Talking about globalization is certainly a common place nowadays. Everybody uses that word, from scholars to marketers, from politicians to journalists. It has a popular appeal because it seems to imply certain understanding of the complexities of contemporary interconnected world. However, globalization is a concept that does not have a clear definition and can be interpreted in different ways. In a certain sense is a sort of empty balloon that can be filled with many things including cultures, economies, religions, politics, and technologies. I think that the best way to make sense of it is by understanding globalization as the latest stage of a longer process: the history of human beings organization on earth and the use of technologies of transportation and communication for economical, cultural, and political purposes.
In order to understand the societies, economy, and culture that are part of such process, communication scientists, sociologists and humanists have approached to the concept of globalization in different ways. Some of them have approached globalization, even without mentioning the term, from a perspective that acknowledges the interconnections between nation-states and takes account of the multiple forces that are participating in the process. Other scholars have blatantly ignored the complexity of the multidirectional forces that shape the phenomenon and have approached globalization (they do not mention word) from a simplistic perspective that is based on the modernization and development paradigm.
In one of the most interesting conceptualizations of globalization, Appadurai (1990) claims the existence of a global economy and a global cultural flow in a complex world that is characterized by deterritorialization and disjunture. On the one hand, deterritorialization alludes to the constant movement of money, commodities, technology, information, and people across different countries. On the other, disjuncture refers to the “non-isomorphic paths”(301) of circulation and movement, and to the collapse of the unity between economy, cultures, and politics. For understanding such globalized and descentralized world, he proposes to explore the disjunctures with a framework of five -scapes: ethnoscapes, mediascapes; technoscapes; finanscapes; and ideoscapes. These -scapes are the building blocks of the “imagined worlds” that the people and the groups who experience the globalization process construct in their minds.
In contrast to Appadurai, Sparks (2007) understands the process of globalization as the expansion and historical development of capitalism. As a matter of fact, Sparks does not even use the word “globalization” because he thinks is a misleading term and wrong paradigm for understanding the contemporary stage of capitalism. For him, the claims of deterritorialized and disjunctured order are useless because the world is currently ongoing an imperialist phase of capitalism development in which the cultural, economical and political power is still concentrated in the richest nations (especially the U.S). In this sense, although Sparks recognizes the interconnection between countries, he understands it as an imperialist stage in which capitalism, with all its inequalities and exploitations, continues ruling the world.
Globalization could also be interpreted as a universal process in which freedom and humanity are the only important things to consider. That seems to be the case that Freire (1983) makes when he argues for the transformation of a dehumanized reality into a humanized one. Without mentioning the term “globalization,” Freire recognizes the oppressed conditions of the people living around the world and calls for a historical task of liberation. For him, the unjust order needs to be transformed by a systematic pedagogy based in reflective participation and pedagogical action. No matter in which country the human beings are, they have to be liberated through a process of conscientization and action. Liberation of humanity, in this historical sense, is a global task.
Beltran (1976) also avoids mentioning “globalization.” However, in his analysis of communication research in Latin America, he recognizes the interconnection between countries, and the overwhelming domination of the U.S in the hemispheric region. Being conscious about the role of communication research in shaping society, culture, and economy, he claims for an original Latin American approach for understanding communication processes in the region. Beltran knows the persuasion model of U.S communication research and does not trust the U.S communication interests in Latin America (the domination of U.S cultural industries in the region is not difficult to notice). By doing claiming for an autonomous regional communication research he recognizes the existence of multiple forces that can shape the globalization process.
In contrast to the understanding of globalization as complex phenomenon, communication and social scientists from the development paradigm have approached to the phenomenon from a quite simplistic approach. For Lerner (1952) and Schramm (1964), traditional societies need to become modern and catch up with the Western industrialized societies. For achieving this task, they emphasize the role of mass media for instilling desires, creating aspirations, and at the end changing traditional societies. In this sense, it can be argued that for them, globalization is a one-direction process with a historical end: be modern.
References
Appadurai, A. (1990). Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy. In Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity. Newbury Park: Sage, 295-310.
Beltran, L. (1976). Alien premises, objects and methods in Latin American communication research. In Rogers, E. (Ed.), Communication and development: Critical perspectives (Sage Contemporary Social Science Issues, Vol. 32). Beverly Hills: Sage, 15-42.
Canclini, N. (1988). Culture and power: the state of research. Media, Culture and Society, 10, 467-497.
Featherstone, M. (Ed.). (1990). Global culture: Nationalism, globalization and modernity. Newbury Park: Sage, 1-14.
Freire, P. (1983). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum, 27-56.
Raboy, M. (2001). Communication policy and globalization as a social project. In Miller, T. (Ed.), Global Hollywood. London: British Film Institute, pp. 293-310
Sparks, C. (2007) What’s wrong with globalization? Global Media and Communication, 3 (2), 133-155.
Schiller, H. (1991). Not yet the post-imperialism era. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 8, 13-28.
