Globalisation in practice

I’ve always envisaged globalisation as this romantic story where all cultures and countries come together embracing differences and becoming one global village. But the more I look at it, I see a culture being continuously dominated by western views and values. Huge corporations seem to be dominating the world on a global scale whether it’s McDonalds, Nike, Apple, Fox, Hollywood, Ford etc. The world is growingly adapting to what the west sees as normal and there’s no question as to why the west has embraced globalization so much.

This unifying process is largely to do with the introduction of new technologies in the field of communications. These technologies include the television set, the introduction of web 2.0 and the mobile phone. “One of the salient features of globalization in the modern world is that it takes place increasingly through media and communications” (Rantanen 2005, p8). We live in an age where a message can reach just about anyone, anywhere, at any time. This isn’t just the big new sectors who have this reach but also the individuals. As long as I have the contact details of the person I’m after, which isn’t that difficult to get nowadays with the world wide web, I can make almost instant contact using either my mobile phone or my laptop. This has completely changed the way that we interact with others and has very much shrunk the world as we no longer have to wait for travel or for mail to reach someone in order to make contact.

Reference:

Rantanen, T 2005, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1-18. 

Media Ownership

Do you ever watch several newscasts and find that they’re quite similar? Maybe read several magazines and find out they’re all talking about the same content? How could this possibly be? There are several reasons for this. One is because these are the prominent events happening in our world on those particular days. That’s an obvious point that you could argue. But it’s not just the stories that are the same but also the perspectives on them and the spin that is put on them. This is because most of those tv channels, newspapers, magazines etc are owned by the same people! The major player being Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and in Australia News Limited. This includes the Herald Sun, The Australian, the entire fox network including fox movies, sports, and a 25% share in foxtel, magazines such as the Australian editions of vogue and GQ, Network Ten and much much more. 

This type of ownership is what is known as a monopoly, meaning one(or few) owner(s). “In the worst cases of monopoly a firm spends a great deal of time and money blocking other from entering the market” (Steven 2003, p41). Why would someone want to do this you might ask? Well the more media real estate you have, the greater chance you have of influencing the dominant views of the public as your material is primarily what they’re consuming whether they know it or not. Everybody wants to have his or her say. But those with billion dollar corporations will always get theirs first. Better start saving!

Reference:

Steve, P 2003, the no-nonsense guide to the global media, New Internationalist, Oxford, pp. 37-59

Information Flows

Stop for a second to imagine a world without Globalisation. Look around you and notice the all the foreign things you have taken for granted all your life. Consider the music you listen to, the food you consume, the films and TV show you view, the car you drive, the books you read, the people in you work with, hopefully now you’re starting to see the effect of globalisation. As you can tell there is a lot to talk about in relation to globalisation and for this reason I’m choosing to just focus in on one topic of it. That is the topic of Information Flows.

“The boom in information and communications technologies (ICT) forms part of the infrastructure of globalization in finance, capital mobility and export-oriented business activity, transnational communication, migration, travel, and civil society interactions” (Pieterse 2004, p9). The information flow refers to the way information is distributed instantaneously and with never ending access and how we are able to exchange information where ever whenever we want. Every time I want to find something out I always go straight to Google and search for it. I did this the other night when I didn’t know how long I needed to heat my pasta for; its about 10 minutes for those of you who don’t know. Another way I could’ve settled this problem the other night would’ve been to use my mobile phone to call and ask a friend. As you can see the information flows relate to how technology has become essential to how we gain and exchange information.

References: Nederveen Pieterse, J 2004, ‘Globalization: consensus and controversies’, Globalization and culture: global melange, Rowan & Littlefield, Lanham, Md., pp.7-21

Hello all of you out there on the interwebs!
My names Andrew and I'm studying the BA Media and Communications.
This blog will be updated with weekly posts for the unit ALC215