Glocalization

I came across an interesting example of glocalization that I thought would be good to share with the class! In Pixar's latest movie, Inside Out, some scenes in the movie was actually altered according to the countries that it aired in! 

Apparently.. there was a scene where the main character had to eat a vegetable that she hates. This vegetable was originally portrayed as broccoli, as it is widely accepted by Americans as a vegetable that all children hates. However, Pixar realised that broccoli does not similarly carry such a negative connotation in the culture of Japan. Hence, by conducting a survey, they realised that in Japan, the hated vegetable was green peppers. The scene of the main character struggling to finish her vegetables was then altered for the version aired in Japan! 

US version:

Japan version:

Another scene was a sports match that was changed from a hockey match (US version) to a soccer/football match (UK version)

I feel that it is so incredibly cool that major movie makers of the world are actually making efforts to localize into the different global markets and I look forward to this phenomena becoming more common and widespread as this will only mean that viewers all over the world would be able to relate more to the movies in the theatres!
You can read more about this in the article: http://www.businessinsider.com.au/why-inside-out-has-different-scenes-in-other-countries-2015-7


In addition, while researching about glocalization, I came across a similar word, grobalization. It is a mixture of the words "growth" and "globalization". It insinuates "imperialistic goals, desires and needs of big businesses or companies." Such companies include Coca-cola, Macdonalds, Disney, etc. As grobalization refers explicitly to the ‘growth imperatives of organisations and nations to expand globally and to impose themselves on the local’, it is therefore a more specific and a more radical form of globalization. (Matusitz and Palermo, 2014)

People that believe in the groblization theory predicts that the result of such growth and globalization is that the cultures worldwide will grow to become increasingly similar. Also, the "local" of many areas will diminish and decline. "From this vantage point, grobalisation constitutes a process of cultural and economic imperialism which is deeply involved in the propagation of capitalistic culture throughout the world" (Ritzer, 2007)

My personal view of this word is that it is very similar to the word "Macdonaldization", except it is used to describe a bigger scope of the spreading phenomenon. It also shows us the huge and spreading influences of mega companies, upon the rest of the world. Is it a good or bad thing? This is highly debatable!