INTRODUCTION
Globalization is the process of international integration and corporation arising from global exchange of ideas, views, products and cultural aspects. It is a process that integrates exchange of international culture and technological knowhow. Globalization has in the recent pas t been used as interplay of markets and technology as amongst the earliest human inventions. Throughout the years human beings have been involved in a series of exchange to an extend of global approach with the view of promoting trade and the well being of the human species.
Globalization has seen an exchange of technological and cultural innovations that seem to converge the human species into a one cultural globalised and franchised species. Historical tracing of the globalization trend is traced back after the end of the second world war when global corporate production and the global spread of capitalism. “With near universal poverty a structural constraint on demand, markets were neighborhood-trading places, with long distance trade mostly limited to luxury goods for the small power elite. New ideas, information and technology spread slowly since transportation and communication were based on animal traction. Four distinct phases of globalization can be discerned in modern history. The first phase began in the sixteenth century with the passing of pre-modern localism, improvements in maritime technology leading to the great age of maritime exploration, discovery and mercantilism, the European Renaissance, centralizing tendencies associated with absolute monarchy and the emergence of modern nation states following the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, and the spread of the ideals of the American and French Revolutions from the eighteenth century”.( Myers , 2011)
The globalization trend was enhanced by the great economic depression of the nineteenth century. This was after the end of the Second World War that mostly affected the western world. Corporate and other industrial firm’s seeked solace in the international market. Thus trends of globalizations and multinational production took shape in the capital world. “During the third phase, merchandise trade resumed its triumphant march as the engine of hyper growth in East Asia from the 1970’s. International trade/GDP ratios recovered to their late 19th century level by the last decade of the 20th century. But whereas the globalization thrust in the second phase in the nineteenth century involved, in the main, the export of mass-produced merchandise to the colonies, this time round the export dynamism came from the erstwhile colonies. This globalization thrust was led by transnational corporations (TNCs) that endeavored to disseminate international trade and modern technology to every flag on earth”. (Myers, 2011)
The trend towards modern globalization was influenced by several phenomenons among them
- culture
Cultural globalization is the worldwide spread of certain cultural trends that are unique to certain individuals in certain lifestyles. The trend in cultural dynamics was enhanced by the spread of brands and marketing across a global span. Individuals have moved from conservatist traditions and embraced a global cultural trend. The twentieth century spread of pop culture marked a beginning of a global cultural integration aided by pop music. The internet and satellite television acts as a medium for cultural exchange. Religious movement was amongst the first cultural agents spread by evangelism and imperialism. The major cultural religious practices in the world includes: Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Mormonism. The cultural globalization is also spread the economic branding of products by the USA hence spreading a culture known as Americanization. America is renowned for its two fast food and beverage global firms are Mc Donald’s and Starbucks respectively.
Music has also been used as a cultural globalization tool and as a cultural transformation and spreading tool. Traditional music was incorporated with beats to make them fit in the trendy global world of modern music. Music has evolved from several trends such as world fusion, global fusion and ethnic fusion. “Music flowed outward from the west as well. Anglo-American pop music spread across the world through MTV. Dependency Theory explained that the world was an integrated, international system. Musically, this translated into the loss of local musical identity. Bourdieu claimed that the perception of consumption can be seen as self-identification and the formation of identity. Musically, this translates into each being having his own musical identity based on likes and tastes. These likes and tastes are greatly influenced by culture as this is the most basic cause for a person's wants and behavior. The concept of one's own culture is now in a period of change due to globalization. Also, globalization has increased the interdependency of political, personal, cultural and economic factors”. (Myers, 2011)
Cultural integration is also spread globally through multi lingual language transfers. Due to the spread of globalization in the market world, there had to be a global language of communication as companies and countries penetrated the global market. This acts as a medium of communication and promotion channel. This led to development of varied cultural lingua franca that is spread and push for as a medium of communication after mother tongue. English is the largest lingua franca spread across the whole world. “Today, the most popular second language is English. Some 3.5 billion people have some acquaintance of the language. English is the dominant language on the Internet. About 35% of the world's mail, telexes, and cables are in English. Approximately 40% of the world's radio programs are in English. Language contact occurs when two or more languages or varieties interact. Multilingualism has likely been common throughout much of human history, and today most people in the world are multilingual. Language contact occurs in a variety of phenomena, including language convergence, borrowing, and relexification. The most common products are pidgins, creoles, code-switching, and mixed languages” ( Myers , 2011)
- Media and public opinion.
The media has been ad vocative of globalization. The print media and the social media have reduced the world to a global village. International broadcasting firms like BBC and CNN have enhanced globalization due to their global outreach. This has helped spread a global culture as news from across the globe could easily have been shared across a global population over a short span of time. “While much has been written of the economic advantages of Internet-enabled commerce, there is also evidence that some aspects of the internet such as maps and location-aware services may serve to reinforce economic inequality and the digital divide. Electronic commerce may be responsible for consolidation and the decline of mom-and-pop, brick and mortar businesses resulting in increases in income inequality. An online community is a virtual community that exists online and whose members enable its existence through taking part in membership ritual. Significant socio-technical change may have resulted from the proliferation of such Internet-based social networks” (Myers, 2011)
The emerging trend and the faster spread of social media globally has enhanced globalization as the world has now gone to an extend of reducing the world into a global village on their finger tips. This is enhanced by the availability of mobile phones and the ease of accessibility of the social media via the mobile phones. Technology has been easily available and its utilization has seen the world converge into one village where information is available and shared at the fingertips. Approximately two thirds of the world’s total adult population owns a mobile hand set. This has enhanced faster spread of information and acts as a utility for global marketing. “Both a product of globalization as well as a catalyst, the Internet connects computer users around the world. From 2000 to 2009, the number of Internet users globally rose from 394 million to 1.858 billion. By 2010, 22 percent of the world's population had access to computers with 1 billion Google searches every day, 300 million Internet users reading blogs, and 2 billion videos viewed daily on YouTube” ( Myers , 2011)
- Global natural environment.
Environmental challenges such as climate change and global warming have contributed a great deal in globalization. Countries across the globe have converged to an international conference where they sought to tackle the environmental challenges and promote healthful and safe production. The world is currently suffering a threat of losing the ozone layer and melting of the mountainous ice due to increased levels of global warming. “The advent of global environmental challenges that might be solved with international cooperation include climate change, cross-boundary water and air pollution, over-fishing of the ocean, and the spread of invasive species. Since many factories are built in developing countries with less environmental regulation, globalism and free trade may increase pollution and impact on precious fresh water resources” (Myers, 2011)
This has lessened a rift between continents as problems facing them are solved on a global basis rather than alone by individual countries. Resources are now pulled together for the benefit of the global population. “Societies utilize forest resources in order to reach a sustainable level of economic development. Historically, forests in earlier developing nations experience "forest transitions", a period of deforestation and reforestation as a surrounding society becomes more developed, industrialized and shift their primary resource extraction to other nations via imports. For nations at the periphery of the globalized system however, there are no others to shift their extraction onto, and forest degradation continues unabated. Forest transitions can have an effect on the hydrology, climate change, and biodiversity of an area by impacting water quality and the accumulation of greenhouse gases through the re-growth of new forest into second and third growth forests” (Myers, 2011)
In conclusion the globalization has brought both positive and negative effects in the world. Most of the positive effects have been discussed below. However some of the globalization effects are negative. The use of technology over a global population have led to deterioration of morality and degrading of some cultural values in society. However it has helped to bring all the happening s in the world to a press of the button hence to me the concept of globalization is very helpful if utilized properly. This has eased the life in the global population and hence making the productivity and consumption easier and available (Myers, 2011)
References
Myers, George. "globalization." the economic time [New York] 22 Feb. 2011: 14
