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Lesson 7 : Globalization of the Asia Pacific and South

Asia
Introduction
This chapter talks about the effects of globalization in the Asia Pacific and South Asia. Globalization
is a very huge and vital influence and factor for a nation to emerge and develop, but sometimes, it
has its own advantages and worse, disadvantages. This chapter aims to root out the impacts of
globalization in Asia and how they handled it and used for their benefit.

Learning Objectives
To discuss the development of Asia Pacific and South Asia along three trajectories

1. Region as an object impacted by globalization.

2. Region as a subject pushing globalization forward.
3. Region as an alternative to globalization.

Course Materials
✓ An excerpt
The Asian financial crisis has provided new fuel for this debate. Prominent, mainstream
Asian thinkers from India, to Malaysia, to Japan are now pointing to globalization as a
possible threat to internal cohesion and economic health. Commentators in the West
have generally assumed that the crisis would precipitate disillusionment with so-called
Asian approaches to governance and economic management, spurring further
"convergence" with Western practices. Although there is evidence that some Asian
countries have moved in this direction, others are drawing alternative conclusions:
namely, that adherence to Western methods leaves Asian societies more vulnerable to
the ravages of global capitalism, and more exposed to forces that corrode long-standing
cultural and social norms. The outcome of this debate will have profound implications for
the region’s security environment, and for the United States – which is seen in much of
Asia as the ultimate driving force behind globalization.

To explore Asian perspectives on globalization, and to examine how the phenomenon is

reshaping the region’s security environment, the Asia-Pacific Center invited a group of
distinguished government officials and scholars for three days of intensive discussions.
Although thinking about the influence of globalization is still very much in its infancy, the
meeting served to sharpen thinking about how relations in the region may – or may not –
be transformed in the years ahead. 1

1
Report From The Conference On Globalization And Regional Security: Asian Perspectives February 23-25, 1999
Honolulu, Hawaii

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Activities
• Do you think that the externalist view of globalization is beneficial to the Philippines?

• Do you realize the impact of globalization in your life and society? How so?

• If you are the president of the Philippines, would you go against globalization?

Content

Asia Pacific and South Asia

There is great variation between the countries in Asia and South Asia. Some of the world’s
most economically developed states are in the continent of Asia and South Asia such as Japan,
South Korea or Taiwan but highly impoverished countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Nepal do so
too.

With the region’s sheer size, Asia emerged as a developed continent over the past decade.
The economic growth of China and India contributed to political force it brought to regional and
global players. Japan is a stable country in the force of economic and strategic growth relevance in
today’s global system.

Global powers outside the region are focused on Asia Pacific and South Asia. The US
implemented a foreign shift policy dubbed the ‘Pacific pivot’ committing more resources and
attention to the region. Hillary Clinton called the shift “Atlantic century” and “Pacific Century”.

An Externalist View of Globalization2

How is globalization pushed into the region?

❖ From this perspective, globalization is being understood as a process that transforms the
Asia Pacific and South Asia.

2
Kimura, Ehito. “Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia.” In The SAGEHandbook of Globalization, edited
by Manfred B. Steger, Paul Battersby, and Joseph M.Siracusa, Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd,
2014.

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❖ It is a one way or an irreversible process where it deals with the changing culture,
upbringing, politics, economy, and social and cultural aspects of countries with good effects
and bad effects, or whether it is for better or for worse.
❖ Hence, the experiment view of globalization lass out points of advantages and
disadvantages globalization has for the region.

Advantages of Globalization

1. Economic development – was introduced as a help from US, Europe and other world powers
as a phenomenon that it would be a hope for Asian and Pacific countries for better
economies.
2. Political development – is the political progress that brings to the countries as democracy
based on a very important role in the spread of globalization. Globalization and democracy is
being paired in colonized countries like Japan was forced over to their markets after WWII.
3. Social and cultural diversity – where countries in the region allowed foreign products to
saturate in their markets which produces new culture and practices to their countries.

Disadvantages of Globalization

1. Economic Underdevelopment – it makes it difficult for local business to flourish due to foreign
companies that take over the competition.
2. Globalization primarily developed – relatively closed between the state and business elites
that favoured them to the small businesses.
3. Financial globalization – contributed to the rise of corruption wherein foreign borrowers divert
terms to their interest rather than the development of their countries. For example, Marcos,
the former president of the Philippines who left the country with a booming debt of $150
billion.

Generating Globalization : The Asia Pacific and South

Asia as a Spring Board3
The Europeans did not create the spice trade (Reid, 1988). Asia was the central global force
in the early modern world economy. (Frank, 1988)The re-emergence of Asia today is seen as a
restoration of its traditional dominant position in the global economy.

The Asia Pacific and South Asia became the saviours of the economies of these developed
countries. From being the extortions, the raw materials, cheap labours, the region transformed as
the market of surplus goods and products produced in their own beloved countries.

The Western improvement nations utilized globalization in Asia Pacific and Southeast Asia
as a trade for their new form of colonialism to make it less exploitative and ethical, even promising
as economically wise.

3
Kimura, Ehito. “Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia.” In The SAGEHandbook of Globalization, edited
by Manfred B. Steger, Paul Battersby, and Joseph M.Siracusa, Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd,
2014.

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In essence, the regions of Asia and South Asia provide opportunities for the developed
countries to further their improvement inventory. It can best be exemplified by super profits due to
cheap labour and cheap materials. They helped these semi-colonized states to contain markets and
that the surplus products will be exported to the developed countries.

Since these developed nations learned the art of semi colonization, they used globalization
as a means of pervasive penetration of the regional economies, politics and cultures. However,
globalization hasn’t been a one-way road, it is also true that the regions are generative of many
aspects. While this have some elements of truths, the region is the main source of the wide varieties
of cultural phenomena to the rest of the world. Japan created Hello Kitty, Kung Fu came from China
and the infamous genre of music K-pop came from South Korea.

The Anti-Global Impulse : Regional Alternatives to

Globalization4
A third and final paradigm to understanding the relationship of Asia Pacific and South Asia
to globalization is as a regional alternative to globalization.

One place to begin is with Japanese colonialism in the 1930s and 1940s. Japan’s
colonization of the region and the building of a supposed East Asian co-prosperity sphere merely
replicated imperial relationships in East and Southeast Asia with new masters.

Most of the propagandas during that time were centered on the idea of ‘Asia for Asiatics’ and
the need to liberate the region from Europe. However, with the outbreak of the World War II, Japan
also looked beyond Northeast Asia to South and Southeast Asia. The members of the sphere
included Japan, Manchukuo, Mangjang, states of Burma, empire of Vietnam, kingdom of Thailand,
republic of China, republic of the Philippines and etc (Beasley, 2000).

A second way to look as a regional alternative was by looking through the lens of regional
arrangements. For example, the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) floated as early as 1990 and
pushed as an alternative to APEC. The proposed member states were ASEAN, China, South Korea
and Japan. The United States strongly objected at the time, but Japan saw the exclusion of the
United States as a threat to their strategic partnership and effectively vetoed for the idea.

A final way to see as a regional alternative was to explore the various local movements that
have emerged. (Hookway, 2009) “The village of Santi Tuk, Thailand; created their own currency
following the Asian financial crisis that struck the region in Thailand.” Community currency is an
example of a larger trend in self-sufficiency movements that emerged in Thailand after the Asian
financial crisis.

While the failure of co-prosperity sphere was a result not only of Japan’s loss in World War II,
but also the overt racism of Japan itself towards its supposedly co-members. A more recent

4
Kimura, Ehito. “Globalization and the Asia Pacific and South Asia.” In The SAGEHandbook of Globalization, edited
by Manfred B. Steger, Paul Battersby, and Joseph M.Siracusa, Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd,
2014.

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manifestation has been the concept of Asian values that became popular among leaders in the
region in the 1990s. Proponents of Asian values such as the Prime Minister Mohammed Mahathir of
Malaysia argued that ‘Asia has culturally distinct characteristics that make it different from Western
liberal democracies’.

Assessment
1. Discuss the significance of the globalization of Asia Pacific and South Asia.

2. Analyse the importance of globalization.

3. Why is Asia Pacific and South Asia as a spring board for globalization?

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Lesson 8 : Media and Cultural Globalization

Introduction
Scholars find it hard to explain globalization. Many factors contributed before globalization can be
mobilized across the globe. Among these important factors is media. Globalization and media is
considered a significant pair for they hold each other’s weight, globalization could not occur without
media, because globalization and media act in concert and cohort.

Media and globalization already had history each other, way back ages from papyrus used as early
as 3000 BC in Ancient Egypt, printing presses used around 800 A.D, television from 1927, even
Facebook and social media that were only recently invented contributed to the possibility of
globalization. Media made globalization possible.

Globalization and media advanced together through time in the development of the modern world.
As some scholars and theorists noted, globalization and media literally travelled through time
together for the world to be united as one.

The convenience in communication helped the world feel more connected with the assurance that
they can contact each other despite their distance. Globalization not only helped the world
economically, politically and culturally but was the also biggest factor as to why people now interact
globally.

The convenience in communication helped every person realize they belong in the world despite
their distances with each other. Globalization plays out mostly with the economics, politics and
culture, which are also the primary ways in which people interact globally.

Learning Objectives
1. To define globalization and media.
2. To explain the development of media.
3. To show how globalization and media proceeded together through time in the construction of
the modern world.
4. To explain the life in the emerging global village.

Course Materials (Suggested)

✓ Watch the YouTube clip Globalization and Media: Part 1
✓ Read the article City Research Online – Globalization and the Mass Media on the
website openaccess.city.uk
✓ Read the paper The Evolution of Media – Understanding Media and Culture on the
website open.lib.umn.edu
✓ Watch the video The Global Village Theory on YouTube
✓ Read the Evolution of Media I American Government on Google
o An excerpt:

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The evolution of the media has been fraught with concerns and problems. Accusations
of mind control, bias, and poor quality have been thrown at the media on a regular basis.
Yet the growth of communications technology allows people today to find more
information more easily than any previous generation. Mass media can be print, radio,
television, or Internet news. They can be local, national, or international. They can be
broad or limited in their focus. The choices are tremendous.5

Activities
• Discuss the impact of mediatisation in your life.

• How do electronic media affect your life and society?

• How would you access the role of media in economic globalization and how does it influence
your lifestyle?

• React on the statement “No News Today”.

• Analyse the impact of social media in the political affairs of the country.

5
American Government “The Evolution of the Media” Module 8: The Media. Available on
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/amgovernment/chapter/the-evolution-of-the-media/

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Content

Mass Media
Media serves basic but important roles in our society. Media comes in a variety of choices. It
is sometimes used for entertainment, as a springboard for our imaginations, a root of our creativities
and the outlet of escapism. But most importantly, media provides information and education.

With media, information from around the world travelled faster. The exchange of results
between countries can be expected within seconds to minutes. Because of this, every country
around the world can be vigilant with what’s happening locally or globally.

The media theorist, Marshall McLuhan (1964) coined the famous phrase “The medium is
message”. This is a very important phrase for this means that every medium has a different way of
delivering messages. Some medium, like commercials played in televisions, fails to emphasize the
importance of a message by coating it with flashy edits and artificial lights. Sometimes, the
inappropriate use of medium lessens the depth, content and accuracy a message conceives.

Evolution of Media and Globalization6

Scholars came up with the idea of organizing the historical studies of media by time periods
or stages. As time went by, five periods were organized. Each period is characterized by its
dominant medium.

▪ Canadian professor and theorist, Harold Innis – divided media into three periods : oral, print
and electronic.
▪ James Lull, an American social scientist and author – added the digital period to the initial
three periods making it four.
▪ Terhi Rantanen, a professor and the director of the Master’s Programme in Global Media
and Communication – places script before the printing and breaks down the electronic period
into wired and wireless, making it six periods.

However, for our purposes, only the five time periods usefully capture the study of globalization and
media. These five time periods are; oral, scripts, prints, electronics and digitals.

I. Oral Communication

✓ “Oral communication is the process of verbally transmitting information and ideas

from one individual to another. The human speech may be the most overlooked form
of media but it is actually an important part as it is considered the first period of
media.”7

6
Matos, C. (2012). Globalization and the mass media. In: Encyclopedia of Globalization. . Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
7
"Oral Communication: Definition, Types & Advantages." Study.com, 22 September 2014,
study.com/academy/lesson/oral-communication-definition-types-

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✓ When speech evolved into language, it became a medium that the early homo
sapiens used to diverge and separate them from other species as they fight for
superiority to cover and conquer the world.

How did the Medium of Language Aid Globalization? 8

❖ At the early age, language made it possible for humans to communicate and understand
cooperation. During a hunt, the ability to coordinate was obviously a considerable advantage.
❖ Humans eventually moved to every corner of the world, encountering new environments and
experiences at each turn. Language was their most important tool (Ostler, 2005).
❖ Language made it easier for people to spread word. They used it to their advantage as they
roamed across villages and towns passing knowledge and eventually bartering goods with
one another.
❖ After some time, language was used to the discovery of markets, the trade of goods and
services, and eventually into cross-continental trade routes. This phase gave cities the
opportunity to rise as they are now culturally organized with the help of language.
❖ Around 4000 BCE, humans’ first civilization was created at Sumer in the Middle East.
Sometimes called the ‘cradle of civilization’, Sumer is thought to be the birthplace of the
wheel, irrigation and writing – all created by knowledge.

II. Script 9

✓ The second period of media was the use of script. The cuneiform script was first
created in Mesopotamia, commonly known as Iraq, in 3200 BC. This writing
system was first used by Mesopotamia as a system of counting and logging clay
tokens.
✓ Script – the very first writing – allowed humans to further communicate and share
knowledge and ideas over much father and larger spaces and across much
longer times. Writing system eventually evolved, but it was first was done using
carvings into wood, clay, bronze, bones, stone and even tortoise shells.
✓ Because of script, passages and important scriptures were allowed to have a
permanent codification of economic, cultural, religious and political practice.
These codes could then spread out over large geographical distances and can
be preserved to be handed down through time.

(Powell, 2009) The great civilizations, from Egypt and Greece to Rome and China, were
made possible through script. If globalization is considered the economic, cultural and political
integration of the world, then surely script – the written word – must be considered an essential
medium.

8
Ferencik, Jacub “How Globalization Helped Language Define Itself”, 2017. Available on
https://medium.com/@jakubferencik/how-globalization-helped-language-define-itself-f4b068091994
9
Denise Schmandt-Besserat “The Evolution of Script”. Available on https://sites.utexas.edu/

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• Cuneiform – a system of writing first developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia. It

is considered the most significant among many cultural contributions of the Sumerians.
• Petroglyph – is an image that is carved into a rock.
• Hieroglyph – a character used in a system of pictorial writing, particularly that form used on
ancient Egyptian monuments.
• Papyrus – is a plant of abundance, primarily in the wilds of the Egyptian Delta but also
elsewhere in the Nile River valley.

III. The Printing Press10

✓ The third period of media was the printing press. It is believed that is started the
“information revolution” as it was a vital phase for the transformed markets, businesses,
nations, schools, churches, governments, armies and more. All histories of media and
globalization acknowledge the consequential role of the printing press.
✓ Before the invention of Johannes Gutenburg, a movable printing press, in the 15th
century books and scrolls were painstakingly handwritten and the accuracy was doubtful.
The printing press made the mass production of printed media possible. Prior to the
printing press, the production and copying of written documents was slow, cumbersome
and expensive.
✓ With the cheap cost of this new invention, many written materials were produced and the
transportation of these materials was easily received by wide audiences. The invention of
Gutenburg was adored and loved way back the European Renaissance and the
Protestant Reformation.

IV. Electronic Media 11

✓ Beginning in the 19 th century, a host of new media would revolutionize the on-going
processes of globalization. Scholars have come to call these ‘electronic media’ because
they require electromagnetic energy – electricity – to use. The telegraph, telephone,
radio and television are the usual media collected under electronic media. The vast
reach of these electronic media continues to open up new vistas in the economic,
political and cultural processes of globalization.
✓ Samuel F. B. Morse began work on a machine in the 1830s that eventually could
send coded messages – dot and dashes – over electrical lines. The ability to transmit
speech over distance was the next communication breakthrough like telephone
which surely contributed to connecting the world. Alexander Graham Bell is credited
with inventing the telephone in 1876.

10
Libraries “Understanding Media and Culture”. Available on
https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/1-3-the-evolution-of-media/
11
Libraries “Understanding Media and Culture”. Available on
https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/1-3-the-evolution-of-media/

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✓ Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian inventor invented the first major non-print media was
the radio. It was very popular and was adored by a lot of people for it can be used by
wide audiences at the same time.
✓ In 1924, Calvin Coolidge’s pre-election speech reached more than 20 million people.
Radio was immediately used for advertisers, especially with the access to a large
and captive audience. An early advertising consultant claimed that the early days of
radio were “a glorious opportunity for the advertising man to spread his sales
propaganda” because of “a countless audience, sympathetic, pleasure seeking,
enthusiastic, curious, interested and approachable in the privacy of their homes
(Briggs & Burke, 2005).”
✓ The creation of the cell phone in 1973 was especially crucial in the context of
globalization and media. Radio developed alongside the telegraph telephone in the
late 1890s. The technology was first conceived as a ‘wireless telegraph’. By early
1900s, speech indeed was being transmitted without wires. By the 1920s, broadcast
stations were ‘on the air’, transmitting music and news.
✓ Radio quickly became a global medium, reaching distant regions without the
construction of wires or roads. Along with the telegraph, telephone and radio/film as
a potent medium. Silent motion pictures were shown as early as the 1870s.
✓ For many people, television is considered the most powerful and pervasive medium
yet created. Though television programming existed back in the 1920s, the years
after the World War II saw the explosion in the production and penetration of
television into homes around the world.

V. Digital Media 12
✓ Digital media are most often electronic media that relies on digital codes – the long
arcane combinations of 0s and 1s that represent information. For example, the most
significant invention was the computer. The computer is the representation of digital
media. The computer comes as the latest and most significant medium to influence
globalization.
✓ The digital media is the last period of media. Its contents were digitized making it
more reliable to its audiences. The digitized contents were mostly formed of texts,
audios, videos and graphics. That means that any content from TV networks or
magazines can fall into this category.

Globalization without Media

One could only imagine what it would be like without media. Especially now, media is already
proven to be a crucial and important necessity of everyone. From entertainment industries, to
information and connections of different people across the globe, it is hard to imagine globalization
without the influence of media. Media mobilizes globalization so it can globally function around the
borderless world, the world without barriers.

12
Libraries “Understanding Media and Culture”. Available on
https://open.lib.umn.edu/mediaandculture/chapter/1-3-the-evolution-of-media/

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Global Imaginary and Global Village13

One of the most important consequences of communication media for globalization have
been through media, the people of the world came to know the world. That is, people have needed
to be able through imagine the world – and imagine themselves acting in the world for globalization
to proceed.

Manfred Steger started that media helped bring about a fundamentally rising global
imaginary the globe itself as an imagined community. Benedict Anderson claims that imagination
built up the idea of a nation and later, the global imaginary. Money is a good example. Money or
currency notes only collect value because we objectively choose to do so. This value is almost
imaginary.

“But not only is the world getting smaller it's becoming more available and more familiar to
our minds and to our emotions the world is now a global village” the global village theory by Sicily
Spica. Canadian theorist Marshall McLuhan (1960) was the first person to famously argue about the
revolutionary concept that media have connected the world in ways that created the global village.

McLuhan theory is the theory describing how the world is shrinking but expanding at the
same time because of the use of technological advances. The Olympic Games is a very great
example of how people all over the world are connected thanks to media technology. The Olympic
Games was made to commemorate and honour the Greek god Zeus. It first took place in 1986 with
280 participants with 14 nations competing for 43 competitions. In 2016, the Summer Games was
held in Rio de Janeiro which drew a record breaking audience of 3.6 billion people. The Earth’s
population was 7 billion, so in that day, almost 50% of the world was watching the events of the
Olympic Games. 14

Another very good example was the event at July 20, 1969, where at exactly 9:32 a.m. the
Apollo launched into the Earth’s orbit carrying the first man to ever walk on the moon, Neil
Armstrong. At 10:56 p.m., Neil Armstrong stepped foot on the moon and over half a billion people
were watching this mind blowing event and discovery. The global village connects each and every
person in the world through advance media and technologies, and that is one of the important
factors that keeps our world as one and united. 15

Lewis Mumford also hoped for a village-like world of community and grace but watched in
dismay as media technology has been wrongfully used for capitalism, militarism, profit and power.
He also savaged the possibility of the global village and railed against its implications.

But, as McLuhan and Mumford dreaded the dark and dystopian world media may create, it
eventually happened. It is divided into three key areas; economic, political and cultural.

1. Media and Economic Globalization

13
Steger, Manfred “The Rise of Global Imaginary and the Persistence of Ideology” Volume3 |Issue7, 2009.
Available on https://www.21global.ucsb.edu/
14
Statista Research Development “Olympic Games: TV viewership worldwide 2002-2016”. Available on
https://www.statista.com/statistics
15
CNN Editorial Research “First Moon Landing Facts”, 2020. Available on https://www.cnn.com

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The media made the economic globalization possible by building the foundations of global
capitalism and by encouraging the foundation of the world’s market economy. The media foster the
conditions of global capitalism making it seem necessary to modern life, when truly it is not.

• Oligopoly

Modern media is the epitome of economic globalization. Around the world, once small, local
and regional media companies are being bought up by a handful of huge global conglomerates or
corporations, who themselves were once small and local. These are called media oligopoly,
consolidation, concentration and governance.

According to McChesny, media oligopoly is not interested in the ideology of global village or
the evangelizing of cultural values, but only to one thing – profit. According to Adorno and
Horkheimer, “a culture industry that produced mindless entertainment, had great social, political and
economic importance. Such entertainment, they said, can distract audiences from critical thinking,
sapping time and energy from social and political action.”

• No News Today

Transnational conglomerates are much less interested than local media outlets in providing
news and information necessary for citizens. People are encouraged to think of products not politics.
They are consumers not citizens.

This type of mentality offers injustice and inequality to certain regions who are dominated by
uneducated people because of the media choosing to decline people the truth behind political and
global issues. They continue to brainwash the world that public affairs and issues are no brainers
and must be dealt with political employees only. They continue to believe that news and political
contents can upset and divide the populace, drive away viewers and displease the authorities.

Therefore, the news around the world became fluffier, softer, lighter, and less in-depth with
space and time given over to weather, sports, celebrities, sensation, recipes and other less weighty
fares. This type of media brushes away the opportunity for people to speak their voices and declines
the world the opportunity to be aware of the more important news.

2. Media and Political Globalization

Of utmost importance, through media corporations are themselves powerful political actors,
individual journalists are subject to brutal and intense intimidation as more actors contend for power.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) estimates that on close to 100 journalists
and media workers are killed in the line of duty of each year. They usually meet an unfortunate end
at war zones from car bombs. They die covering natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes and
floods. They die in drug raids. Some are targeted, hunted or marked down because of their work
responsibilities.

Some scholars suggested that new media have the potential to invigorate and transform
political life in the modern world. They feel that the new media can allow alternative voices upon
different borders. They hope that the new media will enlarge the public sphere.

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But unfortunately, new media voices can be easily coerced and silenced. It is already
common knowledge that many governments continue to purchase Internet service providers so they
can choose what news is to deliver to the people.

3. Media and Cultural Globalization

The media are the primary carriers of culture. They keep the culture moving across the
world. It generated numerous and on-going interactions among cultures. The media are people. But,
media often shapes the norms of society to Western norms which is often facilitated by the spread of
Western products and media such as the MTV. With this happening, many less dominant cultures
are easily tampered by the Westernized ones and are now on the verge of total disappearance.

Assessment
1. Discuss the relationship of media and globalization.

2. Explain how media connected the world.

3. Why is media the epitome of economic globalization?

4. How did media become the carriers of cultures?

5. Analyse the role of new media today.

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This is just a summarized and simplified version of our subject. Any

questions and clarifications will be entertained on my g-mail account
rtherrero648@gmail.com or you can message me directly in our MS Teams
chat feature. Thank you for reading!

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