Define globalisation and explore one way in which it may bring about cultural change in developing countries.

The first requirement of the question is to define globalisation; Globalisation refers a process by which national boundaries are eroded and national economies, cultures, technologies and governance become integrated to produce complex global relations of mutual dependence. (the definition a student learns for a key term like this will need to correspond to the definition preferred by the particular syllabus they are on).The second requirement is an explanation of how this process may bring about change in developing nations. Globalisation may bring about cultural change in developing countries through the spread of western consumer lifestyles, transmitted through the growth of Transnational Corporations (TNCs). As Sklair (2015) depicts, when TNCs become increasingly integrated into developing nations, the culture-ideology of consumerism is promulgated through their involvement in mass media and advertising. Thus the cultural ideals and goals of people within developing nations are potentially changed as they are exposed to markets for new kinds of western products (e.g. the latest technologies or clothes) offered by TNCs. Characteristics of the western lifestyle, for example valuing consumption, clothes and particular aesthetics, diffuse into the global south. We must bear in mind that although much of the globalisation literature focuses on the processes of westernisation (i.e. the spread of western cultures to the rest of the world), other sociologists have argued that the impact of western consumerist values spread via globalisation is often overemphasised; there is a tendency to overlook the power of cultures in the global south to resist globalisation and continue to subscribe to local value systems.