Media and Globalization

Globalization entails the spread of various cultures. When a film is made in Hollywood, it is shown
not only in the United States but also in other cities across the globe.

Globalization also involves the spread of ideas. This usually happens from western countries whose
cultures are advance to the developing countries.

People who travel the globe teaching and preaching their beliefs in universities, churches, public
forums, classrooms, or even as guests of a family play a major role in the spread of culture and ideas.

Globalization relies on media such as tv, social media, books, movies, magazines as its main conduit
for the spread of culture and ideas.

Jack Lule describes media as a means of conveying something, such as a channel of communication.
Media has the ability to shape social behaviors of users and reorient family behavior. Television for
example after it was introduced in the 1960s has drawn people away from other meaningful activities
such as playing games or reading books. Today, smart phones allow users to keep in touch instantly
with multiple people at the same time. They have positive and negative effects on our society.

According to McLuhan, different media simultaneously extend and amputate human senses. New
media may expand the reach of communication, but they also dull the users’ communicative
capacities. It dulls people’s capacity to remember.

Cellphones may have the tendency to limit the senses because they make users easily destructible
and more prone to multitasking.

Additionally, McLuhan says that new media are neither good nor bad.

Media and Globalization

Global Village- This term was used by McLuhan to explain that media have turned the world into a
“global village”. This means that people can easily and conveniently communicate with each other
wherever they are in the world.

Some experts explain that globalization through the media leads to homogenization of culture. This
means that western cultural influences are being adopted by different countries across the globe
thereby manifesting similarities in culture. For example, the concept of human rights as enshrined in
the UN Declaration of Human Rights document has gotten itself into the very cultural system of UN
member countries.

Cultural Imperialism- For John Tomlinson, cultural globalization is simply a euphemism for western
cultural imperialism.
social media are also believed to splinter cultures and ideas into bubbles of people who do not
interact. This is why people easily believe in fake news.

Though people may individually try to keep out of Facebook or Twitter, these media will continue to
engender social changes. Instead of fearing these changes or entering a state of moral panic,
everyone must collectively discover ways of dealing with them responsibly and ethically.