is titled "Cultural Uniformity, or Diversity?" Again he summarizes a lot of different information, including a lot from the literature.It seems to me that it is important to differentiate cultural diversity within nations versus between nations.
Within Nations
Centripetal Forces: As Nye points out, 19th century political theory of the "nation state" was related to an effort to unify culture within nations, as in the invention of mythical cultural histories. It also seems clear that mass media contributed to cultural centripetal forces of homogenization within national markets when there were relatively few networks; so too the economies of scale realized by early mass production of uniform products, the Model T Ford being the prototypical example. One could suggest that the development of railroads, telegraph and similar technology based infrastructure, by making larger nation states possible, led to gathering of groups such as those speaking the Italian dialects or the German dialects into single nations, tending to lead to cultural unity among previously diverging groups.
Centrifugal Forces: It would seem that the media have exploded, with more stations or channels available per person. Perhaps more importantly, the Internet makes point to point communication as affordable as one-to many communication. These forces have resulted in audiences with many niches, each satisfying a different subgroup within the nation. Similarly, it has become possible, largely through technological advances, to produce consumer goods in a large variety of styles.
Among Nations
There are many signs that globalization is homogenizing cultures among nations. Many more people are speaking the global languages while many languages are dying out. I have visited some 50 countries and in all of them have seen similar buildings and similar styles of clothing, not to mention similar infrastructures of roads, electricity, radio, television, and telephones.
If one thinks of culture as composed of many memes, then it seems obvious that people within a nation will have much more opportunity to be exposed to foreign memes when they see movies or television programs from foreign countries, when they access information from foreign countries via the Internet, when international travel has become cheap and easy with airlines, and as goods and even services are traded more and more among nations.
Of course, powerful technology allows people who can appropriate it for their purposes to act powerfully. We see some countries with powerful governing bodies which seek to protect aspects of their culture using powerful technologies to assert control and reduce influences promoting cultural diversity. Think about Ireland broadcasting Gaelic League sports, or Japan broadcasting Sumo wrestling as ways of using 20th century technology to help keep national cultures live and divided from the cultures of other nations.
A Counter Intuitive Situation
Nye points out that there are now more ethnic restaurants in America than there once were. I suppose one reason that this is true is that it is now easier to immigrate due to the technological advances that underly globalization, and the new immigrants are opening (Vietnamese, Salvadoran, and other restaurants). So too, the increasing immigration is causing more cultural diversity within European nations (e.g. Polish immigration to Ireland, Muslim immigration to France, Turkish immigration to Germany, immigration from the subcontinent to the United Kingdom), leading to significant minority ethnic populations.
It seems that some cultures value diversity at least in some respects, while others oppose diversity at least in some respects. Two American women might be embarrassed showing up at the same function in the same outfit; two Saudi women might find comfort appearing in public in identical burkas. Advanced technology and the wealth generated by the appropriation and utilization of advanced technology should allow people to better achieve the homogeneity or heterogeneity that the desire in their clothing, housing, transportation and food. Indeed, technology might help the cultural trait of preference for diversity in such goods to be more widely spread within the nation state!
Nye introduces this discussion having already argued that technological change is combined with other factors as a "soft determinant" of cultural change, and he refrains from any value judgment as to whether cultural homogenization is better or worse than cultural diversification. However, there is so common a feeling that the loss of cultural diversity is a unfortunate that I want to address that issue.
Cultures change. I would bet that even the most conservative cultures, such as that of the Amish, change. Some of those changes are good! I am glad that the Aztec custom of cutting out the hearts of warriors as an offering to their gods is gone. I am glad that slavery has been abolished from most cultures on the earth. Technology itself is a part of culture, and almost everyone agrees that some technological innovations are desirable, such as those which reduce sickness and death rates, those which allow people to avoid hunger and choose a more rather than less comfortable life, and those which help people avoid the dangers of natural catastrophes, even if those innovations are the same in different ethnic groups. The issue of cultural change is, I believe, whether people feel empowered to control the nature of the changes of their culture. That feeling of empowerment is in part a function of political institutions and in part a function of people's understanding of the technologies influencing their culture and their implications.
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