Meaning in transmission: A case study of the psychological consequences of globalized consumption in China

The rising global interconnection among different localities has generated a surface similarity in the goods and commodities that compose the everyday life of local cultures and societies. Heated discussions have been generated on the psychological consequences of globalization; but three theoretical needs have not yet been satisfied: (1) local interpretations need be placed in the center of the analysis; (2) global products need be discriminated according to their potential in inducing change; and (3) youth need be the focal group examined.;Of these three, the most important in this research is the differentiation of global products into socializing and non-socializing : the former provides local consumers opportunities to participate in social interactions not cultivated in local systems; the latter does not. Within the non-socializing products viewer's and non-viewer's types are further differentiated according to the presence or absence of non-local social interactions subject to local observation. Fast food restaurants, blockbuster movies, and cola drinks are selected to represent these three types respectively to generate the interpretations of American and Chinese youth through open-ended interviews accompanied by field observations.;The findings suggest that foreign meanings are likely to be delivered cross-culturally through consumption patterns, though only when situated in socializing products; this possibility, however, needs to be actualized in consumption frequency. When this possibility is actualized, the significance of foreign elements appears to decline; the configuration of foreign elements appears to change; and local elements appear as additions to the re-configured foreign elements. The psychological states of (young) individuals and their cultures, therefore, are likely to change; but this change remains only a possibility until actualized by frequent consumption by youth of these products likely to create change. This possible change need not lead to homogeneous minds or cultures, but rather to diversity. The process of meaning transmission in cross-cultural contexts seems to be a process of change comprised of loss, reconfiguration, and local addition.