SOC 451HIGH-TECH GLOBAL FLOWS

Technology&Media&Internet

Asst. Prof. Fatma Altinbas Sarigul

TECHNOLOGY• Technological innovations are strongly related to

globalization.• One example of a more recent technological

development in the realm of commerce was the creation of the world’s first container ship in 1956.

• The development and expansion of air freight- Boeing 747.

• The founding of Federal Express (FedEx).• The creation of the Universal Product Code (UPC).• The development of personal computers (1970)

and internet.

Medical Technologies

• New health-care technologies (MRIs, CAT scans,etc.)

• Easy to flow around the world.• Too expensive for undeveloped nations and no

availability of trained personnel to use the technology.

• The flow of pharmaceuticals- impact of profit.

MEDIA

• The conventional view was that it was the Western media (specially US) and Western technologies; that was imperialistic and that dominated less developed nations and their cultures.

• Lately, other views have emerged that American media is not as powerful as before global media giants have arisen to compete. For example: Arabic Al Jazeera, Bollywood.

‘New’ Global Media

• Apple iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, Google, Microsoft.

• Indymedia: The rise of independent media• Marshall McLuhan, ‘Global Village’

‘New’ Global Media

• Guy DeBord- Media Spectacle; the globalization of such a spectacle and the ability of spectacle to produce and reproduce capitalism and consumer culture.

• To the Frankfurt theorists, the media were of economic significance as a new source of capital realization, but their more important role is in the social control of people and their ability to influence and shape the larger culture.

INTERNET

• The reducing influence of the nation-states.• ıt has prompted a flat world thesis, anyone

can be involved in it.• Creation of barriers; for example: Chinese

government’s ‘Great Firewall’.