Individual identity and global information. The global village (Mac Luhan)
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7 word format
document in English
journalism
presentation
published 25/01/2007
review : Completed
level : Advanced
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Summary How is individual identity constructed in the environment of global information and media flows? How valid is Marshall Mac Luhan’s global village concept in this environment?
Nowadays, each of us is aware from the pattern of our everyday lives that there have been lots of changes linked with the development of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and globalization. Scholars have increasingly begun to talk about Information society and about the fact that people are entering a new age of information, a new mode of information. Almost all agree to point out that quantitative changes in information are bringing into being a qualitative new sort of social system. In such a context globalization seems to make reference to a space where the global and the local interact using ICT as a tool. More than an increasingly internationalisation of affairs ( meaning more links between autonomous states) that process is also a growing interdependence and interpenetration of human relations and an integration of world’s social and economic life. Then, it consists of changes which strongly affect both the local and national spaces. All those changes lead people to face a new digital environment, which reaches beyond the roots and the referents used by individuals to construct their identity, which is not stable. Then what are the role of the media flows and global information in that search? Firstly, Mac Luhan theory of global village seems to be a good starting point to see how media flows and the spread of global information can change the construction of identity and make people more eager to develop a global identity. Nevertheless, such changes are the cause of different fears and withdrawals to defence some people’s identity and this concept is asking some questions. Indeed, people have finally to construct their identities in combining the global and local necessities.
Nowadays, each of us is aware from the pattern of our everyday lives that there have been lots of changes linked with the development of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) and globalization. Scholars have increasingly begun to talk about Information society and about the fact that people are entering a new age of information, a new mode of information. Almost all agree to point out that quantitative changes in information are bringing into being a qualitative new sort of social system. In such a context globalization seems to make reference to a space where the global and the local interact using ICT as a tool. More than an increasingly internationalisation of affairs ( meaning more links between autonomous states) that process is also a growing interdependence and interpenetration of human relations and an integration of world’s social and economic life. Then, it consists of changes which strongly affect both the local and national spaces. All those changes lead people to face a new digital environment, which reaches beyond the roots and the referents used by individuals to construct their identity, which is not stable. Then what are the role of the media flows and global information in that search? Firstly, Mac Luhan theory of global village seems to be a good starting point to see how media flows and the spread of global information can change the construction of identity and make people more eager to develop a global identity. Nevertheless, such changes are the cause of different fears and withdrawals to defence some people’s identity and this concept is asking some questions. Indeed, people have finally to construct their identities in combining the global and local necessities.
Table of Contents
- Media and information flows provided by ICTs entail a new way to construct a global identity
- With the globalization, the generalization of communication networks and the spread of information, people seem to face a huge digital environment which offers them a space for competing ideas and images and for constructing their identity
- Marshall Mc Luhan's ´global village´
- End of ´given identity´, fears and withdrawals: individuals have to cope with confusion
- Thanks to the global information and the media flows, 'identity as a task' take the place of ´identity as a gift´
- The complexity to build identity for individuals among that new digital interconnected environment has generated some fears
- Nostalgia for the local
- Individuals construct their identity in constant interaction with global media but always locally
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