Most people understand globalization to be a recent phenomenon - the permeation of American culture and consumerism around the world. However, globalization is a relatively old phenomenon as it only really describes the global homogenization of culture and experience through one dominant cultural tradition. What primarily separates the modern wave of globalization from previous iterations is the instantaneous telecommunication afforded by inventions like the internet. This connects people around the world instantly and has dramatically shortened the time taken to exchange media and ideas.

When an idea diffuses from its origin, but is changed or modified as it is adopted in other places, it is characterized as stimulus expansion diffusion, as opposed to being diffused in its original form (contagious expansion diffusion), diffusing from higher levels to lower levels (hierarchical expansion diffusion), or diffused by adherents moving into other regions (relocation diffusion).

Contagious diffusion involves a form of expansion in which people near the point of origin become adopters of a cultural fad. In the example above, the point of origin is the celebrity, and the townspeople become adopters of the Brand X fad. 

Diffusion is the spread of an idea or characteristic over time. When people move, or relocate, they spread ideas along with them. Therefore this is called relocation diffusion. "Distance decay" describes the process whereby interaction between locales decreases as distance increases.

“Acculturation” is the term used to describe the adoption of certain cultural and social characteristics of one society by another society. It usually occurs when one society is controlled, either politically, economically, socially, or all of these, by another society. And the people are forced to adapt their cultural experiences in order to survive in this new social climate.

Although Mexico sends far more immigrants to the United States than Cuba does in any given year, the majority of Mexican immigrants arrive in the southwest of the United States. Cuban immigrants tend to arrive, almost exclusively, in South Florida. This has contributed a great deal to the ethnic makeup of Miami, as well as its culture.

A “pidgin” language is a language that develops when two or more different languages meet in one geographic region- often when colonizers and the colonized live together in close proximity. The resulting language has elements of both the original languages. When a “pidgin” evolves into the primary language of a region it is called a “Creole” language.

The term “cultural appropriation” is used to describe a situation where a dominant social or cultural group takes an expression, idea, or product from an oppressed cultural group and uses it for its own benefit. So, the use of Native-American tribal names in American sports (Redskins, Blackhawks, Braves, and so on) is an example of cultural appropriation.

India was, for a long time, controlled by the British Empire. Many wealthy Indians were educated in English and English language came to take on an elitist status on the Indian subcontinent. This has led to a classic example of “acculturation,” whereby even though India has been independent from Britain since the mid-1940s the English language continues to be widely used and influential on the continent - particularly in areas of elite culture like law, economics, and business.

J.W. Powell is credited with coining the term acculturation. Powell coined this term in 1880 and served as the second director in the U.S. Geological Survey.