As the world becomes increasingly interconnected and dependent on ever more efficient means of exchanging ideas, people, and capital (especially now in the mid of a severe pending depression/recession), many internet specialists attention is directed towards globalization.
The globalization of communications. Internet communications.
Politically, the suttle role of foreign affairs is on the increase all over the world.
Culturally, due to information and communication technologies becoming more important parts of our lives and constituting critical elements of all countries’ identity and well-being, the United Nations (disclaimer: I work there) is again tackled by the problems of global media and how to get on board.
Communication globalization is a term suddenly found in most debates on current cultural, political, and economic processes and across the United Nations. It has become a buzz word, a phrase that is starting to have a life of its own.
But, we see the term “globalization” is often used interchangeably with Americanization (whatever that is) and Westernization, adding to the confusion. Although globalization is to a large extent about expanding American cultural and political influence, particularly through the so-called soft power, the two processes are not identical.
Now the globalization of communications.
There are several aspects to this process, most of them related one way or another to communications media. For one thing, by causing enormous space-time compression, modern media have rendered both place and time obsolete. With information and capital traveling across continents in seconds, it is now possible to work from any place in the world.
When discribing ‘flow’, Csikszentmihalyi describes a specific psychological state - a particular state of mind - which arises in particular situations and settings. He happened to use the word ‘flow’ to name that state, but he might have used some other word.
We see the same today for those that have access to global communications.
Global media are increasingly accessible in the most remote places on Earth, having a significant, if yet unknown, impact on local cultures. Large media events are now uniting the globe by providing common experiences, which can change the world instantly.
Given the massive social change that globalization entails, it is no wonder it stirs heated debates and provokes protests, which, ironically, happen to be global as well. With the Internet, the world has really become a global village.
The United Nations will have to adapt - just as the people it represents has and will.
However, the vision of the global village has its limitations.
Uneven access to information is the most obvious of them. In line with the 1970s knowledge gap hypothesis, due to advances in information technologies, disparities between the rich and the poor in terms of their access to knowledge and information are growing bigger rather than smaller, both within and between nations.
A careful look at the Statistical Abstract of the United States proves only too well that billions of people and entire nations are excluded from the global village.
While the average American citizen has over 2 radios, fewer than 2 Pakistanis in 1,000 own any radio at all. While daily newspaper circulation in Germany is 593 per 1,000 people, in Japan-687, and in the United States-249, the numbers for Pakistan, China, and India are 15, 37, and 26, respectively.
The global village is clearly a Western concept and, largely, limited to the Western world.
Why? Common interplay between four elements:
- Government and the legislative institutions that control the telecoms
- Independant institutions serving national mass communication needs
- Privately owned institutions offering mass media services or Producers
- and finally, the audience or Consumers
Main media of information - and of influence - in the 21th century will focus on those with non-literate skills, for example, in e-mail, telephony, and video conferencing allow high levels of transnational interaction between people without applied literacy.
Western mass communication already focuses on non-literate qualities:
- Cinema, Video,
- Journals, Magazines, Electronic Publications, Newspapers,
- Radio
- Telecommunication
- Television
- Internet
What evolution is in the West will be revolution in the developing and emerging nations. Clearly, there is resistance but should the United Nations be an accomplice? or should it promote the (r)evolution?
Rhetorical.
Information flow is an important topic for our generation. The Internet allows for greater communication and information flow than has ever been possible before, but we must figure out how to build networks and applications that help people communicate in this medium efficiently. Especially in thise areas that suffer from low or no connectivity.
The free flow of information doesn’t mean that every piece of information is available to everyone; it means that people can share information as they like with exactly the people they would like. Therefore, privacy and enabling people to share information privately without exposing it to others is critical.
Information flow is an important issue because our ability to solve other problems is generally limited by our ability to communicate with other people and share ideas and information. The free flow of information is important because many times corporations or governments try to control this flow and that impedes good communication between people.
The Internet represents a new channel for communication. Although the world has seen
the Internet differently, as the network of networks
The Internet is a communication network made up of intertwined connections through which a number of messages travel. In this process, a website functions as a node that passes messages and determines their paths according to a selection of hyperlinks.
International information flow has been perceived as a primary topic in the study of international communication. In the “information society,” drawing the information flows among nation-states based
upon their hyperlinks may be a necessary first step in mapping the new structure of international
communication - and social dimensions
The ideas above mash to described the structure of communications flows among websites may be used to measure to examine interpersonal and interorganizational communication.
New communication networks are in the process of evolution incorporating other elements from within the existing social system.
Internet communications and social networks in the physical world may be seen as co-constructing each other, such that offline relationships can influence how online relationships are developed and established.
This has a big impact on how bottom-up communications (grassroots, civil society communications) impacts top-down (policy and largely mass social) communications.
So the question again arises - How do online communications articulate wide-ranging offline (or other online) ties? Do they really reflect social networks in the physical world?
Or do they contribute to building online relationships across offline boundaries?
Clearly, the wider the Internet’s global reach, the greater the number of regional and national preferences (or cultures). Do cultural differences influence the communications structure/approach among websites?
The effective use of ICT as a strategic communications instrument could help bring developing countries more quickly towards their development goals; the attainment of development goals was only possible if the use of online communications was highlighted in various countries’ development programmes.
There were many differences among countries in their use of ICT, and the primary task of the United Nations should be to bridge this divide.
Efforts in that regard should involve not just United Nations, but also government, development banks and programmes funded by private donors.
You may have heard about that DARPA balloon challenge, where the first team to identify the latitudes and longitudes of 10 moored weather balloons across the continental U.S. wins $40,000?
