Sunday, August 10, 2008
IT has a big part
Information Technology (IT) is a driving factor in contemporary globalization. Technology gradually improved after World War Two and improvements in the early 1990s in computer hardware, software, and telecommunications have caused widespread improvements in access to information and economic potential. These advances have facilitated economic gains in many sectors of the economy. Information Technology provides the communication network that facilitates the expansion of products, ideas, and resources among nations and among people regardless of geographic location. IT have made it easier and less expensive for people to talk with family, friends, and business associates, and to do so while on the move, from great distances. This is what Marshall McLuhan calls the "global village."
Technological developments are generally associated with communications revolution. For example fiber-optic cable and wireless technologies have transformed telecommunications in recent years.
The spread of IT and its applications has been extraordinarily rapid. Just 20 years ago, for example, the use of desktop personal computers was still limited to a fairly small number of technologically advanced and well-off people. The typewriter was still the main mechanism for producing documents. It however does not permit manipulation of text and no storage space is offered. Fifteen years ago, large and bulky mobile telephones were carried only by a small number of users in just a few U.S. cities. Today, half of all Americans use a mobile phone.
Thus we can see that technology plays an important role in the process of globalisation. Critics argue that technology is a force for integration, making the world a smaller, better place. Technology is said to bring "good things to life." This is true, but not for all aspects . It may contribute to integration, but it also may result in economic and political disintegration, a process that distances people living in different parts of the world. Recent advances in our ability to communicate and process information in digital form with GPS, 3G and gadgets like the iPhone - a series of developments described as an "IT revolution" - are reshaping the economies and social lives of many people around the world.
Here are some cute cartoons:
credited to:http://www.geographyalltheway.com/ib_geography/ib_globalization/what_is_globalization.htm
Andrea Khor =)
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