Global Media Essay.

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.