What kind of technologies help spread cultural ideas today?

Question

What kind of technologies help spread cultural ideas today?

Answer 1

The biggest, most obvious one is the internet.  The television, I'll grant you, is a d@mn good enculturating tool, but it only goes one way.  Other cultures are learning about Western ideas, mostly US ideas, but we're not getting their programming to learn about their ways of life.  The internet, however, is a free-for-all for anyone who can find a computer with access.  Poor people, particularly rural ones and ones in less technologically-advanced countries, are still shut out to a varying degree.  However, there are programs to help even the most remote villagers log on.  As long as we maintain net neutrality, the internet is the most powerful information and cultural exchange medium we've got.  I mean, think about it.  The chances are that we're both Westerners, likely both from the US (by numbers and because we both write English well- heh, though, maybe that means we're not American), but I could be in India.  You could be in Africa.  Maybe the people reading are from New Zealand and Siberia.  Yet we're talking to each other.  It's pretty cool.

Answer 2

Listed in chronological order of maximum influence:

1 Books

2 Periodicals (esp. the ads)

3 Movies (esp product placements)

4 TV

5 Internet

all still have some degree of influence although the older the technology the lesser its influence...

Answer 3

Environmental.  More people than ever believe that we need to do something to save the earth.

Nano.  This will help develop the tools we need for the future.

Answer 4

Firearms (guns).

They show that if nerds get picked on too much in school, they might go mental and shoot half the senior class.

They show that without adequate guidance and given to their own devices, young black men will shoot each other in the street over matters of pride. For as much as blacks complain about how much white people hate them and harm them, FBI statistics show that 78% of violent crimes committed on blacks are committed by other blacks, that the ratio of black men killing other black men compared to white men killing black men is 168 to 1, and the #1 cause of death in black men under the age of 25 is other black men under the age of 25.

Guns also show that if you have enough of them, you can change an entire culture, like Afghanistan and Iraq, which are being "Americanized" and forced into "democracy" whether they want it or not.

I think firearms are the most commonly used form of technology for spreading cultural ideas today.