OUGD504 Lecture Notes: Globalisation, Sustainability and The Media

OUGD504
LECTURE NOTES
GLOBALISATION, 
SUSTAINABILITY
AND THE MEDIA

DEFINITIONS OF GLOBALISATION

SOCIALIST
the process of transformation of local of regional phenomena in to the global ones. it can be described as a process by which the people of the world are unified into a single society and function together. this process is a combination of economics technology, socioculture and political forces

CAPITALISM
the elimination of state enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasingly integrated and complex global 

GLOBALISATION

CULTURAL GLOBALISATION

American sociologist George Ritzer coined the term 'McDonaldization' to describe the wide ranging socioculture process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of american society as well as the rest of the world.

MARSHALL MCLUHAN

Today after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned (1964: p.3)

Rapidity of communication echoes

(1964: p.5)

Global village


JIHAD MCWORLD

CENTRIPETAL FORCES- bringing the world together in a uniform global society.
CENTRIFUGAL FORCES- tearing the world apart in tribal wars.

PROBLEMS OF GLOBALISATION

SOVEREIGNTY
Challenges the idea of the nation-state

ACCOUNTABILITY
Transnational forces and organisation: Who controls them?

IDENTITY
Who are we? Nation, group, community.

manfred B steger globalization: a very short introduction page 70


Does globalization make people around the world more alike or more different? This is the question most frequently raised in discussions on the subject of cultural globalization.A group of commentators we might call 'pessimistic hyperglobalizers' argue in favour of the former. They suggest that we are not moving towards a cultural rainbow that reflects the diversity of the world's existing cultures. Rather, we are witnessing the rise of an increasingly homogenized popular culture underwritten by a Western 'culture industry' based in New York, Hollywood, London, and Milan. As evidence for their interpretation, these commentators point to Amazonian Indians wearing Nike training shoes, denizens of the Southern Sahara purchasing Texaco baseball caps, and Palestinian

RIGGING THE FREE MARKET

Media conglomerates operate as oligopolies

US MEDIA POWER CAN BE THOUGHT AS A NEW FORM OF IMPERIALISM

Local cultures destroyed in this process and new forms of cultural depend

Big brother- western ideas sold and repackaged to different cultures all over the world. e.g. Big boss and big brother Africa.

Biggest growth industry in india is skin lighting cream, affected by images of the western ideal.

CHOMSKY AND HERMAN (1988)

MANUFACTURING CONSENT

Entire media system can be thought if as propaganda for the western way of life

5 BASIC FUNCTIONS OF THE NEWS

OWNERSHIP

Rupert Murdoch, selected media interests

• News of the world
• The Sun
• The Sunday Times
• The Times
• NY post
• BskyC
• Fox TV

The Sun has a measurable social effect, helping parties get elected.

SOURCING 

Things that are reported are only what is allowed to be reported

FUNDING

FLAK

US bases global climate coalition GCC

Al Gore an inconvenient truth