Globalisation has had a massive impact on people in both positive and negative ways. Either way it has greatly influenced lives.
Every day we (in the UK) use various types of technology; from mobile phones, television, mp3 players, play station and video games to internet resources such as Skype, bringing everyone together.
Philosopher Marshall McLuhan studied the idea of technology evolving and the new 'mediums' in the world being ‘the message’, hence his famous phrase, 'the medium is the message', he took this concept and joined it with the idea of globalization, together creating yet another famous phrase, the ‘global village’, this is based on the idea that technological globalization has taken place, that countries have technology in common.
Globalisation plays on the idea that it is not only one country that is privileged to have such advanced means of communication, nor is it only internationally that people have media technology, but globally.
The word ‘village’ is used due to the fact that a village itself is a closely integrated community rather than looking at size in terms of numbers of people. This explains what the entire world has become in McLuhan’s eyes thanks to the development of electronic machinery.
The ever changing world that we live in is constantly being updated and upgraded, especially in terms of technology. Society today compared to 100 years ago has developed immensely. The huge leap in knowledge and equipment from the 19th to the 20th Century has enabled people in the world to become more integrated; the world has come a long way.
One way to look at the growth in technology is by seeing the world as getting smaller, as everything is now at our fingertips; all it takes is a simple push of a button. Multi use technology has captured today’s society, particularly young people. The release of the Blackberry and iPhone is a perfect example.
It may be seen that we are living in a Global Village today as we live in such an advanced world where there are several types of machinery for different things, whether it is for communication, education, politics and even entertainment, all these relate to media technology. This supports Marshall McLuhan’s idea of a global village as he claimed the world to be interconnected through means of communication. The fact that there are now so many ways to communicate completely backs this up.
Considering the enormous amount and variety of media technologies that are in the world today and with such easy access the term ‘global village’ seems to be very accurate as when the term is looked at broken down, it is clear that people all over the world are now as one large society as we are binded together thorough new inventions of communication which are forever evolving.
Although there are many good points on the side of technology development, there are also many bad points, these include;
A divide in generation- the older generation may feel left out or excluded from the world of technology due to the fact that it is new to them, they don’t know how to use it. The same goes for less economically developed countries where technology isn’t even accessible to them.
Some people don’t have the funds or equipment to get to all the new technology in the world, causing yet another divide. This then leads to people to aspire to new things; not to save money to obtain a better house, not to educate themselves but instead to go straight into work where they can get money fast in order to buy these forever updating technologies.
Some people, mostly in less economically developed countries try to obtain wealth but go the wrong way about it. ie. Getting a phone or computer, when money should be saved or invested in something more long term or even the basic necessities in life. They lose track of things that are actually important.
“The development and spread of digital media across the world has culminated in the centrality of these media in the social, political and economic activities of people and organizations in many countries, especially in the developed world…” Creeber et al.: Understanding Media.
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