Untimely Globalization: The 11.11 Shopping Festival in the Global Culture Industry

• In Event: ICA Plenary Interactive Paper/Poster Session I
  In Interactive Paper Session: Global Communication and Social Change Interactive Poster Session

Abstract

This study investigates an online shopping event know as the 11.11 Shopping Festival, attempting to complicate the official narrative of globalization through the analytical lens on global culture industry by Lash and Lury (2007). As a globalization project of the world’s biggest e-commerce company Alibaba, the 11.11 event has been announced going global to provide the world a new vision of shopping and lifestyle. The event has been launched in multiple places around the world accompanying Alibaba’s transnational branding. This study problematizes the official notion of globalizing the 11.11 by foregrounding the untimely experience of globalization and transnationality in the global culture industry. Coupling with the socio-historical conditions, consumers’ responses to the media events of the 11.11 and the shopping practice of copycats generates different imaginations and connectivities to the shopping spree that intersect, disrupt, and re-configure the project of globalization.

Author

• Sara X. T. Liao, University of Texas at Austin