The pros and cons of globalisation. Dwell on the term “the global village”.
Summarize Hery Kissinger's article “Globalisation and its discontents”. Do you share his point of view?
The mass media and globalisation. Do you share Noam Chomsky's idea about the impact of globalisation on modern journalism and society?
Journalism in the Global Village. Globalisation versus Localisation
The role of the mass media in preventing conflicts. Do you think a good journalist is capable of preventing a conflict and should one bother to?
The role of the mass media in fueling conflicts. Give examples.
The mass media and modern society. The role of electronic and print media.
Globalisation
Globalisation, as I understand this term, is a process of making the world one system or zone, which possesses the same characteristics and has united aims. (But I would like to speak about the role of the Mass Media in this process.)
1. The pros and cons of globalisation. Dwell on the term “the global village”.
Pros: 1) global journalism/ local journalists can get news very fast from any point of the world through the Internet and transmit it. 2) it can improve the quality of life, raise living standards, and bring people together 3)rise understanding among nations around the world 4)transfer of values, resources, goods, aid, technology, ideas and the media across the world.5) g. can contribute to the eradication of poverty and backwardness 6) give people sense of community
Cons: 1) the world becomes less diverse 2)g. undermines cultural and national identities 3) value of the Internet grows: less subscriptions 4) possible extension of capitalism, corporate power and American or western influence. 5) universalizing of values 6)cultural pillage
Global village:
Global Village is a term closely associated with Marshall McLuhan, popularized in his books The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (1962) and Understanding Media (1964). McLuhan described how the globe has been contracted into a village by electric technology. Today, the term "Global Village" is mostly used as a metaphor to describe the Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people, and therefore social spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can search for online communities and interact with others that share the same interests and concerns. Therefore, this technology fosters the idea of a conglomerate yet unified global community. Due to the enhanced speed of communication online and the ability of people to read about, spread, and react to global news very rapidly, McLuhan says this forces us to become more involved with one another from countries around the world and be more aware of our global responsibilities. Similarly, web-connected computers enable people to link their web sites together. This new reality has implications for forming new sociological structures within the context of culture. The universalizing of values, such as democracy, and a greater access to ideas, values and even material goods are the foundations of life in the global village.
3. Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky is a prolific writer and theoretician on the media and its subversive tactics. He claims, that the process of globalisation means huge increases in advertising, narrower concentration of reliable sources. He also thinks that the process of globalisation is natural, as contemporary society is developing in a great speed. Besides he speaks about the primary function of the media: selling audiences to advertisers. But I can’t agree with this statement. Of course all kinds of mass media make money when an advertiser pays them, but that is not their primary function.
In times of globalisation the role of the Mass Media rises greatly. A lot of things depend primarily on their position, impartiality, and faithful representation of passing events. It is a well-known fact that people would rather trust newspapers, TV or radio than the government, as they used to cover events properly, accurately and promptly. So, from long ago, the meaning of the Fourth Estate for the society has been valuable and important.
But now, when it comes to globalisation, all the sources of information for people are going to be united, the ones with or without censorship, and this fact can make people really anxious. Now the reader or the viewer can get great diversity of newspapers/magazines to read or channels/programmes to watch, and I suppose that this diversity will decline. Besides, we have another source of information, the most popular now, the Internet. Vast spectrum of opinions and statements is presented there, but how can we decide, whether we should trust in them or not? Although the state of the internet journalism is not defined yet, crowds of people, especially young ones, are already addicted to this source of information and entertainment. And contemporary society is setting a stamp (наложить отпечаток) upon all this kinds of information distribution.
There even is such term as “global reporting”, that means that journalists from any point of the world can transmit news to the other end of the planet, explain some political, economical and social problems of any country to other nations immediately. But again, such “global” news can be produced by anyone and from anywhere.
To sum up, what tendency can we see now? Few people subscribe to newspapers or any editions in general, they turn on the radio while standing in traffic jams as a forced deed (вынужденная мера), they only look through some Internet pages and believe nearly everything they find. Globalisation has changed the ways in which foreign correspondents work and the nature of international news. There is an opinion, that globalisation has crushed journalism, but is that all? Should we struggle or just let it go?