The Globalization of Michael Scott

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The theme of globalization helps explain the prevailing concept of hybridization in media platforms such as television. Globalization is the process of interconnectedness among nations, cultures, and people. Basically, the concept of globalization implies reducing differences that existed between nations in time, space, and culture. Technological developments have not only supported but accelerated globalization. Digital convergence has allowed poorer countries to produce greater amounts of production than previous generations with mobile phone and internet infrastructure expanding. To simply link the effects of globalization to poor countries would undermine the concept greatly, hint: the term globalization. Look no further than right here in the U.S. of A. to witness globalization at its finest. Our country is full of diverse cultures blending together that create a distinctiveness that represents and inspires innovation.


Hybridization is the interacting and mixing of previously separate cultures overtime. Think of hybridization as culture A meets culture B and the result is culture C. In essence this term could define the culture of the United States with so many different cultures meeting and blending on the same land to form various different forms of new cultures. Take our local food favorite, "Tex-Mex", which combines the heritage of Mexican food with a local Texas flavor. How about one of the most powerful forms of self expression, rock music, which blends jazz and blues together. Hybridization doesn't stop there, to witness it first hand in media just turn on the T.V.



Some of our most popular television shows are the result of hybridization. One of my favorite T.V. shows is The Office. This hybridized show is the result of what is called glocalization which combines global ideas with local ones. This occurs in media when a successful idea is taken from one place and adapted in another. Who does this better than the United States? Nobody! In this case NBC adapted its hit from the original BBC series The Office. The NBC version takes the audience inside the lives of employees of a failing paper making company. The humor is much more "Americanized" than the British version, focusing on their relationships in greater depth. In the NBC version Dwight Schrute character is a "right winged" machine, honest worker, and most importantly a walking joke. Take the NBC character of Pam Beesly, she works in a job she hates while completely throwing her artistic talents to the wolves. Oh, she also happens to be the pretty girl who has a history if dating morons. Can you get any more American than that? Well I guess only if you were to give the employees a boss with horrible taste in everything from music to restaurants and whose advice was usually exactly opposite from correct but in the end could sell paper pretty darn well.