MODULE 8
Terhi Rantanen (2005) places script before the printing press and
This chapter provides an outline for the discussion of globalization
and media. It will unfold the various views about the confusing
definitions of globalization and media. It is also essential to look
back at the beginnings of media and point out the works of
well-known scholars to show how globalization and media have
shaped our world today.
To Marshal McLuhan (1964), globalization and media have created
the conditions through which many people can now imagine
themselves as part of one world. It is a global imaginary that
brings to fruition what is called a “global village.”
Meaning of Globalization
 In the Queen’s English, the word globalization gets softened
into globalisation.
 The French offer us la mondialisation.
 The Chinese say quan qui hua.
 In Kiswahili, it is utandawazi.
 Meriam – Webster’s dictionary dates globalize to 1944.
 Theodeore Levitt, a former professor at the Harvard
Business school, is widely credited with popularizing the term
which he used in a 1983 Harvard Business Review article, The
Globalization of Markets. The word has exploded in
prominence and usage.
 A Google search now brings up 42.4 million results (Lule,
2014).
Globalization is defined as a set of multiple processes, including
economic, political and cultural that may be as old as human race
and continuing today.
When did globalization began?
Nayan Chanda (2007) says globalization began since birth of
humankind. The first Homo sapiens departed from other Homo
sapiens from a village in Africa to search for food, water and
adventure. These travelers set globalization into motion. Others
relate globalization to the rise of modernity in the Enlightenment or
with the Age of Exploration. The discovery of America is often used
as route to globalization.
To Appadurai (1996), there was a rupture within social life in the
late 20th century. He says that the advances in media, such as
television, computers and cell phones, combined with change in
migration patterns, such as people more easily flowing back and
forth around the world. Media and migration fundamentally
changed human life and give rise to globalization.
Meaning of Media
The word media is the plural for medium- a means of conveying
something, such as a channel of communication. The plural form –
media – only came into general circulation, however in the 1920s. In
the 1920s, people were talking about their fears over the harmful
influence of comic books, radio and film. They were worried about
young people reading violent comics, voters hearing propaganda over
the radio, couples disappearing into dark movie theaters. They
group these phenomena together with debates over the “mass
media” (Lule, 2014).
Evolution of Media
Scholars organized the historical study of media by time periods or
stages. Each period is dominated by a medium. Canadian theorist
Harold Innis (1950), in his writings during 1940s and 1950s, divided
media
This into
study three
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of the 20th century, James Lull (2000) added digital to those three.
breaks down the electronic period into wired and wireless, for six
(6 )period.
To Lule (2014), five (5) periods capture the study of globalization
and media: oral, script, print, electronic and digital.
Oral Communication
Human speech is the oldest and most enduring of all media. Speech
has been with humankind for at least 200,000.
When speech developed into language, homo sapiens had developed a
medium that would set them apart from every other species and
allow them to cover and conquer the world (Lule, 2014). The
following are the contributions of language to globalization:
 Language allowed human to cooperate.
 It allowed sharing of information.
 Language became the most important tool as human being
explored the world and experience different cultures.
 It helped them move and settle down.
 It led to markets, trade and cross-continental trade.
 Language was important but imperfect, distance became a
strain for oral communication.
Script
Language relies on human memory, which is limited in capacity and
not always perfect. Script is the very first writing.
Script allowed human to communicate over a larger space and
much longer times.
It allowed for the written and permanent codification of economic,
cultural, religious, and political practice.
Printing Press
Prior to printing press, the production and copying of written
documents was slow, cumbersome and expensive. The papyrus,
parchment and paper that spread civilization were accessible only
to powerful groups. Reading and writing were exclusive practices of
the religious and elite people. Hence, the rich and powerful dominate
information. With the invention of printing press in China using the
movable wooden blocks and by Jihannes Gutenburg in Germany with
movable metal type, reading materials had been massively produced,
became cheap and easily circulated at a fast speed. The explosion of
economic, political and cultural ideas is attributed to the technology
of the printing press. It transformed many social institutions such
as schools, churches, and governments. It started the “information
revolution” (Lule, 2014).
Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979) surveyed the influences of the printing
press. In her masterful, 750-page treatise, two (2) overarching
consequences of printing press dominate. First, printing press
changed the nature of knowledge. It preserved and standardized
knowledge. Second, it encouraged the challenge of political and
religious authority because of its ability to circulate competing
views. People learned about the world.
Electronic Media
Beginning in the 19th century, scholars have come to call the use of
communication using electromagnetic energy or electricity as
electronic media. The telegraph, telephone, radio, film and television
are under electronic media.
The vast reach of these media continues to open up new vistas in
the economic, political, and cultural processes of globalization.
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 Samuel F. B. Morse invented telegraph in the 1930s that eventually
could send coded messages – dots and dashes- over electrical lines.
In 1866, transatlantic cable was laid between the United States and
Europe which made it a global medium of communication.
Alexander Graham Bell is credited with the invention of telephone in
1876. By 1927, the first transatlantic was made via radio.
Radio developed alongside with telegraph and telephone in the 1890s.
By the 1900s, speech was being transmitted without wires. It
quickly became a global medium, reaching distant regions.
Film became a potent medium. It developed into an artistic medium
of cultural expression. Silent motion pictures were shown as early
as the 1870s. But film developed in the 1890s. The Great Train
Robbery was made in 1903.
Television existed back the 1920s. After World War II, there was
rapid production and penetration of television into homes around
the world. It is considered as the most powerful and pervasive
mass medium. It brought together the visual and aural power of
the film with the accessibility of radio. Marshall McLuhan
proclaimed the world a “global village” because of television.
Media and Cultural Globalization
Media on one level are the carriers of culture.
It generates numerous and on-going interactions
Globalization will bring about and increasing blending or mixture of
cultures. What is the role of media in the blending or mixture of
culture?
Popular Music and Globalization
Technologies of transport, of information and mediation, including
social media platforms, have made possible the circulation of
cultural commodities such as music.
Circulation of cultural commodities are consumed to gain cultural
capital and social status.
Goods and commodities became a catalyst that set globalization.
Cultural Imperialism
Media globalization coupled with the influence of Americans would
create a form of cultural imperialism.

Digital Media
Digital Media are often electronic media that rely on digital code-the
combination of 0s and 1s that represent information. The computer
is the usual representation of digital media. It is the most
significant medium to influence globalization today.
In the realm of economics, computers allow fastest and cheapest
worldwide trading of goods and services. In the realm of politics,
computer allowed citizens to access information from around the
world. Social media allow people to communicate among themselves.
In the realm of culture, new music, sports, fashion, cuisine, the arts
and others are influencing people’s lifestyle globally.

GLOBAL IMAGINARY AND GLOBAL VILLAGE

Media have linked the globe with stories, images, myths and
metaphors.
 Global Imaginary - the globe itself as imagined community.

Global Village
 Marshall McLuhan
 Media have connected the world in ways that create a global
village.
 As McLuhan predicted media and globalization have connected
the world. However, the “global village have brought no
collective harmony or peace. Why do think so?

Media and Economic Globalization

Media fosters the conditions for global capitalism.

“Economic and cultural globalization arguably would be impossible

without a global commercial media system to promote global
markets and to encourage consumer values” – Robert Mc Chesney

Media and Political Globalization

Though media corporations are themselves powerful political
actors, individual- journalists are subject to intimidations as more
actors contend for power.

In the age of political globalization: government shape and

manipulate the news. Is this also true for Philippines?

Media
This studycomplicate politics…how?
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