The Shrinking World

         The world in the modern age is smaller than it has ever been before. This is due to many factors, including the invention of of vehicles that allow us to travel great distances in relatively short periods of time and more recently the information sharing technologies (namely the internet, as well as cheaper media production devices), which in a bit of a twist are rendering those other technologies obsolete as we can send information from point A, lets say Burma, to points B, C, Q, and Z, the rest of the world, in a matter of minutes. This shrinking of the world means that its many cultures are more connected than they have ever been before, and that connection is what we refer to as globalization.

Globalization in turn leads to the sharing of media, and when one country or culture adopts and then adapts say an entertaining TV comedy to resonate more with a local audience we have whats known as cultural hybridization, or glocalization. We can see this in one TV comedy in particular: The Office.

The Office was created first in the UK in 2001, and the show has since been adapted for audiences in the US, France, Brazil, Germany, and most recently Israel. Those adaptations follow the same format, but by changing the setting as well as the individual jokes and of course the language, the show is made more resonant within that particular country.