Globalization and Technological Culture in Japan

We are living in an increasingly globalized world where flows of capital, people, goods, and services transcend national borders and countries become more connected through economic ties facilitated through improved communications, efficient means of transportation, and advanced technologies. As a matter of fact, globalization has advanced in the twenty-first century just as technology and IT developed facilitating greater economic ties and reducing political barriers to international movements of trade, capital, etc. Since the westernization and modernization period of the Meiji Restoration in the late nineteenth century, Japan has experienced “a tension between tradition and modernity” in terms of the adoption of foreign ideas, institutions, and values. This applies to the various processes associated with globalization, cultural nationalism, and the technological culture that has developed in modern day Japan.

The seemingly antithetical relationship of Japan versus the West and globalization versus cultural nationalism are at times complementary of each other and in fact embody the nature of Japanese technological culture today and the selective adoption of foreign cultures and ideas. Low mentions of the dualism of wakon yoosai (“Japanese spirit, Western technology”) (Low, p.130) that illustrates the notion of a balance between modernity and traditional values, similar to the way globalization forces in Japan are accommodated and often fine-tuned to fit the needs or desire of Japanese society. Precisely because Japanese technological culture is “[seen] as an amalgam of Western technology and Japanese culture which combines the strengths of both,” (Low, p.130) it is important to note the cultural nationalism factor which play...

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...to other parts of the world. Of course, globalization does not have unvarying outcomes or create a more homogenous world but it does have diverse outcomes – usually not expected. This not necessarily positive or negative, it is one or the other for the different parties involved. As a result we have seen a global audience for things such as the video game industry, Japan’s anime and manga industry, and Japanese film productions and the cell phone business as well. At times, this technology is conflated in terms of where it was designed, who manufactured it and where, who is using it, and the end result is a blend of multiple cultures. Today cultural boundaries are gradually eroding and cultural differences are no longer invented through exports and imports across national borders but are produced by the acts of consumption in which citizens of the world participate.