Inter(net) connected community whereby people can construct online identities as a means of personal communication.  

The blogosphere extrapolates on what was once conventional in a previous age and applies it to a society much more technology equipped and engaged. It substitutes the public spaces of coffee shops and day to day talking for the easy and accessible world of typing, texting, instant messaging and video chats. The key similarity between the public sphere and blogosphere is that they each inhabit a space that allows people to connect.

The twitter sphere is similar to the blogosphere in that it encompasses another virtual space where people can openly ‘tweet’ their thoughts to be observed and commented on by others. Although I am not an active user myself, the network allows people to get in touch with people who would usually be considered unreachable to everyday users.

Making Culture

Melbourne boasts a wide variety of cultural diaspora catering for national and international identities who are constantly sharing and exchanging cultural aspects through practices of art, music and food just to name a few. Melbourne is iconic for its attractions and love for the smaller joys of life including coffee, sport and football (arguably a sport but also considered a religion by some).  

In terms of individual identity I believe I engage with some characteristics typically observed in Australian culture whilst disregarding others. I consider myself to be an avid football fan but not enough for me to consider it as my preferred religion.  

In terms of technologies, I would consider myself a relative user but not an overly obsessive abuser of communications. In this respect I am somewhat a conservative instead of a conformist as I try and use these devices as little as possible and outside of social parameters.

As for ‘technological determinism’, which is the assumption that since technologies are readily available they must be used, I don’t feel I am compelled to use them nor do I feel inadequate by not using them (McLuhan, M 1969). However, in saying that I do own and regularly use the basic technology necessities, presuming of course they can even be called that or of they are indeed required for everyday living. These include a mobile phone (not an I-Phone), a classic I-Pod (still not an I-Phone) and a laptop (not a Mac).

Celebrity = "Celebrate Me"

When I was younger, like most naïve and overly-ambitions children, I dreamt of becoming either an astronaut or a celebrity. But couldn’t it be argued that an astronaut can also be a celebrity?

Marshall (2008, pp. 498) defines a celebrity as the ‘complex celebration of the individual’ which in any case can be applied to anyone whose accomplishments become distinguished either amongst or above others. In this sense I think it’s safe to say that Bruce Willis, otherwise his character Harry Stamper in the film Armageddon, justifies my point precisely.   
 

With contemporary culture becoming increasingly technology tolerant it was only a matter of time before celebrities and the like took to social media platforms to enhance their own exposure and gossip hype. Audiences are contagiously drawn into the glamourized red carpet world of the spectacular but also the ‘specular’ (Marshall, pp. 498). The ‘twoway mirror of projection on to the screen and the circulation… and interaction with those images and texts into the wider world’ (Marshall, pp. 498). This translates to the world of the celebrity who are consciously aware of their involvement as an actor but also as a perception held amongst the public persona.  

Audiences are now openly invited into the privatised, often intimate world of celebrities who have succumbed to ‘an emerging comfortability with a society of surveillance’ (Marshall, pp. 498). Various social networking sites such as Twitter allow for an informal exchange of ideas and information which creates a new relationship between celebs and fans as instigated through media technologies and new social trends.
 

 

 

 

Now in all honesty, who didn’t just read that captioned photo above in their best Sean Connery accent?

 

References:

Marshall, P.D 2008, ‘The Specular Economy’, Society. Vol. 47, No. 6, pp. 498-502.

Images sourced from Google > Images search engine database, retrieved 6 September 2012, <http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=celebrity+meme&num=10&hl=en&biw=1366&bih=595&tbm=isch&tbnid=ioNR_HlE7AJPOM:&imgrefurl=http://mustachehunting.com/2011/06/14/sean-connery-meme/&docid=7OAMFtQS2ZjsfM&imgurl=http://bbac02.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/251003_10150616464750023_849185022_18825618_1563149_n.jpg&w=480&h=649&ei=D4NJUIuRMImkiQeS8oH4DA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=274&vpy=109&dur=6584&hovh=261&hovw=193&tx=82&ty=113&sig=110402164007182811584&page=1&tbnh=124&tbnw=90&start=0&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0,i:76>.