Global village

Marshall McLuhan, who was a Canadian thinker, coined the term 'global village' in the 1960s. It indicates daily production and consumption of media, images and content by global audiences.[3] McLuhan based his concept on the understanding of people moving towards involving personal interactions worldwide and the consequences, as they ensue and operate simultaneously with their causes.[4] The term "global village" means all parts of the world as they are being brought together by the internet and other electronic communication interconnections.[5] Other forms of communication such as Skype allow us to communicate and connect with others, especially others in other countries, easier.[6] The new reality of the digital age has implications for forming new socially meaningful structures within the context of culture.[7] Interchanging messages, stories, opinions, posts, and videos through channels on telecommunication pathways can cause miscommunication—especially through different cultures.[8] Contemporary analysts question the causes of changes in community.[8] Often they speculate about whether or not the consequences of these changes could lead to some new sociological structure.[8] Most of them have pointed out that the increased velocity of transactions has fostered international density, making social networks a catalyst for social change.

Within the global village framework people transcend the micro- meso- and macro-dynamics of their life on a daily basis. They get involved in complex communities of networks stretching worldwide. The increasing density of electronically established and maintained human interconnections results in forming new socially significant clusters. The global village's implications on human relations are yet to be comprehensively studied primarily in terms of pattern recognition and discrimination techniques.[9] Electronic media have the ability to impact people differently for various reasons. The messages affect people due to their religion, politics, beliefs, business, money etc. With this in mind, the most important thing is to know how they affect them structurally (as Marshall McLuhan would put it, the medium is the message). [7] The time in which messages are received also affects how a message is understood.[7].

In Marshall McLuhan's time, the global village was already a fact. Mcluhan's approach is a comprehensive and seminal way to grasp what should be happening to the world at large and, correspondingly, what should be done with this in mind. For Marshall McLuhan the best way is to follow globally the maxims of electronically introduced "ecological thinking" taking into account that "The global village absolutely ensures maximal disagreement on all points" (McLuhan: Hot & Cool. NY, Signet Books published by The New American Library Inc. 1967, p. 272).

Long before, in the primitive times, people primarily stayed in tune with the simultaneous mode of their perception and thinking.[7] Today, with the instant communications, the simultaneous mode has taken the upper hand once again.[7] Our consciousness is constantly adapting and morphing to the modifications of technological advancements.[7] Through technology, the creation of social media allows people to constantly comment on each other's posts as well as creating them to share with the multi-media global world. 55% of teens possess a social media account.[10] Social media has connected people with jobs that they couldn't have received before because of their geographic location.[11] New social medias are inceasingly connecting people throughout the world so that users can not learn more about cultures different from their own and maintain diverse relationships, even those from opposing countries. They are also forced to identify themselves with regard to the global world as such practically on a daily basis. [12]

People use technology to fit into a digital community to which they are not physically connected, but mentally connected. Each social media platform acts as a digital home for individuals, allowing people to express themselves through the global village.[7] A Review of General Semantics argues that media ecology and new media have expanded who has the ability to create and view media texts.[13] Since mass media began, it has called for the westernization of the world, hence the global village. Without the mass media in effect, other countries wouldn't be having the knowledge of what the acquisitions of the other nations of the world constitute. Since most of the developing countries acquired the news and entertainment from developed nations like the U.S, the information received is biased in favor of developed nations which connects the world in similarities within the media.[14]

On the Internet, physical distance is even less of a hindrance to the real-time communicative activities of people. Social Spheres are greatly expanded by the openness of the web and the ease at which people can search for online communities and interact with others who share the same interests and concerns. According to McLuhan, the enhanced "electric speed in bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion has heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree."[15] Increased speed of communication and the ability for people to read about, spread, and react to global news quickly, forces us to become more involved with others from various social groups and countries around the world and to be more aware of our global responsibilities.[15] Similarly, web-connected computers enable people to link their web sites together.[8]

No chapter in Understanding Media, later books, contains the idea that the global village and the electronic media create unified communities. In an interview with Gerald Stearn,[16] McLuhan says that it never occurred to him that uniformity and tranquility were the properties of the global village. McLuhan argued that the global village ensures maximal disagreement on all points because it creates more discontinuity and division and diversity under the increase of the village conditions. The global village is far more diverse.

After the publication of Understanding Media, McLuhan starts using the term global theater to emphasize the changeover from consumer to producer, from acquisition to involvement, from job holding to role playing, stressing that there is no more community to clothe the naked specialist.[17]

• Globalization
• Information Revolution
• Internet metaphors