As the media
becomes more global, who wins and who loses?
(50 marks).
The term, ‘Globalisation’ defines the way in which some
companies and businesses come to operate internationally. This means that
although they may have Headquarters in America, such as Apple, they could have
manufacturing factories in other countries, such as China. They could also sell
to a much wider market, such as a global market.
This can be good because wealth, work and technologies are
spread across different nations and help to raise living standards and better
ways of doing business. What this means is that companies such as Apple share
their new technologies with the rest of the world so that they can build upon
them and technological advances can move forward. Also, people in less
economically developed countries can work for the companies in exchange for
money to buy food and housing with, improving their way of life.
However, this can also be bad because it can mean that once
a company becomes globalised, they are then the main company in that market and
the smaller businesses weaken. For example, most people today have an Apple
product. iPhones are more popular than any other smart phone, so the other
smart phone companies are losing out on their market because everybody wants an
iPhone. 56% of all phones are smartphones, and 25% of those smartphones are
iPhones. This does not leave much room in the market for other phone companies.
Globalisation can also lead to a stronger economy. As more
people buy Apple products, more money is pumped into the American economy.
Better worldwide trade leads to an increased cash flow system. Nevertheless,
globalisation can also create a weaker economy as countries rely on each other
for trade and business. This creates a knock-on effect as if one country’s
economy fails, then they can’t do business with the other countries and this
carries on until there is a global recession. This is why it is difficult as
they are relying on two or more incomes.
BT is an English company, but they have call centres in
Pakistan and India. Therefore they are helping to create jobs in less
economically developed countries, just like Apple and Primark do. Because of
the weaker economies of these countries, Western societies can sell cheap
products (eg clothing from Primark) and have the product created for them for
even less money in Eastern countries.
This is bad because it leads to the creation of sweat shops.
Sweat shops are factories where people (including very young children) work for
extremely long hours without toilet breaks and receiving appallingly low pay.
Nike and Primark have been publicly outed for using these sweat shops, and
there are many campaigns and boycotts against them. However because of the
availability and inexpensiveness of these products, global companies continue
to exploit the countries that they advertise themselves as aiding. People in
less economically developed countries can’t say no to this work because then
they would have absolutely no income or money.
Global trade can help to build peaceful relationships
between countries which can lead to free trade and no taxes. But for the
countries that give away the free tax, their citizens lose out on that money
for schools, roads, hospital care etc.
Globalisation can also lead to environmental protection. For
example, the toilet tissue company ‘Velvet’ once advertised its tree-planting
campaign in which assured the public that they were re-planting two trees for
every tree they cut down in order to make their toilet tissue. Even so, these
trees will take many years to grow and mature before they reach a usable state,
and the rainforest will continue to be cut down around them, destroying
wildlife habitats and endangering rare wild animals such as leopards and
tigers.
The growth of globalised media allows us to purchase cheap
products, spread wealth and create peaceful connections to other countries whom
we may need to rely on in the future.
But then again, globalisation can cause exploitation, environmental
destruction and a weaker economy. It is very difficult to say without a doubt
that globalisation is either completely good or completely bad for those
involved.
