Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Field Note
“The Dingle Peninsula in Ireland was long one of
the more remote parts of the country, and even
its largest town, Dingle, was primarily an agricul-
tural village just a few decades ago. As I walked
through the streets of town, I noticed the color-
ful inns and houses of the older town. The 'Little
Bridge Pub' on the corner of this intersection in
the older town is an 'authentic' pub, the kind that
the Irish Pub Company works to replicate.”
Figure 4.12
Dingle, Ireland
© Alexander B. Murphy.
Boulevard. The “authentic” Irish pub in “authentic”
New York in the “Disneyfi ed” Las Vegas is one we can
chew on for a while.
The commodifi cation of local customs freezes cus-
toms in place and time for consumption, with claims of
“authenticity” abounding. The search for “authentic”
local cultures implies an effort to identify peoples who
are seemingly untouched by change or external infl u-
ence. However, all local cultures (rural and urban) are
dynamic, and all have been touched by external infl u-
ences throughout their existence (Fig. 4.12). The search
for an “authentic” local culture merely perpetuates
myths about local cultures. Members of local cultures
are constantly renegotiating their place in this world
and making sense of who they are in the midst of the
popular culture onslaught.
HOW IS POPULAR CULTURE DIFFUSED?
Extraordinary changes have occurred since 1900 in
the time it takes for people, innovations, and ideas to dif-
fuse around the globe. The innovation of agriculture took
nearly 10,000 years to diffuse around the world. In much
more recent times, the diffusion of developments such as
the printing press or the Industrial Revolution was mea-
sured over the course of 100 years or more.
During the twentieth century, however, the pace of
diffusion shrank to months, weeks, days, and in some cases
even hours. Simultaneously, the spatial extent of diffusion
has expanded, so that more and more parts of the Earth's
surface are affected by ideas and innovations from faraway
places. For example, the social networking site Facebook,
which Mark Zuckerberg launched in 2004, passed 500 mil-
lion subscribers worldwide in 2010 and adds many new
members each day. Canada grew from 2 million to 7 mil-
lion Facebook subscribers in 2007, and by 2010, had over
15 million subscribers, accounting for 45.48 percent of the
population. With enough subscribers to be the third most
populated country in the world, and with instant communi-
cation, news travels quickly through the Facebook network.
The map of Facebook users (Fig. 4.13) highlights
the interconnectedness of individuals around the world,
and it also points out the lack of interconnection between
What is the last place you went to or the last product you
purchased that claimed to be “authentic?” What are the
challenges of defending the authenticity of this place or
product while refuting the authenticity of other similar
places or products?
