globalization and social media essay

Social Media and Globalization: Positive and Negative Effects Essay

Introduction, social media: a brief history, positive and negative effects of social media in globalization, recommendations, reference list.

Globalization is the metamorphosis of the world from a vast unexplored space to a fairly big village where everyone seems to be connected. It refers to the integration and connection of the world in many areas, including technology, information, culture, business (Jan 2009, p. 66; Stevenson 1999, p. 40).

It is the delocalization of space and time, enabling real-time communication between persons who are thousands of miles apart from one another (Chan 1994, p. 76). It connects and unites the world (Robertson 1992, p.112). Advances in communication and transportation have facilitated globalization.

Economies and culture across the world are now collectively linked by new trends in communication (Robertson 1992, p. 112). But, globalization can be like a double-edged sword; with certain populous cultures exerting strong influences on the global community and vice versa (Flew 2007, p.86).

Globalization of media facilitates the sharing of home grown content with a worldwide audience via various media organizations (Liebes &Katz 1990, p. 106). Media globalization influences different cultures through propagation of information. This is because many media organizations control economic and social resources giving them considerable influence over global culture (Curran 2002, p. 218).

This paper will analyse and discuss the issues relating to globalization and its impact on social media. It will look at the advantages and disadvantages of globalization and the response of social media to the global phenomena.

Social media are sites on the internet that are used to share multimedia information, data, discussions and personal interactions (Traber, 1986, p. 84).

Individuals and groups create and share content on these sites where they can also have personal conversations. Social media takes many forms, including blogs, forums, message boards, social networks, virtual worlds, digital storyboards, social bookmarks, video, data and content-sharing sites, to name a few (Kim et al 2011, p. 368). There are many social networking sites, the most popular among which are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Wetpaint (Kim et al 2011, p. 370).

Social media can be loosely defined as a platform bringing together people from different backgrounds who share a common interest for the purpose of discussing issues of interest. It is where technology meets the social needs of people, since human beings are social beings.

Social media can be traced back to the late 1960s. CompuServe was all the rage then; it used dial-up technology to establish connections to a network (Boyd 2007, p. 226). After delivery of the first email in 1971, two computer enthusiasts invented the first platform for a virtual community.

It was known as the bulletin board system (BBS) (Traber 1986, p. 84). The purpose of BBS was to alert friends about meetings, make announcements and post information (Boyd 2007, p. 218). In 1993, CERN, a nuclear research organization in Switzerland, donated the World Wide Web technology to the world and in the same year, Mosaic, the first graphical server, was launched. Mosaic’s launch gave rise to web pages and changed the internet scene (Curtis 2011, p. 62).

Geocities was launched in 1994 and it enabled users to create their own websites modelled after urban areas. The web hit the millionth-site mark in 1997 and in the same year, blogging and online chatting began (Curtis 2011, p. 62). Google opened shop in 1998 as an internet search engine and index. Wikipedia, the world’s largest wiki was started in 2001 as an online encyclopaedia (Kim et al 2011, p. 368).

Social networking websites have mushroomed in recent years, with the emergence of MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, digg and YouTube, among others. By 2011, social media was accessible from almost everywhere and social media business was increasing. The development of multimedia-capable mobile devices enabled more people from around the world to access social media from anywhere at any time (Curtis 2011, p. 62).

Advances in social media have brought about massive changes in business, education, politics, entertainment, employment and human interaction (Giddens 1990, p.174). It is now possible to study, work, watch programs, listen to music, vote and follow the latest news without having to leave one’s home.

Actually, one does not need to be tied down to a home in the traditional sense since technology has occasioned virtual homes. With the advent of social media, the world has been transformed into a huge village where news items from a seemingly insignificant corner of the globe can be spread across the planet in just a few clicks and seconds.

This paper sets out to expound on the many positive and negative impacts of the globalization of social media.

The massive number of ideas that people share through such platforms as Twitter and Facebook has noticeably influenced a change in lifestyles, preferences, political ideologies and academic achievements, both for the positive and negative.

Product sales

Social media is now an instrumental tool in the success of a business today. Social media inventions have increased business sales due to their far reaching effects on the global market. According to different surveys, social media is responsible for attracting customers on a global scale and increasing business worth, among other positive factors (Bellamkonda 2012, par. 2 ).

Social media as a business

A recent trend of note is the formation of companies that are run using the internet. As an illustration, the social media phenomenon, Facebook, has transformed from a social network to a public corporation, with its Initial Public Offering doing very well in the first few days of trading.

Marketing methods

Social media as a marketing tool is almost unrivalled because of its ability to reach a universal audience at a click of a button. Users share information about a product with friends. It is an ideal tool in this regard, since it is not only effective, but cheap and easy to use. On the flip side, this also means that negative information about a product or company will spread with the same speed and efficacy reducing sales.

Non-adoption

Those businesses that are keen about the use of social media to augment their business operations have been successful. However, those that do not adopt such tools or cannot successfully use them have not been as successful. This is especially true for small businesses where those organizations that cannot afford to advertise on social media platforms become less competitive and lose potential customers to those effectively using social media.

Foreign investment

The connectivity that globalization of social media has accomplished has become a conduit for the dissemination of information. Such sharing has presented opportunities that have hitherto been unavailable to individuals (Curran 2002, p. 218).

These opportunities have empowered many communities through the availability of employment opportunities and the improved infrastructure, especially in developing countries where multinational corporations have relocated their operations in a bid to maximize their profits by taking advantage of the cheap available labour and the low costs of doing business.

With the main base of operations still situated in the mother country, communication with the operations in foreign lands is maintained using many forms of media, including social media.

Job seekers

Globalization of social media has become a significant factor in networking for those seeking jobs and has opened opportunities for employers to outsource their work, providing employment opportunities to those who may be disadvantaged geographically.

As well, search for work using traditional means in today’s market is an elusive venture, as most firms, realizing the advantages of social media, now recruit employees online. And, while social networking provides a great way to network, make friends and share information, some information that people reveal about themselves on social networking sites is very personal.

The privacy terms provided by use licences may dispel their fears, but care should be taken when posting information that may not be welcome by all since some practices by employers have raised ethical concerns about job recruitment through social media sites.

These concerns include racism, gender discrimination, sexual discrimination and religious intolerance based on information found during or after the hiring process. What employers forget is that employment laws still apply in the context of social media just as they apply to any other method used for recruitment (Jan 2009, p. 67).

Literacy and artistic talent

Social media can be used to improve literacy and fine-tune artistic talents through the features available on social networking sites that enable quick and easy upload of self-made multimedia productions and materials.

Skill building

Social media sites are filled with new advancements that are user friendly. When students spend a lot of time on social networking sites, they become tech savvy and the skills they learn from these sites will benefit them in their future endeavours.

Study methods. The rate at which students gather and share information on social sites improves their productivity and instils team-building spirit within them. However, too much time spent on social networking sites can result in the development of poor face-to-face interpersonal skills and low self-esteem (Kim et al 2011, p. 370). Face-to-face communication assists a student to develop the use of body language and other non-verbal cues to communicate effectively. Students who lack these skills will have less confidence in themselves.

In addition, student study time is consumed by browsing social sites to chat with friends and update their pages due to the ease with which these sites are accessed and the availability of technology. Social media has also been accused of encouraging moral decadence because children can easily access pornographic sites and other uncensored materials and may try to ape what they see.

Student research

One major area in which social media has made a negative impact is academia. Students resort to regurgitation of information that is easily accessed through Facebook, Twitter, blogs and other forums without taking time to establish the veracity and authenticity of their sources (Jones 1995, p. 66).

The ability to research and retain information is compromised as students come to rely on copying and pasting information. This also encourages plagiarism, a form of academic cheating (Jones 1995, p. 66).

Social media has been used for political gossip, conversations, debates and analyses, especially during election periods. Political activists and analysts have paid keen attention to these hotspots of political innuendo, especially during crises. In effort to make the incumbent look bad the analysts have tended to exaggerate situations for political expediency.

On a positive note, social media has been used by some politicians as platforms for launching their campaigns and as tools for wooing voters as well as instruments for gauging political strength. For instance, in 2008, Barrack Obama embraced social media as a tool to source funds and as a strategic instrument for wooing young American voters (Curtis 2011, p. 64).

Social media have been used by politicians to strengthen and reinforce the political beliefs of their fans and supporters. This make their campaigns very effective compared to mass media. This is because it is easy to narrow down to the targeted audience for maximum impact. A case that clearly demonstrates the impact of globalization of social media is the Arab spring revolutions that erupted across the Middle East and North Africa (Bellamkonda 2012, par 2).

During the Egyptian revolution, after the government shut down all non-government broadcasting stations, communication was facilitated by social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, among others. Social media provided a means by which aggrieved Egyptians could voice their disappointment and to show the world the atrocities committed against them by the Mubarak regime.

Despite the positive impact that social media has had in the area of politics to keep the populace informed, it has also been an effective tool used to end dictatorial regimes.

One of biggest impacts that the globalization of social media has had is in connection with mass media. In the past, the collection and distribution of information was solely in the hands of mainstream media. With the rise of social media, this domination of information by mass media has been on the decline (Curran 2002, p. 218).

Domination of information is the propagation of ideology through media. The domination of information by mass media can be likened to the domination of knowledge in the dark ages, when the ruling elite controlled all access to books and education at the expense of masses of illiterate peasants (Curran 2002, p. 222).

From a philosophical perspective, mass media ensured that theirs’ was the dominant ideology. Ideology lasts as long as the interests of the dominant are satisfied. It is the ideas of the prevailing class that are entrenched into the social order (Curran 2002, p. 218).

Mass media has had a cunning way of presenting relevant information so that it is generally accepted by the public. In addition, the information distributed by mass media is intended to suit the vested interests of the elite few. Since the emergence of social media, the marginalized populace has managed to liberate itself from the onslaught of misinformation propagated by mass media (Boyd 2007, p. 218).

In fact, globalization of social media has given the masses a medium for voicing their protests against the domination of the ruling class. At the same time, social media has provided a common, unrestricted platform where both the elite and the subordinate class can freely interact, thus removing the barriers of class and status (Ellison 2007, p.1150).

Humanitarian crises

Social media is an essential tool for observers of humanitarian crises as it provides an unedited view of the situation. Although the benefits of social media cannot be definitively measured, its contributions cannot go unnoticed (Boyd 2007, p. 214). Globalization of social media has brought positive changes in the response to humanitarian crises worldwide. It is now possible to receive first hand communication from afflicted regions.

Social media also provides raw unadulterated footage of the situation on the ground (Ellison, 2007, p.1144). It provides a constructive platform for volunteers to contribute to rescue efforts. Social media can also provide nominal advantages to citizens in times of war by facilitating communication when communication lines have been damaged (Chen 2011, p. 5). Social media has proved to be an effective medium for getting assistance to those facing humanitarian crises.

Cultural influence

Just as globalization facilitates social media, social media facilitates cross-cultural interaction. Culture is influenced through contact with other cultures (Allwood 2000, p. 9). In this regard, social media cannot be discussed independently of other forms of media like mass media. In the same way that mass media has a strong influence on global culture, social media also does, and it may be more effective since information transferred by social media is transmitted practically in real time and is first hand.

Until now, people have been forced to operate on two planes: the local and the global. There is a need to encourage healthy cross-cultural interactions through social media without compromising self-identity that can only be established through one’s local culture (Croucher 2011, p. 259).

The interaction platform offered by social media is a breeding ground for cross-fertilization of cultures. Each culture picks what it considers good from other cultures. This has had positive effects on democracy and human rights, where the international community has advocated for universalism.

However, there have been some negative effects in countries like China, which struggles to protect its national culture from what it considers to be the bad influence of the global community (Zhang 2006, p. 113).

When the negative effects of interacting at the global level through social media are felt at the municipal, familial and individual level, the effect has always been that global culture has eroded the culture of the person involved (Kim et al 2011, p. 364). However, influence works both ways and other cultures can influence the global culture (Hall 1976, p. 14).

Personal dialogue

Globalization and technology have met in social media to render time and space irrelevant and ensure that people of different parts of the world can meet and discuss the most intimate issues (Morris 2002, p. 283). Consequently, the security of the individual has been compromised when personal information is given to a total stranger; an action that may have disastrous results, as has been illustrated above.

Social connection

While social media provides many ways to virtually connect with the world, it ironically has the effect of eroding the social skills of an individual who begins to rely on it exclusively. When one spends the majority of time with virtual friends, there is the risk of losing the skills to interact with friends and family in the community (Englehardt 2001, p. 205).

Terrorism and crime

Social media has been used to advance the activity of international crimes and global terrorism. Through these sites, the masterminds of terrorist attacks have been able to easily influence individuals of impressionable minds to join their groups and do their bidding. This has affected the security of individuals, forcing governments back to the drawing board to strategize how to provide security in the modern world (Ellison 2007, p. 1149).

Legal issues

Legal challenges also arise from the use of materials that are shared online through the social sites. Data protection, intellectual property infringement and defamation are legal issues that challenge social media platform owners. Due to its virtual nature, it is easy for users to ignore relevant laws, assuming they do not.

The virtual nature of social media gives a false sense of security, which is not the reality (Jones 1995, p. 68). This trend is encouraged since laws relating to social media are developing slowly compared with the pace of technological development and growth of social media.

Another challenge is controlling the content of social media. What one culture considers offensive and inappropriate could be acceptable to another; or what the global culture finds very interesting might make an individual uncomfortable (White 1980, p. 3). The advent of mobile phones makes the situation more challenging, because while it is possible to control computer networks, it is virtually impossible to control transmission by mobile phones.

Computer and data security

Finally, threats of malware, worms and phishing are real and cannot be under-rated. Social media users need to appreciate the dangers involved with sharing personal information in these platforms. They must first address privacy and security concerns before opening up to their virtual friends.

As has been demonstrated, social media has permeated many aspects of life. For one to maximize the benefits of social media on the global plane, participation in social media workshops is critical, as is attending seminars that offer training on security, networking strategies and how to increase visibility globally.

This paper has reviewed the effects of globalization on social media. It has also highlighted the impact that social media has on different aspects of daily life, including politics, economics, culture, moral values, lifestyle, employment and communication.

The paper has established that there are both positive and negative effects of globalization on social media, presenting a variety of challenges for us all.

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Globalization in Media: Pros and Cons

Globalization has a great impact on the world transforming social, political, cultural, and economic spheres of life. Innovations in transportation have been complemented by the swift development of communication technologies. The 20th-century arrival of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines, film, and television further enhanced a growing consciousness of a rapidly shrinking world. Globalization transforms the economic system of the world bringing new opportunities to less developed countries; it changes cultural and political spheres popularizing democratic values and principles and promulgating the western style of life. Globalization in the media sphere is influenced by changes in political and cultural spheres bringing new economic opportunities and financial capitals to media giants. These needs lead to digitalization, consolidation, and deregulation of the media environment around the globe.

Far-reaching changes are occurring in the social, economic, and political environments, affecting the strategies, structure, and management of media business. The notion of strategic alliances in media incorporates the need for considering the current economic context affecting the firm. Media companies use strategic alliances as one of the main tactics to compete in the global media market. Need to collaborate caused by changes occurring in the social, economic, and political environments. Strategic alliances allow media companies like AOL to meet new economic and legal challenges (MacGillivray 43). Increased use of public transportation systems may reduce the audiences of in-car radio and outdoor advertising. Media companies are interested in reaching the large percentage of the population that is English and Spanish speaking will need to develop new strategies (Emling 1). This factor could be interpreted as a strength but the globalization process and changing international relations show that cultural and social values become opportunities rather than strategies for global steel companies. A solid understanding of cultural preferences is important for any company that markets such products internationally. Media companies leverage superior cultural understanding to compete effectively with large foreign firms. It is possible to say that it has an advantage drawing from tradition. In recent years many people are concern about their health and the quality of water they use. The industry structure and market position of media companies suggest that the threat of entry is low (Osterhammel and Petersson 65).

Consolidation in the media industry is a direct result of new economic and cultural relations. The economic environment in America and Europe is very favorable creating enormous opportunities to increase sales and profitability. National and regional economic health and growth have become increasingly dependent upon export sales as an engine of growth and as a source of the foreign exchange necessary for the import of goods and services. In the media sector, collaborations and strategic alliances allow companies to effectively compete in today’s turbulent business environment. The future of Time Warner Inc lies in its ability to stand fast against foreign competition and to develop the goods and services that will be in demand in the twenty-first century (Osterhammel and Petersson 65). Emerging from great difficulties and embarking on an ambitious program to create products that will revolutionize entire industries, Time Warner Inc wastes no time in taking the steps necessary to seize its future. The strategy at Time Warner Inc was to develop known technologies into viable commercial products that could deliver value to customers. Thus Time Warner Inc was prepared to commence work on a project that would enhance its competitive advantage by establishing it as an industry leader in an emerging field. To be successful given this new set of ground rules, a new way of thinking must be instilled among all levels of management (Time Warner Inc Home Page 2007). This is no longer a luxury, but a necessity born out of a historically dismal track record. With each failure, the UK media sector becomes increasingly indebted and unable to compete against foreign companies. The executive must be able to create a dynamic management structure with an equal distribution of authority capable of responding to the unique requirements of combined business cultures. A shift from short- to long-term thinking when developing and implementing acquisition strategies is necessary to ensure that strategies are properly implemented before they are abandoned. This requires calculated risk-taking and, most importantly, streamlined channels of communication. The underlying argument presented is that there are significant opportunity costs associated with restructuring (Picard, 61).

Digitalization of media is caused by new technology and the availability of technological innovations in all countries. The attractiveness or the presumed merits of digitalization activity is the assumption that a given technology will enhance the growth potential of the company. Preferably, the goal is to acquire digital technology a complementary business unit with related lines of markets and products that would fit nicely into the firm’s long-term strategic direction, improving the acquiring firm’s overall growth potential and marketability (Osterhammel and Petersson 60). The selection of which company would fit best in the current corporate culture is based on many factors, and it varies from firm to firm. In fact, even firms competing within the same industry segment might have very different acquisition strategies. Media gains sustainable competitive advantage by conceiving new ways of conducting activities, employing new procedures, technologies, inputs, or channels of distribution. Managing the organization is therefore not just about managing functions, but managing linkages between those functions (Picard, 74; Time Warner Inc Home Page 2007).

Deregulation in the media industry is a result of global economic and political changes and weaknesses of international laws. For a modern state, it is difficult to control multinational media corporations and their financial flows. In order to compete in the global market and remain competitive, a media firm may choose to sell off a business unit in order to purge those divisions that exhibit either low growth potential or low relative market shares. As with the case of an acquisition, the desire is to improve the growth potential of a firm and thus its survival in the marketplace. A business unit exhibiting modest or negative cash flow and low growth potential should definitely be a candidate for divestiture. An appropriate strategy may also be to sell off businesses with high relative shares in high-growth markets to provide the necessary funding for investment in existing business units that the firm would rather concentrate its energies on. Of course, one reason for divestiture may simply be that the business unit is too expensive for the firm to fund, requiring too much cash to sustain its rate of growth (Picard 33). This type of business would also be a more attractive acquisition target. The point remains that a major motivating factor for strategic alliance activity is the potential for improved growth. The task, then, is to determine how well corporate acquirers have fared with their acquisition activities, and whether these firms have been better off from these activities (Picard, 83). In other words, how a target firm will perform in the long term and how well its corporate strategy coincides with the strategy of the acquiring company are more important than the acquired firm’s current financial performance. This is not to say that one must only locate an acquisition or alliance target that is on solid footing. Rather, it is more important to internally evaluate a firm’s internal needs and purpose before embarking on a strategy of acquisition. If the acquisition is the vehicle, it must be a structural component of the acquiring firm’s strategy. A business always has the option of expanding either internally through R&D efforts or externally through strategic alliances. If one firm acquires another and the combined entity’s returns cannot be significantly greater than the two separate companies would have been independently, then the acquisition was not based on a sound strategy.

In sum, the information mentioned above shows that globalization processes in the media industry are crucial for success and a strong market position of the media companies. Globalization involves the transfer of resources from the colonized global South in exchange for European manufactures. Developed nations spread their political system and cultural values across the globe. Like all social processes, globalization contains dimensions filled with a range of norms, claims, beliefs, and narratives about the phenomenon itself. However, it is not just rational economics that drives this selection: it helps that media organization tend to be staffed by highly trained people with an interest in new technologies, people who have been selected to embrace and develop new ideas. Of all the functions in a media organization, this is the one that should show the most natural inclination to embrace the new ideas of working within the media alliances can all be effective ways to improve the competitive position of an overall firm. However, any one of these processes must be an integral part of an ongoing corporate strategic plan. In addition, the evaluation process must shift its emphasis away from traditional financial performance criteria toward overall competitive dynamics.

Emling, S. May 4. AOL’s push to rev up Net service faces hurdles. Atlanta Journal- Constitution , 1F, 2002.

MacGillivray, A. Globalization . Carroll & Graf, 2005.

Osterhammel, Jurrgen, and Nieles P. Petersson. Globalization: A Short History . New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2005.

Picard, R. The Economics of Financing of Media Companies (Business,  Economics & Legal Studies). Fordham University Press; 1 edition, 2002.

Time Warner Inc Home Page 2007. Web.

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11.4 The Effects of the Internet and Globalization on Popular Culture and Interpersonal Communication

Learning objectives.

• Describe the effects of globalization on culture.
• Identify the possible effects of news migrating to the Internet.
• Define the Internet paradox.

It’s in the name: World Wide Web . The Internet has broken down communication barriers between cultures in a way that could only be dreamed of in earlier generations. Now, almost any news service across the globe can be accessed on the Internet and, with the various translation services available (like Babelfish and Google Translate), be relatively understandable. In addition to the spread of American culture throughout the world, smaller countries are now able to cheaply export culture, news, entertainment, and even propaganda.

The Internet has been a key factor in driving globalization in recent years. Many jobs can now be outsourced entirely via the Internet. Teams of software programmers in India can have a website up and running in very little time, for far less money than it would take to hire American counterparts. Communicating with these teams is now as simple as sending e-mails and instant messages back and forth, and often the most difficult aspect of setting up an international video conference online is figuring out the time difference. Especially for electronic services such as software, outsourcing over the Internet has greatly reduced the cost to develop a professionally coded site.

Electronic Media and the Globalization of Culture

The increase of globalization has been an economic force throughout the last century, but economic interdependency is not its only by-product. At its core, globalization is the lowering of economic and cultural impediments to communication between countries all over the globe. Globalization in the sphere of culture and communication can take the form of access to foreign newspapers (without the difficulty of procuring a printed copy) or, conversely, the ability of people living in previously closed countries to communicate experiences to the outside world relatively cheaply.

TV, especially satellite TV, has been one of the primary ways for American entertainment to reach foreign shores. This trend has been going on for some time now, for example, with the launch of MTV Arabia (Arango, 2008). American popular culture is, and has been, a crucial export.

At the Eisenhower Fellowship Conference in Singapore in 2005, U.S. ambassador Frank Lavin gave a defense of American culture that differed somewhat from previous arguments. It would not be all Starbucks, MTV, or Baywatch , he said, because American culture is more diverse than that. Instead, he said that “America is a nation of immigrants,” and asked, “When Mel Gibson or Jackie Chan come to the United States to produce a movie, whose culture is being exported (Lavin, 2005)?” This idea of a truly globalized culture—one in which content can be distributed as easily as it can be received—now has the potential to be realized through the Internet. While some political and social barriers still remain, from a technological standpoint there is nothing to stop the two-way flow of information and culture across the globe.

China, Globalization, and the Internet

The scarcity of artistic resources, the time lag of transmission to a foreign country, and censorship by the host government are a few of the possible impediments to transmission of entertainment and culture. China provides a valuable example of the ways the Internet has helped to overcome (or highlight) all three of these hurdles.

China, as the world’s most populous country and one of its leading economic powers, has considerable clout when it comes to the Internet. In addition, the country is ruled by a single political party that uses censorship extensively in an effort to maintain control. Because the Internet is an open resource by nature, and because China is an extremely well-connected country—with 22.5 percent (roughly 300 million people, or the population of the entire United States) of the country online as of 2008 (Google, 2010)—China has been a case study in how the Internet makes resistance to globalization increasingly difficult.

Figure 11.7

China has more Internet users than any other country.

On January 21, 2010, Hillary Clinton gave a speech in front of the Newseum in Washington, DC, where she said, “We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has equal access to knowledge and ideas (Ryan & Halper, 2010).” That same month, Google decided it would stop censoring search results on Google.cn, its Chinese-language search engine, as a result of a serious cyber-attack on the company originating in China. In addition, Google stated that if an agreement with the Chinese government could not be reached over the censorship of search results, Google would pull out of China completely. Because Google has complied (albeit uneasily) with the Chinese government in the past, this change in policy was a major reversal.

Withdrawing from one of the largest expanding markets in the world is shocking coming from a company that has been aggressively expanding into foreign markets. This move highlights the fundamental tension between China’s censorship policy and Google’s core values. Google’s company motto, “Don’t be evil,” had long been at odds with its decision to censor search results in China. Google’s compliance with the Chinese government did not help it make inroads into the Chinese Internet search market—although Google held about a quarter of the market in China, most of the search traffic went to the tightly controlled Chinese search engine Baidu. However, Google’s departure from China would be a blow to antigovernment forces in the country. Since Baidu has a closer relationship with the Chinese government, political dissidents tend to use Google’s Gmail, which uses encrypted servers based in the United States. Google’s threat to withdraw from China raises the possibility that globalization could indeed hit roadblocks due to the ways that foreign governments may choose to censor the Internet.

New Media: Internet Convergence and American Society

One only needs to go to CNN’s official Twitter feed and begin to click random faces in the “Following” column to see the effect of media convergence through the Internet. Hundreds of different options abound, many of them individual journalists’ Twitter feeds, and many of those following other journalists. Considering CNN’s motto, “The most trusted name in network news,” its presence on Twitter might seem at odds with providing in-depth, reliable coverage. After all, how in-depth can 140 characters get?

The truth is that many of these traditional media outlets use Twitter not as a communication tool in itself, but as a way to allow viewers to aggregate a large amount of information they may have missed. Instead of visiting multiple home pages to see the day’s top stories from multiple viewpoints, Twitter users only have to check their own Twitter pages to get updates from all the organizations they “follow.” Media conglomerates then use Twitter as part of an overall integration of media outlets; the Twitter feed is there to support the news content, not to report the content itself.

Internet-Only Sources

The threshold was crossed in 2008: The Internet overtook print media as a primary source of information for national and international news in the U.S. Television is still far in the lead, but especially among younger demographics, the Internet is quickly catching up as a way to learn about the day’s news. With 40 percent of the public receiving their news from the Internet (see Figure 11.8 ) (Pew Research Center for the People, 2008), media outlets have been scrambling to set up large presences on the web. Yet one of the most remarkable shifts has been in the establishment of online-only news sources.

Figure 11.8

Americans now receive more national and international news from the Internet than they do from newspapers.

The conventional argument claims that the anonymity and the echo chamber of the Internet undermine worthwhile news reporting, especially for topics that are expensive to report on. The ability of large news organizations to put reporters in the field is one of their most important contributions and (because of its cost) is often one of the first things to be cut back during times of budget problems. However, as the Internet has become a primary news source for more and more people, new media outlets—publications existing entirely online—have begun to appear.

In 2006, two reporters for the Washington Post , John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei, left the newspaper to start a politically centered website called Politico. Rather than simply repeating the day’s news in a blog, they were determined to start a journalistically viable news organization on the web. Four years later, the site has over 6,000,000 unique monthly visitors and about a hundred staff members, and there is now a Politico reporter on almost every White House trip (Wolff, 2009).

Far from being a collection of amateurs trying to make it big on the Internet, Politico’s senior White House correspondent is Mike Allen, who previously wrote for The New York Times , Washington Post , and Time . His daily Playbook column appears at around 7 a.m. each morning and is read by much of the politically centered media. The different ways that Politico reaches out to its supporters—blogs, Twitter feeds, regular news articles, and now even a print edition—show how media convergence has even occurred within the Internet itself. The interactive nature of its services and the active comment boards on the site also show how the media have become a two-way street: more of a public forum than a straight news service.

“Live” From New York …

Top-notch political content is not the only medium moving to the Internet, however. Saturday Night Live ( SNL ) has built an entire entertainment model around its broadcast time slot. Every weekend, around 11:40 p.m. on Saturday, someone interrupts a skit, turns toward the camera, shouts “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” and the band starts playing. Yet the show’s sketch comedy style also seems to lend itself to the watch-anytime convenience of the Internet. In fact, the online TV service Hulu carries a full eight episodes of SNL at any given time, with regular 3.5-minute commercial breaks replaced by Hulu-specific minute-long advertisements. The time listed for an SNL episode on Hulu is just over an hour—a full half-hour less than the time it takes to watch it live on Saturday night.

Hulu calls its product “online premium video,” primarily because of its desire to attract not the YouTube amateur, but rather a partnership of large media organizations. Although many networks, like NBC and Comedy Central, stream video on their websites, Hulu builds its business by offering a legal way to see all these shows on the same site; a user can switch from South Park to SNL with a single click, rather than having to move to a different website.

Premium Online Video Content

Hulu’s success points to a high demand among Internet users for a wide variety of content collected and packaged in one easy-to-use interface. Hulu was rated the Website of the Year by the Associated Press (Coyle, 2008) and even received an Emmy nomination for a commercial featuring Alec Baldwin and Tina Fey, the stars of the NBC comedy 30 Rock (Neil, 2009). Hulu’s success has not been the product of the usual dot-com underdog startup, however. Its two parent companies, News Corporation and NBC Universal, are two of the world’s media giants. In many ways, this was a logical step for these companies to take after fighting online video for so long. In December 2005, the video “Lazy Sunday,” an SNL digital short featuring Andy Samberg and Chris Parnell, went viral with over 5,000,000 views on YouTube before February 2006, when NBC demanded that YouTube take down the video (Biggs, 2006). NBC later posted the video on Hulu, where it could sell advertising for it.

Hulu allows users to break out of programming models controlled by broadcast and cable TV providers and choose freely what shows to watch and when to watch them. This seems to work especially well for cult programs that are no longer available on TV. In 2008, the show Arrested Development , which was canceled in 2006 after repeated time slot shifts, was Hulu’s second-most-popular program.

Hulu certainly seems to have leveled the playing field for some shows that have had difficulty finding an audience through traditional means. 30 Rock , much like Arrested Development , suffered from a lack of viewers in its early years. In 2008, New York Magazine described the show as a “fragile suckling that critics coddle but that America never quite warms up to (Sternbergh, 2008).” However, even as 30 Rock shifted time slots mid-season, its viewer base continued to grow through the NBC partner of Hulu. The nontraditional media approach of NBC’s programming culminated in October 2008, when NBC decided to launch the new season of 30 Rock on Hulu a full week before it was broadcast over the airwaves (Wortham, 2008). Hulu’s strategy of providing premium online content seems to have paid off: As of March 2011, Hulu provided 143,673,000 viewing sessions to more than 27 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen (ComScore, 2011).

Unlike other “premium” services, Hulu does not charge for its content; rather, the word premium in its slogan seems to imply that it could charge for content if it wanted to. Other platforms, like Sony’s PlayStation 3, block Hulu for this very reason—Sony’s online store sells the products that Hulu gives away for free. However, Hulu has been considering moving to a paid subscription model that would allow users to access its entire back catalog of shows. Like many other fledgling web enterprises, Hulu seeks to create reliable revenue streams to avoid the fate of many of the companies that folded during the dot-com crash (Sandoval, 2009).

Like Politico, Hulu has packaged professionally produced content into an on-demand web service that can be used without the normal constraints of traditional media. Just as users can comment on Politico articles (and now, on most newspapers’ articles), they can rate Hulu videos, and Hulu will take this into account. Even when users do not produce the content themselves, they still want this same “two-way street” service.

Table 11.2 Top 10 U.S. Online Video Brands, Home and Work

The Role of the Internet in Social Alienation

In the early years, the Internet was stigmatized as a tool for introverts to avoid “real” social interactions, thereby increasing their alienation from society. Yet the Internet was also seen as the potentially great connecting force between cultures all over the world. The idea that something that allowed communication across the globe could breed social alienation seemed counterintuitive. The American Psychological Association (APA) coined this concept the “ Internet paradox .”

Studies like the APA’s “Internet paradox: A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being (Kraut, et. al., 1998)?” which came out in 1998, suggested that teens who spent lots of time on the Internet showed much greater rates of self-reported loneliness and other signs of psychological distress. Even though the Internet had been around for a while by 1998, the increasing concern among parents was that teenagers were spending all their time in chat rooms and online. The fact was that teenagers spent much more time on the Internet than adults, due to their increased free time, curiosity, and familiarity with technology.

However, this did not necessarily mean that “kids these days” were antisocial or that the Internet caused depression and loneliness. In his critical analysis “Deconstructing the Internet Paradox,” computer scientist, writer, and PhD recipient from Carnegie Mellon University Joseph M. Newcomer points out that the APA study did not include a control group to adjust for what may be normal “lonely” feelings in teenagers. Again, he suggests that “involvement in any new, self-absorbing activity which has opportunity for failure can increase depression,” seeing Internet use as just another time-consuming hobby, much like learning a musical instrument or playing chess (Newcomer, 2000).

The general concept that teenagers were spending all their time in chat rooms and online forums instead of hanging out with flesh-and-blood friends was not especially new; the same thing had generally been thought of the computer hobbyists who pioneered the esoteric Usenet. However, the concerns were amplified when a wider range of young people began using the Internet, and the trend was especially strong in the younger demographics.

The “Internet Paradox” and Facebook

As they developed, it became quickly apparent that the Internet generation did not suffer from perpetual loneliness as a rule. After all, the generation that was raised on instant messaging invented Facebook and still makes up most of Facebook’s audience. As detailed earlier in the chapter, Facebook began as a service limited to college students—a requirement that practically excluded older participants. As a social tool and as a reflection of the way younger people now connect with each other over the Internet, Facebook has provided a comprehensive model for the Internet’s effect on social skills and especially on education.

A study by the Michigan State University Department of Telecommunication, Information Studies, and Media has shown that college-age Facebook users connect with offline friends twice as often as they connect with purely online “friends (Ellison, et. al., 2007).” In fact, 90 percent of the participants in the study reported that high school friends, classmates, and other friends were the top three groups that their Facebook profiles were directed toward.

In 2007, when this study took place, one of Facebook’s most remarkable tools for studying the ways that young people connect was its “networks” feature. Originally, a Facebook user’s network consisted of all the people at his or her college e-mail domain: the “mycollege” portion of “[email protected].” The MSU study, performed in April 2006, just 6 months after Facebook opened its doors to high school students, found that first-year students met new people on Facebook 36 percent more often than seniors did. These freshmen, in April 2006, were not as active on Facebook as high schoolers (Facebook began allowing high schoolers on its site during these students’ first semester in school) (Rosen, 2005). The study concluded that they could “definitively state that there is a positive relationship between certain kinds of Facebook use and the maintenance and creation of social capital (Ellison, et. al., 2007).” In other words, even though the study cannot show whether Facebook use causes or results from social connections, it can say that Facebook plays both an important and a nondestructive role in the forming of social bonds.

Although this study provides a complete and balanced picture of the role that Facebook played for college students in early 2006, there have been many changes in Facebook’s design and in its popularity. In 2006, many of a user’s “friends” were from the same college, and the whole college network might be mapped as a “friend-of-a-friend” web. If users allowed all people within a single network access to their profiles, it would create a voluntary school-wide directory of students. Since a university e-mail address was required for signup, there was a certain level of trust. The results of this Facebook study, still relatively current in terms of showing the Internet’s effects on social capital, show that not only do social networking tools not lead to more isolation, but that they actually have become integral to some types of networking.

However, as Facebook began to grow and as high school and regional networks (such as “New York City” or “Ireland”) were incorporated, users’ networks of friends grew exponentially, and the networking feature became increasingly unwieldy for privacy purposes. In 2009, Facebook discontinued regional networks over concerns that networks consisting of millions of people were “no longer the best way for you to control your privacy (Zuckerberg, 2009).” Where privacy controls once consisted of allowing everyone at one’s college access to specific information, Facebook now allows only three levels: friends, friends of friends, and everyone.

Meetup.com : Meeting Up “IRL”

Of course, not everyone on teenagers’ online friends lists are actually their friends outside of the virtual world. In the parlance of the early days of the Internet, meeting up “IRL” (shorthand for “in real life”) was one of the main reasons that many people got online. This practice was often looked at with suspicion by those not familiar with it, especially because of the anonymity of the Internet. The fear among many was that children would go into chat rooms and agree to meet up in person with a total stranger, and that stranger would turn out to have less-than-friendly motives. This fear led to law enforcement officers posing as underage girls in chat rooms, agreeing to meet for sex with older men (after the men brought up the topic—the other way around could be considered entrapment), and then arresting the men at the agreed-upon meeting spot.

In recent years, however, the Internet has become a hub of activity for all sorts of people. In 2002, Scott Heiferman started Meetup.com based on the “simple idea of using the Internet to get people off the Internet (Heiferman, 2009).” The entire purpose of Meetup.com is not to foster global interaction and collaboration (as is the purpose of something like Usenet,) but rather to allow people to organize locally. There are Meetups for politics (popular during Barack Obama’s presidential campaign), for New Yorkers who own Boston terriers (Fairbanks, 2008), for vegan cooking, for board games, and for practically everything else. Essentially, the service (which charges a small fee to Meetup organizers) separates itself from other social networking sites by encouraging real-life interaction. Whereas a member of a Facebook group may never see or interact with fellow members, Meetup.com actually keeps track of the (self-reported) real-life activity of its groups—ideally, groups with more activity are more desirable to join. However much time these groups spend together on or off the Internet, one group of people undoubtedly has the upper hand when it comes to online interaction: World of Warcraft players.

World of Warcraft : Social Interaction Through Avatars

A writer for Time states the reasons for the massive popularity of online role-playing games quite well: “[My generation’s] assumptions were based on the idea that video games would never grow up. But no genre has worked harder to disprove that maxim than MMORPGs—Massively Multiplayer Online Games (Coates, 2007).” World of Warcraft (WoW , for short) is the most popular MMORPG of all time, with over 11 million subscriptions and counting. The game is inherently social; players must complete “quests” in order to advance in the game, and many of the quests are significantly easier with multiple people. Players often form small, four-to five-person groups in the beginning of the game, but by the end of the game these larger groups (called “raiding parties”) can reach up to 40 players.

In addition, WoW provides a highly developed social networking feature called “guilds.” Players create or join a guild, which they can then use to band with other guilds in order to complete some of the toughest quests. “But once you’ve got a posse, the social dynamic just makes the game more addictive and time-consuming,” writes Clive Thompson for Slate (Thompson, 2005). Although these guilds do occasionally meet up in real life, most of their time together is spent online for hours per day (which amounts to quite a bit of time together), and some of the guild leaders profess to seeing real-life improvements. Joi Ito, an Internet business and investment guru, joined WoW long after he had worked with some of the most successful Internet companies; he says he “definitely (Pinckard, 2006)” learned new lessons about leadership from playing the game. Writer Jane Pinckard, for video game blog 1UP , lists some of Ito’s favorite activities as “looking after newbs [lower-level players] and pleasing the veterans,” which he calls a “delicate balancing act (Pinckard, 2006),” even for an ex-CEO.

Figure 11.9

Guilds often go on “raiding parties”—just one of the many semisocial activities in World of Warcraft .

monsieur paradis – gathering in Kargath before a raid – CC BY-NC 2.0.

With over 12 million subscribers, WoW necessarily breaks the boundaries of previous MMORPGs. The social nature of the game has attracted unprecedented numbers of female players (although men still make up the vast majority of players), and its players cannot easily be pegged as antisocial video game addicts. On the contrary, they may even be called social video game players, judging from the general responses given by players as to why they enjoy the game. This type of play certainly points to a new way of online interaction that may continue to grow in coming years.

Social Interaction on the Internet Among Low-Income Groups

In 2006, the journal Developmental Psychology published a study looking at the educational benefits of the Internet for teenagers in low-income households. It found that “children who used the Internet more had higher grade point averages (GPA) after one year and higher scores after standardized tests of reading achievement after six months than did children who used it less,” and that continuing to use the Internet more as the study went on led to an even greater increase in GPA and standardized test scores in reading (there was no change in mathematics test scores) (Jackson, et. al., 2006).

One of the most interesting aspects of the study’s results is the suggestion that the academic benefits may exclude low-performing children in low-income households. The reason for this, the study suggests, is that children in low-income households likely have a social circle consisting of other children from low-income households who are also unlikely to be connected to the Internet. As a result, after 16 months of Internet usage, only 16 percent of the participants were using e-mail and only 25 percent were using instant messaging services. Another reason researchers suggested was that because “African-American culture is historically an ‘oral culture,’” and 83 percent of the participants were African American, the “impersonal nature of the Internet’s typical communication tools” may have led participants to continue to prefer face-to-face contact. In other words, social interaction on the Internet can only happen if your friends are also on the Internet.

The Way Forward: Communication, Convergence, and Corporations

On February 15, 2010, the firm Compete, which analyzes Internet traffic, reported that Facebook surpassed Google as the No. 1 site to drive traffic toward news and entertainment media on both Yahoo! and MSN (Ingram, 2010). This statistic is a strong indicator that social networks are quickly becoming one of the most effective ways for people to sift through the ever-increasing amount of information on the Internet. It also suggests that people are content to get their news the way they did before the Internet or most other forms of mass media were invented—by word of mouth.

Many companies now use the Internet to leverage word-of-mouth social networking. The expansion of corporations into Facebook has given the service a big publicity boost, which has no doubt contributed to the growth of its user base, which in turn helps the corporations that put marketing efforts into the service. Putting a corporation on Facebook is not without risk; any corporation posting on Facebook runs the risk of being commented on by over 500 million users, and of course there is no way to ensure that those users will say positive things about the corporation. Good or bad, communicating with corporations is now a two-way street.

Key Takeaways

• The Internet has made pop culture transmission a two-way street. The power to influence popular culture no longer lies with the relative few with control over traditional forms of mass media; it is now available to the great mass of people with access to the Internet. As a result, the cross-fertilization of pop culture from around the world has become a commonplace occurrence.
• The Internet’s key difference from traditional media is that it does not operate on a set intervallic time schedule. It is not “periodical” in the sense that it comes out in daily or weekly editions; it is always updated. As a result, many journalists file both “regular” news stories and blog posts that may be updated and that can come at varied intervals as necessary. This allows them to stay up-to-date with breaking news without necessarily sacrificing the next day’s more in-depth story.
• The “Internet paradox” is the hypothesis that although the Internet is a tool for communication, many teenagers who use the Internet lack social interaction and become antisocial and depressed. It has been largely disproved, especially since the Internet has grown so drastically. Many sites, such as Meetup.com or even Facebook, work to allow users to organize for offline events. Other services, like the video game World of Warcraft , serve as an alternate social world.
• Make a list of ways you interact with friends, either in person or on the Internet. Are there particular methods of communication that only exist in person?
• Are there methods that exist on the Internet that would be much more difficult to replicate in person?
• How do these disprove the “Internet paradox” and contribute to the globalization of culture?
• Pick a method of in-person communication and a method of Internet communication, and compare and contrast these using a Venn diagram.

Arango, Tim. “World Falls for American Media, Even as It Sours on America,” New York Times , November 30, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/media/01soft.html .

Biggs, John. “A Video Clip Goes Viral, and a TV Network Wants to Control It,” New York Times , February 20, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/20/business/media/20youtube.html .

Coates, Ta-Nehisi Paul. “Confessions of a 30-Year-Old Gamer,” Time , January 12, 2007, http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1577502,00.html .

ComScore, “ComScore release March 2011 US Online Video Rankings,” April 12, 2011, http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/4/ comScore_Releases_March_2011_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings .

Coyle, Jake. “On the Net: Hulu Is Web Site of the Year,” Seattle Times , December 19, 2008, http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/entertainment/2008539776_aponthenetsiteoftheyear.html .

Ellison, Nicole B. Charles Steinfield, and Cliff Lampe, “The Benefits of Facebook ‘Friends’: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites,” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 14, no. 4 (2007).

Fairbanks, Amanda M. “Funny Thing Happened at the Dog Run,” New York Times , August 23, 2008, cse http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/nyregion/24meetup.html .

Google, “Internet users as percentage of population: China,” February 19, 2010, http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=it_net_user_p2&idim=country: CHN&dl=en&hl=en&q=china+internet+users .

Heiferman, Scott. “The Pursuit of Community,” New York Times , September 5, 2009, cse http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/jobs/06boss.html .

Ingram, Mathew. “Facebook Driving More Traffic Than Google,” New York Times , February 15, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/external/gigaom/2010/02/15/15gigaom-facebook-driving-more-traffic-than-google-42970.html .

Jackson, Linda A. and others, “Does Home Internet Use Influence the Academic Performance of Low-Income Children?” Developmental Psychology 42, no. 3 (2006): 433–434.

Kraut, Robert and others, “Internet Paradox: A Social Technology That Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-Being?” American Psychologist, September 1998, http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1998-10886-001 .

Lavin, Frank. “‘Globalization and Culture’: Remarks by Ambassador Frank Lavin at the Eisenhower Fellowship Conference in Singapore,” U.S. Embassy in Singapore, June 28, 2005, http://singapore.usembassy.gov/062805.html .

Neil, Dan. “‘30 Rock’ Gets a Wink and a Nod From Two Emmy-Nominated Spots,” Los Angeles Times , July 21, 2009, http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/21/business/fi-ct-neil21 .

Newcomer, Joseph M. “Deconstructing the Internet Paradox,” Ubiquity , Association for Computing Machinery, April 2000, http://ubiquity.acm.org/article.cfm?id=334533 . (Originally published as an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette , September 27, 1998.).

Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, “Internet Overtakes Newspapers as News Outlet,” December 23, 2008, http://people-press.org/report/479/internet-overtakes-newspapers-as-news-source .

Pinckard, Jane. “Is World of Warcraft the New Golf?” 1UP.com , February 8, 2006, http://www.1up.com/news/world-warcraft-golf .

Rosen, Ellen. “THE INTERNET; Facebook.com Goes to High School,” New York Times , October 16, 2005, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05EEDA173FF935A25753C1A9639C8B63&scp=5&sq=facebook&st=nyt .

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Thompson, Clive. “An Elf’s Progress: Finally, Online Role-Playing Games That Won’t Destroy Your Life,” Slate , March 7, 2005, http://www.slate.com/id/2114354 .

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Zuckerberg, Mark. “An Open Letter from Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg,” Facebook, December 1, 2009, http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=190423927130 .

Understanding Media and Culture Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Social Media, Globalization, and the Right to Drive

By Christina Grossi

Published: July 31, 2020

As Saudi Arabia rose to become a global economic power, largely due to its vast oil reserves, the once little-known country became subject to the global spotlight. International scrutiny is particularly intense regarding women's rights in Saudi Arabia, and since the early 2000s, this controversy has centered around the movement by women in Saudi Arabia protesting the ban on women's driving. The legal ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia originated in 1990, when around fifty women drove cars through public streets in defiance of cultural stigma around women driving, which some called an "unofficial ban" (Doumato 34). In response, the Saudi Ministry of Interior introduced the official, legal ban, which the Saudi government upheld and enforced until June of 2018, when the government lifted the ban, granting Saudi women the right to drive without fear of legal repercussions (Doumato 34; Van Sant).

The government's decision to grant women the right to drive surprised many, given Saudi Arabia's conservative stance on social issues. The Saudi Arabian government is a religious monarchy, and as such, "Islam is totally ingrained in the fabric of contemporary Saudi life" (Pharaon 349). The actions of the government must follow Islamic practices, as "Shari'a (Islamic doctrine) is the law and constitution of the land" (Pharaon 349). In the case of women's driving, the Supreme Council of Islamic Research supported the government's decision to ban women from driving by issuing an official statement that, according to their interpretation of Islam, "women should not be allowed to drive motor vehicles as the shari'a instructs that things that degrade or harm the dignity of women must be prevented" (Doumato 35). Given the conservative nature of Saudi Arabian society and the prominent role of Islam in deciding Saudi laws and practices, the decision to grant women the right to drive seems out of place. This huge shift in women's rights policy in Saudi Arabia prompts the following questions: What were the most significant factors that led to the lifting of the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia? How did the rise of social media and the internet impact the movement to give women the right to drive? How did globalization play a role in the Saudi Arabian government's decision to allow women to drive? There are likely other forces that impacted the decision to allow women to drive, but for the purposes of this paper, I will focus on globalization and social media as the primary causes of this decision. I define globalization as "the connection of different parts of the world…[resulting] in the expansion of international cultural, economic, and political activities" ("Globalization"); I define social media as "forms of online communication through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content" ("Social Media"). In this paper, I will argue that social media brought global attention to the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia, which, combined with economic globalization, forced the Saudi Arabian government to give in to international pressure and lift the driving ban.

History of Control

Since the 1980s and 1990s, control over women has been a defining feature in Saudi Arabian society. Along with the implementation of the ban on women's driving, the Saudi Arabian government enacted a series of other laws designed to control women in society on the basis of Islamic conservatism. One example of this is the system of gender segregation, under which schools, universities, charitable organizations, hospitals, restaurants, government offices, and other public spaces are segregated by gender throughout the country (Meijer). Another is the male guardianship system, which is the most comprehensive law controlling women in Saudi Arabia today. Under the male guardianship system, "adult women must obtain permission from a male guardian—usually a husband, father, brother, or son—to travel abroad, obtain a passport, marry, or be discharged from prison" ("World Report"). The system treats women as far inferior to men, to the extent that an adult woman may be forced to obey the will of her own son.

The implementation of these controlling laws provides a counterargument to one of the primary assertions of this paper, the assertion that globalization has been a modernizing force in Saudi Arabia. During this period, it was the opposite. Saudi Arabia became increasingly connected with the world during the 1980s and 1990s, but rather than encouraging egalitarian social reforms, contact with more liberal societies pushed the Saudi Arabian government the other way (Pharaon 356). Saudi Arabia sought to preserve its cultural traditionalism in the face of globalization, and used women as "the bearers of their culture's authenticity […] made to serve as boundary markers" (Pharaon 356). Particularly as the home of Mecca and Medinah, the two holiest cities in Islam, Saudi leaders felt pressure to maintain their Muslim identity through laws that would ensure that women stayed in their traditional role (Pharaon 350).

Although globalization was a force for conservatism in the 1980s and 1990s, its influence in the Saudi Arabian government changed over time. Laws that control women, such as the driving ban and the male guardianship system, may have been enacted as a response to globalization, but the movement to overthrow them also has its roots in increasing international connectedness. In this way, globalization has both encouraged social reform in Saudi Arabia and created barriers to it. However, in the case of the movement for women's driving, globalization has forced the Saudi Arabian government to make social change.

Social Media

As a conservative state with concerns about controlling freedom of speech by its citizens, the Saudi Arabian government was cautious when first introducing the internet to the country. Internet was not implemented in Saudi Arabia until the late 1990s, and then it was only available through a government-controlled and regulated monopoly (Teitelbaum 224). Perhaps the Saudi Arabian government was right in being cautious; with the rise of the Internet, the world has seen that it is "homogenizing, and to a large degree, Americanizing" (Teitelbaum 223). The Americanization that the Internet brings can have a liberalizing impact on more conservative countries, often bringing with it demands for freedom of speech and equality. In Saudi Arabia, this effect has been most prominent amongst women. The majority of Internet users in Saudi Arabia are women, with estimates ranging from just over half to two-thirds of Saudi internet users being female (Altoaimy 3; Teitelbaum 234).

Given the vast numbers of Saudi women on the Internet and the heavy control exercised over women's movements in Saudi Arabia, it should be no surprise that the Internet quickly became a liberalizing force in the country. The anonymity of chat rooms allows users to discuss subjects that would be suppressed in public conversation, such as the issue of women being granted the right to drive (Teitelbaum 234). Online social media platforms give women the ability to express their thoughts and opinions publicly with more freedom than ever before (Altoaimy 3). This is particularly important in Saudi society, where group activism and feminism are not socially accepted. The term "feminist" is rarely used amongst Saudi women, even among those who believe in women's rights, and women's groups avoid the term "activist" even when their actions would be interpreted as such by many in the Western world (Al-Dabbagh 236-7). Because of the negative connotations around group activism and feminism in Saudi society, online social media platforms have been particularly helpful for the women's rights movement in Saudi Arabia. The Internet allows like-minded women to share their views from home without meeting with a group in person, an action that would likely be labeled as "feminist." The Internet has increased the ease with which Saudi women can partake in discussions surrounding women's rights issues.

Women in the pro-driving campaign used Twitter in a variety of ways. They used the platform to undermine religious justifications for the driving ban by examining inconsistencies in religious scholarship surrounding the issues and by criticizing the institutions that provided the Saudi government with Islamic support for the ban (Altoaimy 6). The movement did not call for the abolishment of religious institutions and practices in Saudi Arabia, but instead showed how Islam provides justification for granting women the right to drive (Altoaimy 7). Tweets from the women's driving movement also discussed the economic hardships the ban brought on women, as well as broader appeals for women's rights in the country (Altoaimy 8). None of these discussions would have been possible without the Internet, as these subjects are taboo in Saudi society. In particular, it allowed women to spread their ideas to men; given the gender-segregated nature of Saudi society, the Internet is one of the only places in the country where women and men can discuss controversial topics together (Altoaimy 8). Twitter gave the women's driving movement a platform to explain their position and to spread their ideas to others without being immediately dismissed as radical, as they likely would have been outside of the Internet.

Along with spreading awareness inside of the country, the global interconnectedness of the Internet also allows Saudis to discuss such topics with the rest of the world, drawing new attention to issues of gender in Saudi Arabia. Many of the women who protested the ban by driving cars illegally in Saudi Arabia posted videos of their protests to YouTube, where viewers could watch from around the world. This aspect of social media is perhaps the most influential when considering the Saudi Arabian government's decision to give women the right to drive. For several years, YouTube videos of Saudi women driving and being arrested circulated throughout the world, providing a powerful visual reminder that they were jailed for doing something that many consider an everyday occurrence. These videos drew unprecedented awareness of the issue of women's rights in Saudi Arabia. Major Western news organizations amplified these videos, covering the stories of the women protesting the driving ban. Because of the rise of social media, the Saudi Arabian government now faced a global public relations disaster.

The rise of social media and the Internet acted as a catalyst in Saudi Arabia, allowing women to draw attention to the ban on women driving both domestically and internationally. It allowed female activists to share their views from home despite the strict controls placed on them. The importance of this heightened awareness should not be understated; without it, the ban on women's driving likely would not have been lifted, as the international community would not have been as knowledgeable about this issue. However, social media was not the only factor in the lifting of the ban. Globalization and international pressure, particularly economic pressure, forced the Saudi Arabian government to account for the issue highlighted by activists.

Globalization

Over recent decades, the global economy has become increasingly interconnected through technology, bringing countries in closer contact with one another than ever before. Nations are less independent than they once were, as they must answer to the international community both through diplomatic and political channels such as the United Nations, and economically through their trade partners. Saudi Arabia's vast oil reserves may once have shielded them from the political pressures of their trade partners, but as the price of oil has fallen and the world attempts to shift away from oil, they are no longer an invincible economic power.

Saudi Arabia controls a quarter of the world's recognized oil reserves, and their economy has long been heavily reliant on the influx of money that oil brings with it (Pharaon 350). However, the price of crude oil has fallen in recent years, demonstrated here by prices in the United States, a primary consumer of oil in the global economy. From 2011 to 2014, the United States average first purchase price of crude oil was $93.51 per barrel; by contrast, from 2015 to 2018, it was $48.04 ("US Crude Oil"). Dropping oil prices could mean disaster for the Saudi Arabian economy, particularly as the population in Saudi Arabia grows. With more citizens, the per capita wealth generated from oil production is far less than it once was, and continues to fall (Pharaon 350). The price of oil also fluctuates dramatically. In July of 2008, the US first purchase price was $128.08 per barrel, but by January of 2009, six months later, the price had fallen to $35 per barrel. Such dramatic fluctuations in oil price, coupled with falling oil prices, make the Saudi Arabian economy unstable and likely to decline.

In the face of an impending economic slowdown, the Saudi Arabian government now looks to diversify, stabilize, and drive growth in its economy. Their new Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, initiated "Vision 2030," which outlines his vision for the future of Saudi Arabia. It includes reducing Saudi dependence on oil, diversifying its economy, and improving women's rights in the country (Van Sant). The inclusion of women's rights amongst economic goals indicates that Saudi Arabia feels pressure from the international community to meet the political and social norms that come along with globalization. The United Nations has pressured the Saudi Arabian government to make significant changes to the women's rights situation in the country, and it "continues to exert significant efforts to hold the Arab states accountable to improve the status of its women" (Pharaon 352). It has further called for Saudi Arabia to adopt an anti-discrimination law ("World Report"). In particular, the ban on female drivers has been "widely criticized" by the international community (Van Sant).

The lifting of the ban on women's driving directly coincides with economic and political difficulties in the Saudi Arabian government, suggesting that the ban was lifted in response to international pressures. Mohammed bin Salman's campaign to portray himself as a champion of women's rights supports this idea. The move to allow women's driving has been "touted as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's promise to push through reforms and modernise the conservative kingdom" (Al Omran). Some feel that this does not acknowledge the role of female activists who protested the ban. Seven of the most prominent activists were arrested on charges of "suspicious contact with foreign entities" just weeks before the ban was officially lifted (Al Omran). According to one activist, they were "held in solitary confinement, beaten, waterboarded, given electric shocks, sexually harassed and threatened with rape and murder" (Al-Hathloul). Other activists have stated that the government warned them against commenting on the women's driving issue (Al Omran). The timing of the arrests, threats, and maltreatment suggest that these activists were jailed in order to prevent them from taking credit for the lifting of the ban, even though, as previously discussed, their actions were a primary factor in bringing attention to the issue of women driving in Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman does not want to give credit to civilians for bringing about this change, as this would challenge the power of the Saudi Arabian monarchy. Instead, he seeks to take full credit for this modernizing act so as to create the appearance that the Saudi Arabian government is becoming more modern and egalitarian.

Globalization, economic problems, and the rise of social media drove the Saudi Arabian government's decision to lift the ban on women's driving. Social media increased awareness of the issue both inside the country and out. Domestically, social media enabled Saudis to discuss issues of gender in unprecedented open conversations, while internationally, it increased the pressure on the Saudi Arabian government to modernize by giving the world a firsthand look at the women's rights situation inside of the country. The decline of the Saudi Arabian economy forced the government to concede to the demands of its trade partners and the global community. All of these factors acting together forced the Saudi Arabian government to take this step towards modernization, or risk being left behind in an increasingly interconnected world.

After the ban was lifted, Saudi Arabian women celebrated their newly-granted right to drive by arriving en masse to become licensed drivers. One even commemorated the occasion with a rap music video (Kreps). However, there is undoubtedly a shadow over this happy change for women in the country. Even as women have the right to drive, many of the activists who had a major role in making the policy change remain in jail. Women all over the country remain at a disadvantage to their male counterparts, as laws that forbid women to travel without the approval of a male guardian persist ("World Report"). In Saudi Arabia, as in many countries around the world, there remains work to be done in order to have true gender equality.

The example of Saudi Arabian women winning the right to drive provides a model for how social media can be used to make social change. Although social media was not the only factor in this case, it played a large role in drawing attention to the issue and putting pressure on the government to amend the law. Without social media, this issue would likely have gotten much less attention, both within Saudi Arabian society and in other countries around the world. One can hope that marginalized groups around the world will harness the power of social media in a similar way, so that it can continue to be a force for good.

Works Cited

Al-Dabbagh, May. "Saudi Arabian Women and Group Activism." Journal of Middle East Women's Studies , vol. 11, no. 2, 2015, pp. 235-237. Project MUSE . Accessed 22 March 2019.

Al-Hathloul, Alia. "My Sister is in a Saudi Prison. Will Mike Pompeo Stay Silent?" New York Times , 13 January 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/13/opinion/saudi-women-rights-activist-prison-pompeo.html . Accessed 25 March 2019.

Al Omran, Ahmed. "Saudi Arabia Arrests Campaigners Who Challenged Women Driving Ban." Financial Times , 18 May 2018. ProQuest , http://proxy.library.nd.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2072460548?accountid=12874 . Accessed 22 March 2019.

Altoaimy, Lama. "Driving Change on Twitter: A Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis of the Twitter Debates on the Saudi Ban on Women Driving." Social Sciences vol. 7, no. 5, 2018, pp. 81. Crossref . Accessed 24 March 2019.

Doumato, Eleanor Abdella. "Women and the Stability of Saudi Arabia." Middle East Report vol. 171, 1991, pp. 34-37. JSTOR . www.jstor.org/stable/3013073 . Accessed 22 March 2019.

"Globalization." National Geographic Resource Library. National Geographic Society, 28 March 2011, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/globalization . Accessed 12 April 2019.

Kreps, Daniel. "Saudi Female Rapper Celebrates Lift of Driving Ban with New Video." Rolling Stone , 29 June 2018, https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/saudi-female-rapper-celebrates-lift-of-driving-ban-with-new-video-667066/ . Accessed 3 April 2019.

Meijer, Roel. "Reform in Saudi Arabia: The Gender-Segregation Debate." Middle East Policy Council, n.d., http://mepc.org/reform-saudi-arabia-gender-segregation-debate . Accessed 3 April 2019.

Pharaon, Nora Alarifi. "Saudi Women and the Muslim State in the Twenty-First Century." Sex Roles vol. 51, no. 5-6, 2004, pp. 349-366 . ProQuest , doi:10.1023/B:SERS.0000046618.62910.ef. Accessed 23 March 2019.

"Social Media." Merriam-Webster.com . Merriam Webster, n.d., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/social%20media . Accessed 12 April 2019.

Teitelbaum, Joshua. "Dueling for 'Da'wa': State vs. Society on the Saudi Internet." Middle East Journal vol. 56, no. 2, 2002, pp. 222–239. JSTOR , www.jstor.org/stable/4329752 . Accessed 23 March 2019.

"U.S. Crude Oil First Purchase Price (Dollars per Barrel)." U.S. Energy Information Administration , 1 March 2019, www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=F000000__3&f=M . Accessed 24 March 2019.

Van Sant, Shannon. "Saudi Arabia Lifts Ban on Female Drivers." NPR, 24 June 2018, https://www.npr.org/2018/06/24/622990978/saudi-arabia-lifts-ban-on-women-drivers . Accessed 25 March 2019.

"World Report 2019: Saudi Arabia." Human Rights Watch , 2019, https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/saudi-arabia . Accessed 25 March 2019.

Christina Grossi

• Social Sciences

The Role of Social Media in Globalization

19 Aug 2022

Format: APA

Academic level: College

Paper type: Research Paper

Words: 1741

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• Globalization Essays
• Social Media Essays

The increasing technological developments and media have promoted globalization, which is a crucial aspect in the contemporary society. Social media plays a significant role in globalization, which is sociologically important. Evidence indicate that social media promotes social change. It has created a global village that has enabled people to make connections more easily and on a wider scale. For example, people use social media to update information and events going on across the globe such as through blogging, posting, and tweeting. People are able to interact in various ways and in some instances the connections are more creative. Social networks allows people to influence each other in many different ways. Interaction is a major source of fulfillment and happiness and provide satisfaction to individuals. Humans depend on each other emotionally and most of them will share both negative and positive qualities. In addition, various social movements are using social media to spread their message effectively worldwide. Globalization contributes to structuration of new types and forms of groups and social relationships, which is a key conceptual aspect for sociology ( Nadeem, Andreini, Salo & Laukkanen, 2015). Therefore, social media is seen as a very sophisticated tool that makes social connections possible to human beings. 

Background 

How Technology Spread Globally 

Social media is a communication technology that is being used increasingly across the globe. Examples of social media platforms that are being used include Facebook, YouTube, telephones, mobile phones, and internet. The spread of technology began in 1900 with a series of technologies that are now common and widely used in the current world. These technologies have spread quickly across the globe and have reached a 50% penetration. Examples of these technologies include refrigerator, telephone, dishwasher, washing machine, computers, cell phone, computer, automobile, radio, electricity, and stove among others. The spread of these technologies have generated significant changes that impacts on the environment around us. They created new knowledge that has allowed people to establish new things as well as made other scientific endeavors possible. These technological advances are the major factors that globalization has increased in the past decade. Communication and information technology have become more affordable and efficient and has made the world look like a smaller place that has promoted the rise of globalization ( Sobré-Denton, 2016). 

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Factors that Made Technology become Popular 

Technological advancements has resulted in development of sophisticated information technologies that have resulted in creation of numerous transformations especially in communications. Computer-based technology in particular have made profound changes in the field of communication and information technology over the past decade. The internet has linked global telecommunications that has facilitated easy access to information and bring current events to people worldwide. The dramatic developments in telecommunication technology has changed the way of life at either leisure, school, work, or at home. It has played a significant role in connecting individuals across the globe whereby people use telecommunication devices to contact each other instantly through video calls, chat programs, and email. The instant communication has changed social lives and businesses in major ways. It has influenced on new cultures and increased standard of living that have raised social and economic concerns. In addition, it has changed the nature of international competition. These rapid changes contributed to its popularity and its increased spread of technology globally ( Sobré-Denton, 2016). 

Another aspect that made technology popular is its role in globalization. Emergence in communication technology transformed communication in major ways. It has made communication safer and more efficient that has led to development of a global village. It has also changed the way businesses are conducted. It has increased the scale of trade between nations and made trade to be easier and efficient to conduct thereby making it become increasingly international. Innovations in businesses often include utilization of communication and information technology, making trade more convenient to conduct ( Sobré-Denton, 2016). Therefore, the contribution of social media towards globalization made it popular thereby facilitating its spread globally. 

The Current Issue 

There are some contentious debate in the current society about the impact of social media on globalization. Some claim that communication technology has caused a negative effect on different cultures around the world. Since social media facilitate globalization, it is believed to be a bad force. They contend that although communication technology has had a positive influence on many culture and businesses and has generated improved economic development and cultural hybridization, it can manipulated for bad just like all processes. However, despite the challenges of the digital divide, it is increasingly common to find many people including entrepreneurs and farmers using internet and mobile phones to connect to markets. For instance, research has shown that people worldwide are using social media such as email to communicate with their friends, family, or business partners. This is evident that emergence of communication technology like the social media have had significant implications on culture and economy of various nations worldwide ( Seeck & Rantanen, 2015). 

In addition, it has been argued that communication technology is changing the way businesses would be conducting their operations. It is replacing the old ways for conducting business with a new one. A new global economy that is based totally on virtual world is being promoted by globalization of social media. Additionally, globalization has resulted in transformation of social relations and thus can make a big difference. The viryual reality of globalization is being met with some resistance ( Seeck & Rantanen, 2015). 

According to Seeck and Rantanen (2015), t he social media has been in the forefront in spreading cultural and economic globalization. Without communication technology, we would not have achieved technology advancement, globalization, and democracy. It has been used by social movements to help remove a bad government from authority, for example in countries like Egypt and Libya thereby facilitating acquisition of democracy. Therefore, to address the current issue of the negative impact of communication technology on cultures, it is important for us to understand our contemporary world and acquire awareness about the role the social media has played in shaping our world and how it has defined it. 

Sociological Analysis 

In sociological analyses of globalization, media such as mobile phones, computers, and the internet have been thought to be among the fundamental forces of the current restructuration of cultural and social geography. Electronic media has enhanced and increased interconnectedness throughout the globe promoting flexibility in social interaction. Social media is one of the driving force of globalization that has changed the world. It is used in social sciences in discussing the international questions. It has allowed universalism, integration, synchronization, and homogeneity. However, globalization has a tendency for promoting diversity, differentiation, heterogeneity, and localization. These processes are inter twined and signify different faces of a coin ( Hu, Gu, Liu & Huang, 2017). Therefore, this means that globalization is not a uniform process but may include different terrains and displays itself in differently in several contexts and has diverse impact on the social and cultural contexts of people. 

The modern era of globalization has made the world to have permeable borders. The dominant social forces worldwide in the contemporary society to address certain interests created the concept of globalization. The social forces provide themselves a new conceptual name called “international community” to align with the idea of globalization. Critics have argued that the current globalization is not very different from the old fashioned colonialism. Globalization has been met with resistance and it is not a new thing. For instance, since Opium War, China has been resisting globalization. They argue that globalization is imperialism in disguise and has similar intention of having control over resources and the right of authority. However, these is not true because social media promotes development of a global media system that facilitate easy communication across national boundaries. The penetration of new media technologies in the global world has contributed significantly towards promoting increased access, transmission, and retrieval of information. Scholars and intellectuals have been discussing about the international aspects of social media over the past decades. For instance, there have been numerous discussions about the paramount importance of social media on social change. Moreover, media globalization has had an unprecedented impact on the social structure. It has created diversity of media content that has enormous cultural implications. The global flows of social media have resulted in contradictory impact on culture. It has created new hybrid cultures under globalization. Proliferation of cultural globalization through social media poses a great threat on cultures, which has raised questions on how cultures can be preserved in future. In addition, it is argued that despite the increasing transcend national borders; social media does not establish a public sphere at global or transnational level. Globalization of media platform has resulted in formation of public opinions by people within their own global level but it is still tied to a national level ( Hu, Gu, Liu & Huang, 2017). 

Social media provides a platform for formation of global networks that are important in mobilization of international support in social movements. The emergence of social media has generated rapid emergence of revolutionized communication that are important aspects in social movements. It has been seen as an important tool used in shaping the agendas of social movements and assisting in collective action at the global or local level. The most significant ability of social media is to allow ordinary citizens to organize and connect themselves to the world. Social media websites such as YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook provide people with a voice to be heard and this is why many social movements are making use of social media to articulate their concerns to reach the world system at a large extent ( Hu, Gu, Liu & Huang, 2017). 

Conclusions 

The contentious debate about the negative impact on social media on cultural globalization requires solutions to address the issue. Many have argued that cultural globalization has resulted in development of homogeneity, which in turn has led to decline in domestic local cultures. This problem can be addressed through revitalization of domestic cultures under globalization. Taking media ethnographic approaches will offer an important evidence against the inaccuracy of social media on our global society. These solutions will be effective because they would provide awareness of the paramount importance of cultural globalization in our contemporary society. Information on importance of social media on globalization would help embrace technology fully because it contributes significantly in our society. The key points that can be taken from the research is that social media is sociologically important because it has created a global village that has allowed people to make connections with each other across the globe. Social media is an important communication technology that contributes to social change in society. It has influenced people in major and different ways. For instance, it has made it easy for people to access information, communicate with each other via the social media platform, and allow business people to make connections in their market industry. Additionally, it allows people to connect, nurture their dreams and those of others, shape politics, and form opinions. In addition, it has provided social movements with a platform to voice their concerns and bring change in our society (Zhu, 2017). Therefore, although globalization of social media has resulted in significant changes, it has significant positive impact on all realm of society including economic, political, cultural, and social aspects of our lives. 

References 

Hu, S., Gu, J., Liu, H., & Huang, Q. (2017). The moderating role of social media usage in the relationship among multicultural experiences, cultural intelligence, and individual creativity.  Information Technology & People ,  30 (2), 265-281. 

Nadeem, W., Andreini, D., Salo, J., & Laukkanen, T. (2015). Engaging consumers online through websites and social media: A gender study of Italian Generation Y clothing consumers.  International Journal of Information Management ,  35 (4), 432-442. 

Seeck, H., & Rantanen, T. (2015). Media events, spectacles and risky globalization: a critical review and possible avenues for future research.  Media, culture & society ,  37 (2), 163-179. 

Sobré-Denton, M. (2016). Virtual intercultural bridgework: Social media, virtual cosmopolitanism, and activist community-building.  New Media & Society ,  18 (8), 1715-1731. 

Zhu, Q. (2017). Citizen-driven international networks and globalization of social movements on Twitter.  Social Science Computer Review ,  35 (1), 68-83. 

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13.6: Globalization of Media

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Learning Objectives

• Identify three ways that technology has helped speed globalization.
• Explain how media outlets employ globalization to their advantage.
• Describe some advances that can be made in foreign markets.

The media industry is, in many ways, perfect for globalization, or the spread of global trade without regard for traditional political borders. As discussed earlier, the low marginal costs of media mean that reaching a wider market creates much larger profit margins for media companies. Because information is not a physical good, shipping costs are generally inconsequential. Finally, the global reach of media allows it to be relevant in many different countries.

However, some have argued that media is actually a partial cause of globalization, rather than just another globalized industry. Media is largely a cultural product, and the transfer of such a product is likely to have an influence on the recipient’s culture. Increasingly, technology has also been propelling globalization. Technology allows for quick communication, fast and coordinated transport, and efficient mass marketing, all of which have allowed globalization—especially globalized media—to take hold.

Globalized Culture, Globalized Markets

Much globalized media content comes from the West, particularly from the United States. Driven by advertising, U.S. culture and media have a strong consumerist bent (meaning that the ever-increasing consumption of goods is encouraged as a economic virtue), thereby possibly causing foreign cultures to increasingly develop consumerist ideals. Therefore, the globalization of media could not only provide content to a foreign country but may also create demand for U.S. products. Some believe that this will “contribute to a one-way transmission of ideas and values that result in the displacement of indigenous cultures.”Josefina M. C. Santos, “Globalisation and Tradition: Paradoxes in Philippine Television and Culture,” Media Development , no. 3 (2001): 43–48.

Globalization as a world economic trend generally refers to the lowering of economic trade borders, but it has much to do with culture as well. Just as transfer of industry and technology often encourages outside influence through the influx of foreign money into the economy, the transfer of culture opens up these same markets. As globalization takes hold and a particular community becomes more like the United States economically, this community may also come to adopt and personalize U.S. cultural values. The outcome of this spread can be homogenization (the local culture becomes more like the culture of the United States) or heterogenization (aspects of U.S. culture come to exist alongside local culture, causing the culture to become more diverse), or even both, depending on the specific situation.Terhi Rantanen, The Media and Globalization (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005).

Making sense of this range of possibilities can be difficult, but it helps to realize that a mix of many different factors is involved. Because of cultural differences, globalization of media follows a model unlike that of the globalization of other products. On the most basic level, much of media is language and culture based and, as such, does not necessarily translate well to foreign countries. Thus, media globalization often occurs on a more structural level, following broader “ways of organizing and creating media.”Mirza Jan. “Globalization of Media: Key Issues and Dimensions,” European Journal of Scientific Research 29, no. 1 (2009): 66–75. In this sense, a media company can have many different culturally specific brands and still maintain an economically globalized corporate structure.

Vertical Integraton and Globalization

Because globalization has as much to do with the corporate structure of a media company as with the products that a media company produces, vertical integration in multinational media companies becomes a necessary aspect of studying globalized media. Many large media companies practice vertical integration: Newspaper chains take care of their own reporting, printing, and distribution; television companies control their own production and broadcasting; and even small film studios often have parent companies that handle international distribution.

A media company often benefits greatly from vertical integration and globalization. Because of the proliferation of U.S. culture abroad, media outlets are able to use many of the same distribution structures with few changes. Because media rely on the speedy ability to react to current events and trends, a vertically integrated company can do all of this in a globalized rather than a localized marketplace; different branches of the company are readily able to handle different markets. Further, production values for single-country distribution are basically the same as those for multiple countries, so vertical integration allows, for example, a single film studio to make higher-budget movies than it may otherwise be able to produce without a distribution company that has as a global reach.

Foreign Markets and Titanic

Worth considering is the reciprocal influence of foreign culture on American culture. Certainly, American culture is increasingly exported around the world thanks to globalization, and many U.S. media outlets count strongly on their ability to sell their product in foreign markets. But what Americans consider their own culture has in fact been tailored to the tastes not only of U.S. citizens but also to those of worldwide audiences. The profit potential of foreign markets is enormous: If a movie does well abroad, for example, it might make up for a weak stateside showing, and may even drive interest in the movie in the United States.

One prime example of this phenomenon of global culture and marketing is James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic . One of the most expensive movies ever produced up to that point, with an official budget of around $200 million, Titanic was not anticipated to perform particularly well at the U.S. box office. Rather, predictions of foreign box-office receipts allowed the movie to be made. Of the total box-office receipts of Titanic , only about one-third came from the domestic market. Although Titanic became the highest-grossing film up to that point, it grossed just $140 million more domestically than Star Wars did 20 years earlier.Box Office Mojo, “All Time Domestic Box Office Results,” http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/domestic.htm . The difference was in the foreign market. While Star Wars made about the same amount—$300 million—in both the domestic and foreign markets, Titanic grossed $1.2 billion in foreign box-office receipts. In all, the movie came close to hitting the $2 billion mark, and now sits in the No. 2 position behind Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster, Avatar .

One reason that U.S. studios can make these kinds of arrangements is their well-developed ties with the worldwide movie industry. Hollywood studios have agreements with theaters all over the world to show their films. By contrast, the foreign market for French films is not nearly as established, as the industry tends to be partially subsidized by the French government. Theaters showing Hollywood studio films in France funnel portions of their box-office receipts to fund French films. However, Hollywood has lobbied the World Trade Organization—a largely pro-globalization group that pushes for fewer market restrictions—to rule that this French subsidy is an unfair restriction on trade.Roman Terrill, “Globalization in the 1990s,” University of Iowa Center for International Finance and Development , 1999, www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/ebook2/contents/part3-I.shtml#B.

In many ways, globalization presents legitimate concerns about the endangerment of indigenous culture. Yet simple concerns over the transfer of culture are not the only or even the biggest worries caused by the spread of American culture and values.

Key Takeaways

• Technology allows for quick communication, transport, and mass marketing, greatly contributing to a globalized marketplace.
• Media economies of scale achieve much larger profit margins by using digital technology to sell information instantly over a global market.
• Foreign markets offer excellent profit potential as they contribute to media companies’ economies of scale. The addition of new audiences and consumer markets may help a company build a global following in the long run.

Exercise \(\PageIndex{1}\)

Think of a U.S. product that is available throughout the world, such as an athletic brand like Nike or a food product like Pepsi or Coca-Cola. Now go online to the different country-specific branches of the company’s website.

• What differences are there?
• How might the company be attempting to tailor its globalized product to a specific culture?
• What advances into the foreign market does this use of the Internet allow the company to make?
• What advantages does this globalization of its products give the company?
• In what other ways has technology helped speed this globalization?

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Angel Reese Bids Farewell to LSU, College Basketball With Heartfelt Video Essay

• Author: Karl Rasmussen

In this story:

Angel Reese announced Wednesday morning that she intends to enter the 2024 WNBA draft following LSU's season-ending defeat against Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Monday's Elite Eight .

Shortly after her announcement, Reese bid farewell to the Tigers and all of her fans across the country on a more personal level, sharing a heartfelt video essay to her social media accounts. In the video, Reese thanked her supporters and expressed her gratitude to those who helped her along her journey.

"I'm leaving college with everything I've ever wanted," Reese said. "A degree. A national championship. And this platform I could have never imagined. This is for the girls that look like me, that's going to speak up on what they believe in, it's unapologetically you. To grow up in sports and have an impact on what's coming next.

"This was a difficult decision, but I trust the next chapter because I know the author. Bayou Barbie, out."

Grateful for these last four years and excited for this next chapter. #BAYOUBARBIEOUT pic.twitter.com/EvkzUW08JV — Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) April 3, 2024

Reese played two seasons at LSU after transferring from the University of Maryland. With the Tigers, she racked up a multitude of accolades and won a national championship last season, vaulting herself into the national spotlight in the process. Across 69 games for LSU, Reese averaged 20.9 points and 14.4 rebounds.

After wrapping up a legendary college career and bidding an emotional farewell to her fans, Reese has officially declared her intention to enter the WNBA draft, where she projects as a first-round pick in what figures to be a loaded draft class.

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