MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION

“Could global trade have evolved without a flow of

information on markets, prices, commodities and more?”

“Could empires have stretched across the world without

communication throughout their boarders?”

“Could religion, music, poetry, film, fiction, cuisine, and

fashion develop as they have without the intermingling of
media and cultures?”
 Globalization entails the spread of various
cultures.
 Globalization also involves the spread of ideas.
 Globalization relies on media as its main
conduit for the spread of global culture and
ideas.
 There is an intimate relationship between
globalization and media which must be
unraveled to further understand the
contemporary world.
 MEDIA AND ITS FUNCTIONS
 Lule describes media as a “means of conveying
something, such as channel of communication.”
 Print media: books, magazines and
newspapers
 Broadcast media: radio, film and television
 Digital media: internet and mobile mass
communication
 Internet media: e-mail, internet sites, social
media, and internet-based video and audio.
 Marshall McLuhan once declared that “the
medium is the message.” He did not mean that
ideas (“messages”) are useless and do not
affect people.
 Rather, his statement was an attempt to draw
attention, to how media, as a form of
technology, reshape societies.
 McLuhan added that different media
simultaneously extend and amputate human
senses. (Ex. Papyrus, cellphone).
 THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AND CULTURAL
IMPERIALISM
 McLuhan declared that television was turning the world
into a “global village”
 By this, he meant that, as more and more people sat
down in front of their television sets and listened to the
same stories, their perception of the world would
contract.
 A lot of these early thinkers, assumed that global media
had a tendency to homogenize culture.
 They argued that as global media spread, people from all
over the world would begin to watch, listen to, and read
the same things.
 This thinking arose at a time when America’s power
had turned it into the world’s cultural heavyweight.
 Commentators, therefore, believed that media
globalization coupled with American hegemony
would create a form of cultural imperialism whereby
American values and culture would overwhelm all
others.
 In 1976, media critic Herbert Schiller argued that
not only was the world being Americanized, but that
this process also led to the spread of “American”
capitalist values like consumerism.
 For John Tomlinson, cultural globalization
is simply a euphemism for “western cultural
imperialism” since it promotes
“homogenized,Westernized, consumer culture.”
 CRITIQUES OF CULTURAL IMPERIALISM
 In the 1980s, media scholars began to pay attention to the
way in which audiences understood and interpreted
media messages.
 Apart from the challenge of audience studies, the cultural
imperialism thesis has been belied by the renewed
strength of regional trends in the globalization process.
 Asian culture, for example has proliferated worldwide
through the globalization of media.
 Japanese brands—from Hello Kitty to the Mario Brothers
to Pokemon—are now indelible part of global popular
culture.
 SOCIAL MEDIA AND THE CREATION OF
CYBER GHETTOES
 As with all new media, social media have both beneficial
and negative effects. On the one hand, these forms of
communication have democratized access.
 However, social media also have their dark side. In the
early 2000s, commentators began referring to the
emergence of a “splinternet” and the phenomenon of
“cyberbalkanization” to refer to the various bubbles people
place themselves in when they are online.
 Trolls—paid users who harass political opponents to
manipulate public opinion through intimidation and the
spreading of fake news.
 Fake information can spread easily on social media since
they have few content filters.
 This dark side of social media shows that even a
seemingly open and democratic media ay be co-opted
towards undemocratic means.
 Every technological change, after all, creates multiple
unintended consequences.
THE GLOBAL CITY
 WHY STUDY GLOBAL CITIES?
 Globalization is spatial.This statement means two things:
 First, globalization is spatial because it occurs in physical
spaces. You can see it when foreign investments and
capital move through a city, and when companies build
skyscrapers.
 Second, globalization is spatial because what makes it
move is the fact that it is based in places. Los Angeles, the
home of Hollywood, is where movies are made for global
consumption.
 In other words, cities act on globalization and
globalization act on cities
 In the years to come, more and more people
will experience globalization through cities.
 In 1950, only 30 percent of the world lived in
urban areas. By 2014, that number increased to
54 percent.
 And by 2050, it is expected to reach 66
percent.
 DEFINING THE GLOBAL CITY
 Sociologist Saskia Sassen popularized the term
“global city” in the 1990s.
 Her criteria for what constitutes a global city were
primarily economic.
 In her work, she initially identified three global cities:
New York, London, and Tokyo, all of which are
hubs of global finance and capitalism.
 They are the homes, for instance, of the world’s top
stock exchanges where investors buy and sell shares
in major corporation.
 Others consider some cities “global” simply because they
are great places to live in.
 In Australia, Sydney commands the greatest proportion
of capital. However, Melbourne is described as Sydney’s
rival “global city” because many magazines and lists have
now referred to it as the world’s “most livable city” –a
place with good public transportation, a thriving cultural
scene, and a relatively easy pace of life.
 Defining a global city can thus be difficult. One way of
solving this dilemma is to go beyond the simple
dichotomy of global and non-global.
 INDICATORS OF GLOBALITY
 The foremost characteristic is economic power.
 Sassen remains correct in saying economic power
largely determines which cities are global.
 Economic opportunities in a global city make it
attractive to talents across the world.
 To measure the economic competitiveness of a city,
the Economist Intelligence Unit has added other
criteria like market size, purchasing power of
citizens, size of the middle class, and potential for
growth.
 Based on these criteria, “tiny” Singapore is considered
Asia’s most competitive city because of its strong
market, efficient and incorruptible government and
livability.
 Global cities are also centers of authority.
Washington D.C. may not be as wealthy as New
York, but it is the seat of American state power.
 The cities that house major international
organizations may also be considered centers of
political influence. The headquarters of UN is in New
York, and that of European Union is in Brussels.
 Finally, global cities are centers of higher learning and
culture.
 A city’s intellectual influence is seen through the
influence of its publishing industry.
 One of the reasons for the many tourists visiting
Boston is because they want to see Harvard
University—the world’s top university.
 Education is currently Australia’s third largest export,
just behind coal and iron ore, and significantly ahead
of tourism.
 Copenhagen, aside from its small size, is now
considered one of the culinary capitals of the world
with its top restaurants incommensurate with its size.
 Today, global cities become culturally diverse.
 In a global city, one can try cuisines from different
parts of the world.
 Manila is not very global because of the dearth of
foreign residents (despite massive domestic
migration), but Singapore is, because it has foreign
population of 38%.
THE CHALLENGES OF GLOBAL CITIES
 Cities can be sustainable because of their density.
 As Richard Florida notes: “Ecologists have found that by
concentrating their populations in smaller areas, cities and
metros decrease human encroachment on natural habitats.
Denser settlement patterns yield energy savings; apartment
buildings, for example are more efficient to heat and cool than
detached suburban houses.”
 And while cities like Manila, Bangkok and Mumbai are
dense, their lack of public transportation and their
government’s inability to regulate their car industries have
made them extremely polluted.
 More importantly, because of the sheer size of city
populations across the world, it is not surprising that
urban areas consume most of the world’s energy.
 Cities only cover 2 percent of the world’s landmass,
but they consume 78 percent of global energy.
 Cities, especially those with global influence, are
obvious targets for terrorists due to their high
populations and their role as symbols of globalization
that many terrorists despised.
 THE GLOBAL CITY AND THE POOR
 We have consistently noted that economic globalization
has paved the way for massive inequality. This
phenomenon is thus very pronounced in cities.
 In places like Mumbai, Jakarta and Manila, it is common to
find gleaming buildings alongside massive shantytowns.
 In the outskirts of New York and San Francisco are poor
urban enclaves occupied by African-Americans and
immigrant families who are often denied opportunities at
a better life.
 The phenomenon of driving out the poor in favor of
newer, wealthier residents is called gentrification.
 In most of the world’s global cities, the middle
class is also thinning out.
 Globalization created high-income jobs that
are concentrated in global cities.
 A large global city may thus be a paradise for
some, but a purgatory for others.
 CONCLUSION
 Global cities are mediums of globalization.
 Through them, we see the best of globalization:
they are places that create exciting fusions of
culture and ideas.
 They are also places of tremendous wealth.
 However, they remain sites of great inequality,
where global servants serve global
entrepreneurs.