<P> In general, Western culture has become increasingly secular in Northern Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand . Nevertheless, in a sign of the continuing status of the ancient Western institution of the Papacy in the early 21st century, the Funeral of Pope John Paul II brought together the single largest gathering in history of heads of state outside the United Nations . It is likely to have been the largest single gathering of Christianity in history, with numbers estimated in excess of four million mourners gathering in Rome . He was followed by another non-Italian Benedict XVI, whose near - unprecedented resignation from the papacy in 2013 ushered in the election of the Argentine Pope Francis - the first pope from the Americas, the new demographic heartland of Catholicism . </P> <P> Personal computers emerged from the West as a new society changing phenomenon during this period . In the 1960s, experiment began on networks linking computers and from these experiments grew the World Wide Web . The internet revolutionised global communications through the late 1990s and into the early 21st century and permitted the rise of new social media with profound consequences, linking the world as never before . In the West, the internet allowed free access to vast amounts of information, while outside the democratic West, as in China and in Middle Eastern nations, a range of censorship and monitoring measures were instigated, providing a new socio - political contrast between east and west . </P>

Which of these nations began to shape world culture in the 20th century