Globalization

   Global communication networks collapse time and space enabling people and organizations around the world to interact and work together. McLuhan speculated that global media would foster the development of a tribalized society in which individuals would interact within a larger group consciousness. McLuhan and Zingrone (1995) say, "Individual talents and perspectives don't have to shrivel within a retribalized society; they merely interact within a group consciousness that has the potential for releasing far more creativity than the old atomized culture". Similarly, Levy (1997) contends that digital networks will support the emergence of a "collective intelligence," which he describes as a "universally distributed intelligence, constantly enhanced, coordinated in real time, and resulting in the effective mobilization of skills". Computer networking is the centralizing technology that will cause the development of this global intelligence because people use communication technologies to interact on a global scale.

   Both Levy and McLuhan suggest that by bridging time and space global communication networks could ultimately join people into a large collective. Underlying this concept is the idea that print media separated people into nation states and print technology helped to create the idea of individualism. Through the printing press, the different European languages were standardized, facilitating the establishment of nation states. Books printed in different languages caused people to begin to associate with language groups. Over time, people who would read and write in one language, such as French, began to realize that they were different from people who would read and write in a different language, such as German or English. Linguistic separation eventually led to the creation of national identity. In addition, reading could be done alone, and so reading became a singular rather than a group activity, thus reinforcing the notion of individualism. The printing press's influence on the formation of nation states and individualism is described in detail by Eisen-stein (1980).

   Electric and electronic media, in contrast, tend to bring people together into a larger group consciousness that is reminiscent of preliterate tribalized oral culture. In oral culture, human communication primarily depends on face-to-face interaction, and people living in oral cultures are interdependent because they have access to each other. According to McLuhan and Zingrone (1995): "Literate man is alienated, impoverished man; retribalized man can lead a far richer and more fulfilling life-not the life of a mindless drone but of the participant in a seamless Web of interdependence and harmony". Interdependence can develop through CMC and global communication media as people work together and build relationships.

   McLuhan (1964) used the metaphor of the human body to explain different types of media. For example, the book is an extension of the eye and clothing is an extension of the skin. Similarly, he argued that electric technology is an extension of the human nervous system. In 1964, he predicted that rapidly humans would approach the final phase of the extension of man - technological simulation of consciousness, when the creative process of knowing will be collectively and corporately extended to the whole of human society, much as we have already extended our senses and our nerves by the various media.

   By spanning time and space, the Internet and Web extend our nervous system through a global electronic network that connects people in a global embrace. Globalization is defined as the interdependence of countries on a worldwide level through the increasing volume of cross-border transactions in goods and services and through the widespread diffusion of technology. As international trade in goods and services grows, global financial transactions increase and a global marketplace emerges. Central to the formation of a global marketplace are mass media.

   Mass media have been criticized for homogenizing global culture by disrupting national traditions. Mass media create global mass audiences that are targets for globalized consumer products, such as Pepsi, McDonald's, and the Gap. Around the world, people wear Gap jeans and eat McDonald's hamburgers as they sip Pepsi. Instead of homogenizing culture, the Web has been criticized for fragmenting it. The Web creates a chaotic marketplace of cultures that allows a greater degree of individualization across cultures. Rather than uniting the world into one large, homogeneous global village, the Internet exposes people to cultural diversity. Thus, globalization simultaneously brings people together into a large consumer culture and potentially exposes individuals to different cultures.