Cultural Diffusion: Homogenization, Diversity and Glocalization

Global interactions carry culture as well as goods and money. Cultural diffusion is the spread of ideas, beliefs, practices, foods, fashions, and languages from one place to another. Migration, trade, tourism, media, and the internet all act as channels. The central debate for geographers is what this diffusion does to the world's cultural landscape: does it flatten difference into a single global culture, or does it generate new hybrids and preserve diversity in unexpected ways?

Cultural homogenization and imperialism

One influential argument is that globalization drives cultural homogenization, the tendency for cultures to become more similar as the same brands, media, and consumer practices spread worldwide. The critical version of this idea is cultural imperialism: the concern that pow