How did culture become global, and how did local cultures respond?
Topic 9.7 Globalized Culture After 1900: the spread and blending of culture in a connected world, including global media, consumer culture, sport, and the tension between global and local identities.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.7, explaining globalized culture: the spread of global media and consumer culture, the worldwide reach of sport and brands, cultural blending and hybrid identities, and the tension between global homogenization and local cultures.
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What this topic is asking
Topic 9.7 covers globalized culture after 1900. It asks you to explain how culture spread and blended across a connected world: the reach of global media and consumer culture, the worldwide popularity of sport and brands, the blending of cultures into hybrid forms, and the tension between global homogenization (often feared as "Americanization") and the survival and revival of local cultures.
What "globalized culture" means
The spread of global culture
Media and consumer culture went worldwide.
Homogenization versus blending
Global culture pulls in two directions.
Cultural globalization produced two opposing tendencies that operate at the same time:
- Homogenization. Similar media, brands, and tastes spread worldwide, making aspects of life look increasingly alike from place to place. Critics call this "Americanization" or cultural imperialism and fear it erases local difference.
- Blending and hybridity. Local cultures did not simply vanish; they absorbed and adapted global influences, mixing them with local traditions to create hybrid forms - new musical genres, fusion cuisines, blended fashions - and new, layered identities.
A strong answer recognizes that both happen: global culture spreads, but local cultures reshape it rather than simply being erased.
The tension between global and local identity
Identity became contested.
Globalized culture raised deep questions of identity. As global media and consumer culture spread, some people embraced a more cosmopolitan, global identity, while others worried about the loss of local languages, religions, and traditions and worked to preserve or revive them. This tension between global and local identity fuelled cultural pride movements, religious revival, and, as Topic 9.8 explores, outright resistance to globalization. Culture in the global age is therefore a site of both connection and contest.
Try this
Q1. Name the term, often used critically, for the fear that global culture is wiping out local traditions and imposing one dominant culture. [Recall]
- Cue. Americanization (or cultural imperialism).
Q2. Explain how globalized culture can produce blending rather than simple uniformity. [Short explanation]
- Cue. Local cultures absorb and adapt global influences, mixing them with their own traditions to create hybrid forms like fusion music, food, and fashion and new layered identities, so global culture is reshaped locally rather than simply replacing local culture.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of College Board exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
AP 2020 (style)3 marksBriefly identify ONE way culture became globalized after 1900. Briefly explain ONE example of cultural blending. Briefly explain ONE concern raised by cultural globalization.Show worked answer →
A Short Answer Question (SAQ), 3 points, one per bullet.
A. Identify: global media - film, television, music, and the internet - spread culture across the world.
B. Cultural blending: musical styles, foods, and fashions from different societies mixed, producing hybrid forms that combine global and local elements.
C. Concern: many fear that cultural globalization, often called Americanization, threatens to wipe out local languages, traditions, and identities.
Each bullet must be concrete.
AP 2022 (style)6 marksEvaluate the extent to which culture became homogenized rather than diversified in the period c. 1900 to the present.Show worked answer →
A Long Essay Question (LEQ), scored on the 6-point causation rubric.
Thesis (1): "Global culture both homogenized, as media, brands, and consumer culture spread worldwide, and diversified, as local cultures blended global influences with their own to create hybrid forms, so the era saw both tendencies at once."
Contextualization (1): situate cultural change in the communication and transport revolutions.
Evidence (2): global media and consumer culture; worldwide sport and brands; cultural blending and hybrid identities; fears of Americanization and local revival."
Analysis (2): explain HOW global culture spread and homogenized, then add complexity by showing that local cultures adapted and blended it rather than simply being erased."
Related dot points
- Topic 9.1 Advances in Technology and Exchange: the technological advances in communication, transportation, energy, and medicine that accelerated globalization after 1900.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.1, explaining the technological advances that accelerated globalization: communication from the radio to the internet, transportation from air travel to container shipping, new energy sources, and medical and agricultural breakthroughs.
- Topic 9.8 Resistance to Globalization After 1900: the economic, cultural, and political resistance to globalization, including anti-globalization movements, religious fundamentalism, nationalism, and terrorism.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.8, explaining resistance to globalization: economic anti-globalization movements, cultural and religious resistance including fundamentalism, the revival of nationalism and protectionism, and political violence and terrorism.
- Topic 6.7 Effects of Migration: the demographic, cultural, social, and political effects of industrial-age migration, including diasporas, ethnic enclaves, changing gender roles, and nativist backlash.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 6.7, explaining the effects of industrial-age migration: new diasporas and ethnic enclaves, changing gender roles in home and host societies, cultural exchange and new identities, and the nativist backlash including anti-immigration laws.
- Topic 2.5 Cultural Consequences of Connectivity: the spread of religions, technologies, scientific and literary ideas, and the circulation of travellers across the trade networks.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 2.5, explaining how the trade networks spread religions such as Islam and Buddhism, transferred technologies like paper and gunpowder, carried scientific and literary ideas, and circulated travellers such as Ibn Battuta and Marco Polo.
- Topic 9.6 Calls for Reform and Responses After 1900: the rights and reform movements after 1900, including feminist, civil rights, environmental, and other movements, and the responses they provoked.
A focused answer to AP World History Topic 9.6, explaining calls for reform after 1900: feminist movements for women's rights, civil and human rights movements, environmental and economic-justice movements, the human-rights framework, and the responses these movements provoked.
Sources & how we know this
- AP World History: Modern Course and Exam Description — College Board (2020)