Media and Globalisation

• globalisation

  Giddens

  says the global system is not just an environment within which particular societies develop and change - connections cross borders
• globalisation McDonalidisation

  Ritzer

  describes it as the process by which a society takes on the characteristics of a fast food restaurant

  • Efficiency : efficiency in which goods and services are delivered and produced to consumers. Consequently, production is driven by market forces and relations in a global system of production
  • Calculability : emphasis on things that can be counted and quantified, quantity rather quality becomes the measure of value
  • Predictability : emphasis on standardisation - in McDonalds the setting , food and behaviour of staff is mostly identical around the world
  • Control : careful control of people both workers and consumers, increasingly by the introduction of technology, human skills are taken from people
• globalisation

  Waters

  • exports the ideology of consumerism - e.g advertising sells an idealised Western lifestyle. inspired by a media generated culture industry around the world. we have shared popular culture
  • national boundaries are dissolving - as we increasingly learn to look at the world through global glasses , we are able to see events across the world from our homes
  • the world is becoming media saturated - we are able to experience world events simultaneously, Olympics expanded its range of events to reach a wider global audience
• globalisation global village

  McLuhan - global village

  Giddens - relatively optimistic and suggests the local can have an impact on the global village

  Dowmunt - argues there is no single, homogenised global village - in deprived countries the cost of a tv is beyond the means of average income - the process of global flow is shaped and modified by many factors
• globalisation strength of local culture

  Cohen and Kennedy

  suggest cultural pessimists underestimate the strength of local cultures - they note that people do not generally abandon their cultural traditions, religious beliefs and national identities just because they indulge into western culture
• globalisation 'Golden Arches recognised more than Christian cross'

  Schlosser

  such American domination inevitably hurts local markets as the majority of foreign industries are unable to compete with the economic strength of US industry
• Globalisation homogeneity

  Kelner

  suggests global media culture is all bout sameness and that it erases individuality, specificity and difference
• globalisation civil disengagement

  Putnam

  argues that one of the side effects of global culture organised around TV and the internet is civil disengagement where people no longer get involved with their communities - they would rather sit passively at home
• globalisation cultural flows model

  Tomlinson

  argues cultural and media influences do not solely originate from the capitalist west - a complex network of communications and media message flow in many different directions