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Sunday, April 22, 2007

Soccer: The Global Game

The cartoon above is taken from http://www.nicholsoncartoons.com.au/cartoons/new/2006-06-01%20World%20Cup%20SBS%20550.jpg

JOELLA’S REFLECTIONS

Analysis of cartoon

The cartoon above depicts appropriately how soccer is a global game, and how the entire family, even the children, can enjoy it together as age boundaries are not present in the game. The caricatures in the cartoon have the soccer balls as their head, showing how obsessed they are with soccer. Even the dog watches the television, showing the exaggeration of how addictive soccer is. As can be seen, it is through globalisation that soccer is spread, e.g. world cup/ through the news—this would be elaborated on later.

Reflections

Soccer is known as the most popular sport in the world. It is played at a professional level around the world and millions of fans go to stadiums just to watch their favorite teams play. However, even more people watch the game on television, up to billions of people, especially during the world cup season. This shows how globalisation has played a major role in the spread and creation of global cultures.

Perhaps the spread and popularity of the game is due to the fact that it presents no age and language barriers, and has simple rules and objectives. Therefore it is a game that everyone can enjoy. Soccer binds the world together being a common identity that everyone in the world can identify with. Therefore soccer acts as a unifying force between people from different cultures and languages in the world.

The book above: HOW SOCCER EXPLAINS THE WORLD, by Franklin Foer shows and explains how the game relates to a particular region's culture, politics and economy.

3:07 PM

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Introduction to Cultural Globalisation!

Introduction to Cultural Globalisation!

ARTICLE TAKEN FROM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudoku

Popularity in the media

In 1997, retired Hong Kong judge Wayne Gould, 59, a New Zealander, saw a partly completed puzzle in a Japanese bookshop. Over six years he developed a computer program to produce puzzles quickly.[28] Knowing that British newspapers have a long history of publishing crosswords and other puzzles, he promoted Sudoku to The Times in Britain, which launched it on 12 November 2004 (calling it Su Doku).

The rapid rise of Sudoku in Britain from relative obscurity to a front-page feature in national newspapers attracted commentary in the media and parody (such as when The Guardian's G2 section advertised itself as the first newspaper supplement with a Sudoku grid on every page[29]). Recognizing the different psychological appeals of easy and difficult puzzles, The Times introduced both side by side on 20 June 2005. From July 2005, Channel 4 included a daily Sudoku game in their Teletext service. On 2 August, the BBC's programme guide Radio Times featured a weekly Super Sudoku.

In the United States, the first newspaper to publish a Sudoku puzzle by Wayne Gould was The Conway Daily Sun (New Hampshire), in 2004.[30]

The world's first live TV Sudoku show, 1 July 2005, Sky One.
The world's first live TV Sudoku show, Sudoku Live, was broadcast on 1 July 2005 on Sky One. It was presented by Carol Vorderman. Nine teams of nine players (with one celebrity in each team) representing geographical regions competed to solve a puzzle. Each player had a hand-held device for entering numbers corresponding to answers for four cells. The audience at home was in a separate interactive competition.

Later in 2005, the BBC launched SUDO-Q, a game show that combines Sudoku with general knowledge. However, it uses only 4x4 and 6x6 puzzles.
Sudoku software is now also very popular on PCs, websites, and mobile phones. It has also been released on portable video game handhelds such as the PlayStation Portable, Game Boy Advance, and the Nintendo DS.

REFLECTIONS: BY CULTURAL EXPERT JOELLA

With the advancement of technology, communications throughout the world is much easier and information is available with only the click of the mouse. Thus global cultures can be spread easily because of the increase in global connectivity. Media from different parts of the world are telecasted globally and the cultures which appeals most to the crowd would influence and perhaps spark a new global trend.

Does the grid above look familiar? It is Sudoku! The objective of the game is to fill the 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes contains the digits from 1 to 9.

In fact, the media has sparked global crazes such as the spread of the popular game Sudoku. Sudoku became an international hit in the year 2005, and the rapidness of its spread was mainly due to the media. The article posted above shows how Sudoku was spread worldwide through the media. Indeed, the media plays a big part in the spread of global cultures.

Perhaps another reason for the spread is because Sudoku is a simple game with simple rules and is easy to pick up. There are also no language barriers as the game only involves numbers. I find it quite amazing how a game can spread so fast throughout the world. Such is the power of globalisation and its ability to actually shrink the world into a single culture. The impact of globalisation on cultures is thus very great, as it actually changes the trends of the world

11:08 PM