2. Learning Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the student should be able to:
1. Discuss the concept of globalization and international
communication;
2. Relate globalization to international communication; and
3. Discuss the contradictions and directions of international
communication from the views of globalization
3. What is Globalization?
It is the system of interaction among the countries of the world in
order to develop the global economy.
• It refers to the integration of economics and socities around
the world.
• It involves technological, economic, political, and cultural
exchanges made possible largely by advances in
communication, transportation and infrastructure.
• Globalization makes the world more accessible to all people.
4. Globalization of Communication
As McLuhan predicted in his famous presentation “the
global village”, time and space are being reduced with the
help of the new means of information and communication.
“The evolution of the means of communication has reduced
the importance of the physical presence in the favor of the
way we live the experience of the people and events [...] as a
result, the place you are in is less important than what you
know or live.”
5. Globalization of Communication
The globalization of communication implies the freedom of
movement of ideas, information, images, and reporters.
The 21st century citizens are collectively live in what has come
to be known as a globalizing world, what can be characterized as
“the process of the world becoming a single place” (Scholte,
1996, p. 43). Importantly, these processes of globalization are
fundamentally altering the nature of human civilization and
shaping the future of life for all living beings on this planet.
Unfortunately, as Anthony Giddens (1994) has said, the notion
of globalization is “much bandied about but as yet only poorly
understood” (p. 4).
6. Globalization of Communication
Globalization is a process that influences and is
influenced by many aspects of contemporary life,
including the economy, international relations, society,
politics, and religion. Communication is also an integral
part of these globalization processes.
7. Globalization of Communication
In a globalized planet, the study of International
communication examines how information is exchanged
across geographical and social divides, as well as how
communication both impacts and is influenced by culture,
politics, media, economies, health, and relationships in the
age of globalization.
8. Globalization
Several scholars, including Anthony Giddens, David Harvey, Roland
Robertson, Emanuel Wallerstein, and Malcom Waters, have developed
theories of globalization.
1. Time and space compression. To be human is to recognize our place
in the world in terms of time and space. Physical, social, and
communicative events we experience are almost always situated in time
relative to themselves and to each other in terms of sequentiality,
simultaneity, and synchronicity. Sequentiality refers to a succession of
events over time, simultaneity refers to two or more events that occur at
the same moment, and synchronicity refers to two or more events that
unfold together (Monge & Kalman, 1996)
9. Globalization
The process of time-space compression began in the 18th
century with the invention of the mechanical clock and
continued into the 19th century with the development of
global time zones (Beniger, 1986). It has accelerated over
the past century as different forms of transportation have
enabled people to move across the globe at ever-faster
rates of speed. Likewise, time-space compression increased
with successive communication inventions, which
facilitated the development of what has become
instantaneous communication at a distance.
10. Globalization
However, Scholte (1996) argued that, globality introduces
a new quality of social space, one that is effectively non-
territorial and distance-less. . . . Global relations are not
links at a distance across territory but circumstances
without distance and relatively disconnected from
particular locations. Globalization has made the
identification of boundaries—and associated notions of
“here” and “there,” “far” and “near,” “outside” and
“inside,” “home” and “away,” “them” and “us” – more
problematic than ever. (pp. 48–49)
11. Globalization
2. Global consciousness and reflexivity.
Global consciousness refers to “the scope and depth of
consciousness of the world as a single place” (Robertson,
1992; 2012). This implies that in “an increasingly globalized
world there is a heightening of civilizational, societal,
ethnic, regional, and indeed individual, self-consciousness”
(Robertson, 1992, p. 27).
12. Globalization
Reflexivity represents the idea that “knowledge spirals in
and out of the universe of social life, reconstructing both
itself and that universe as an integral part of that process”
(Giddens, 1990, pp. 15–16). Reflexivity comes about
because “social practices are constantly examined and
reexamined in the light of incoming information about
those very practices, thus constitutively altering their
character” (Giddens, 1990, p. 38).
13. Globalization
3. Disembeddedness.
It is dentified as the “lifting out” of human interactions from
local contexts and restructuring them across time and space
(Giddens, 1990, 2010 p. 21). This process of freeing human
interaction from its local contexts is important because it
provides the foundation for reconnecting them to others at a
distance. This restructuring creates radically different sets of
connections and thereby opens up the possibility of new
forms of groups, organizations, society, and the entire world
system (Wallerstein, 1974, 1990).
14. Globalization
Giddens (1990) identified two disembedding mechanisms:
a. The first is symbolic tokens, which “media of interchange which
can be passed around” (Giddens, 1990, p. 22) and, therefore, used to
connect people across large distances. Historically, money was
viewed as a token because it provided the basis for exchange across
time and space. Today, money is essentially information, and,
consequently, it is treated as a symbol that can be transmitted
instantaneously virtually anywhere in the world.
15. Globalization
b. The second disembedding mechanism is the expert systems.
Expert systems consist of people with specialized knowledge and
special expertise in the use of knowledge repositories and
knowledge networks that can be used to distribute knowledge
worldwide. These are often used to solve specific problems that lie
beyond the purview of any single individual. Distributed knowledge
may refer to the flow or diffusion of information that increases the
level of knowledge among all people.
16. International Communication
Waters (2005), however, suggested that communication and symbolic
processes play an even more important role. He observed that these
dynamics of globalization typically have been manifest in three central
arenas of human activity: the economy, the polity, and culture.
Traditionally, experts have viewed economics and international relations as
the primary areas in which these globalization processes occur, a view that
Waters argued is wrong. Each of these areas, he contended, contains a
unique form of exchange. The economy is comprised primarily of material
exchanges; the political consists of exchanges of power, authority, and
legitimacy; and culture is formed largely out of symbolic exchanges.
17. International Communication
Waters observed that economic exchanges “tend to tie social
relationships to localities,” that “political exchanges tend to tie
relationships to extended territories,” but “symbolic exchanges
liberate relationships from spatial referents” (p. 9).
These observations lead to three interrelated and interesting
theoretical claims:
a. material exchanges localize,
b. political exchanges internationalize,
c. and symbolic exchanges globalize
18. Contradictions and Directions
As Giddens (2004) said, “Globalizing influences are fracturing as well as
unifying, create new forms of stratification, and often produce
opposing consequences in different regions or localities” (p. 81).
Likewise, it is important not to view globalization as a universalizing
process.
As Robertson (1992) observed, “we are, in the 21st century, witnesses
to—and participants in—a massive, two-fold process involving the
interpenetration of the universalization of particularism and the
particularization of universalization” (p. 100). Further, “Globalism does
not necessarily imply homogenization or integration.
19. Contradictions and Directions
Globalization merely implies greater connectedness and de-
territorialization” (Waters, 1995, p. 136).
Equally important, there are ethical, moral, and practical
implications to globalization that require extensive deliberation
and careful studies.
![Globalization of Communication
As McLuhan predicted in his famous presentation “the
global village”, time and space are being reduced with the
help of the new means of information and communication.
“The evolution of the means of communication has reduced
the importance of the physical presence in the favor of the
way we live the experience of the people and events [...] as a
result, the place you are in is less important than what you
know or live.”](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/module-3-international-communication-and-globalization-250715045936-7650f90e/85/MODULE-3-INTERNATIONAL-COMMUNICATION-AND-GLOBALIZATION-pptx-4-320.jpg)
