Global trends in journalism

Globalization, transnationalization, computerization - the major global trends in morden journalism.

The globalization of information space as a result of the latest advances in communications technology and electronics.

The globalization of the media as a drive towards world power, to rule the world, bringing all the mass media to the average standard, the "common denominator."

The Internet as a tool to extract information and communication in individual, group and mass contexts. The history of the Internet.

The processes of globalization and the transformation of modern media. The effects of globalization of information space.

Influence of transnational media companies on the modern world media space.

Transnational media companies with "scattered" capital.

Determination of the effectiveness of the mass media on the principle that news as a product, the audience as a capital.

Globalization (or globalisation, also mundialisation or mundialization) is a common term for processes of international integration arising from increasing human activity and interchange of worldviews, products, ideas, and other aspects of culture. In particular, advances in transportation and telecommunications infrastructure, including the rise of the Internet, represent major driving factors in globalization and precipitate further interdependence of economic and cultural activities.

Human interaction over long distances has existed for thousands of years. The overland Silk Road that connected Asia, Africa and Europe is a good example of the transformative power of international exchange that existed in the "Old World". Philosophy, religion, language, the arts, and other aspects of culture spread and mixed as nations exchanged products and ideas. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Europeans made important discoveries in their exploration of the World ocean and in beginning cross-Atlantic travel to the "New World" of the Americas. Global movement of people, goods, and ideas expanded significantly in the following centuries. Early in the 19th century, the development of new forms of transportation (such as the steamship and railroads) and telecommunications that "compressed" time and space allowed for increasingly rapid rates of global interchange. In the 20th century, road vehicles and airlines made transportation even faster, and the advent of electronic communications, most notably mobile phones and the Internet, connected billions of people in new ways leading into the 21st century.

The term globalization is derived from the root word "globalize", which refers to the emergence of an international network of social and economic systems. One of the earliest known usages of the term as the noun "globalization" was in 1930 - in a publication entitled Towards New Education - to denote a holistic view of human experience in education. A related term, 'corporate giants', was coined by Charles Taze Russell in 1897 to describe the largely national trusts and other large enterprises of the time. By the 1960s, both terms began to be used as synonyms by economists and other social scientists. It then reached the mainstream press in the later half of the 1980s. Since its inception, the concept of globalization has inspired competing definitions and interpretations, with antecedents dating back to the great movements of trade and empire across Asia and the Indian Ocean from the 15th century onwards.

The journalist Thomas L. Friedman popularized the term "flat world", arguing that globalized trade, outsourcing, supply-chaining, and political forces had permanently changed the world, for better and worse. He asserted that the pace of globalization was quickening and that its impact on business organization and practice would continue to grow.

Multinational corporations face the challenge of developing global information systems for global data processing and decision-making. The Internet provides a broad area of services to business and individual users. Because the World Wide Web (WWW) can reach any Internet-connected computer in the world, the Internet is closely related to global information systems. A global information system is a data communication network that crosses national boundaries to access and process data in order to achieve corporate goals and strategic objectives.

Across companies and continents, information standards ensure desirable characteristics of products and services such as quality, environmental friendliness, safety, reliability, efficiency and interchangeability at an economical cost. For businesses, widespread adoption of international standards means that suppliers can develop and offer products and services meeting specifications that have wide international acceptance in their sectors. According to the ISO, businesses using their International Standards are competitive in more markets around the world.

The ISO develops standards by organizing technical committees of experts from the industrial, technical and business sectors who have asked for the standards and which subsequently put them to use. These experts may be joined by representatives of government agencies, testing laboratories, consumer associations, non-governmental organizations and academic circles.

Cultural globalization has increased cross-cultural contacts but may be accompanied by a decrease in the uniqueness of once-isolated communities: sushi is available in Germany as well as Japan, but Euro-Disney outdraws the city of Paris, potentially reducing demand for "authentic" French pastry. Globalisation's contribution to the alienation of individuals from their traditions may be modest compared to the impact of modernity itself, as alleged by existentialists such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Globalization has expanded recreational opportunities by spreading pop culture, particularly via the Internet and satellite television.

Globalization, Transnationalization and Europeanizationhave become central reference points for media, politicians, academics, and policy-makers to explain social change and understand social inequality in European member countries. The phenomenon of Transnationalization can be characterized by four interrelated transnational shifts that have intensified in the last two decades:

• First, transnationalization refers to the globalization and Europeanization of markets and domestic structures and subsequent decline in the meaning and efficacy at national borders.

• Second, transnational shifts relate to the intensification of competition, i.e., the notion that capital and labor are increasingly mobile. It therefore forces not only firms but also national economies and welfare regimes to continuously adjust and become internationally competitive, often entailing a turn towards more deregulation, liberalization and privatization.

• A third feature is the spread of transnational networks of people and firms linked by Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) such as microcomputers and the Internet. These ICTs, together with modern mass media, allow faster diffusion of information and knowledge over long distances and increasingly allow people to share information.

• Fourth, transnationalization is inherently related to the rise in the importance of markets and their dependence on random shocks. Actors are increasingly in the hands of anonymous global markets, yet changes are more dynamic and less predictable.