Globalization is the impact of spurt of advancement in communication technology. The communication growth is so rapid that globalization has to double step in attaining the pace with such technology achievements. Technological inventions of very recent past now look like decade old when compared to current advancements and inventions. Communication technology has become a driving force of globalization. The study in this paper analyses the impact of growth in communication technology on globalization.
Communication advancements of nineties caused widespread growth when communication technology revealed its real potential. Growth in communication network brought out by information technology witnessed a stream of expansion of products and ideas breaking geographic boundaries. The impact was so great that communication development brought out by IT became the catalyst for global integration. Consider goods manufactured in China were available in those countries where China is not even involved diplomatically. Everything is moving dramatically fast. Few years earlier desktop computers were operated by small numbers of people and the main sources of document production were the typewriters. Now even desktop is giving way to laptops and such other versions of computerization that conveys faster information through the wonder of the centuries called ‘internet’. Imagine mobile phones have become so necessary that communication is virtually impossible without mobile phones.
Internet has revolutionized the all round activities so much that no place in the world is far from the other. “Websites, chat rooms, instant messaging systems, e-mail, electronic bulletin boards, and other internet- based communication systems have made it easier for the people of common interests to find each other, exchange information, and collaborate with each other.” (CSIS, 2006). Internet has made the status of globalization so strong that the importance of information on internet does not go waste like tangible goods. The internet information remains useful for years to come as internet has emerged as network built upon the exchange of information.
The most important feature boosting globalization is the information travels very fast and at very negligible cost. Now “we hear much of the creation of a borderless world and the end of nation state. It is true that satellites and the internet have greatly increased the speed at which the information of cultural and informational impulses is propagated throughout the globe.”(Jonathan M. Harris and Neva R Goodwin, page 62).
The world is aggressively marching towards a free economy. Competition has become high because information about goods or services produced in a remote part of world is made available through ever advancing communication technology. There is Electronic Fund Transfers (EFT) boosting businesses in every part of the world. Emergence of an organization called SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) has ensured a reliable electronic financial system. All this is happening because of advancement in communication technology. The fact is that “the current cycle of globalization is in part the product of new global media, information and communication technologies that instantly connect people, organizations, and systems across vast distances.” (Marcelo M. Suraez-Orozco and Desiree Qin- Hilliard, page 17).
It is believed that globalization is an extensive complement to the advanced communication technology. It not only makes the business entities powerful but also moving the world towards an integrated society. That is the reason that communication technology is being considered as the real facilitator of the process of globalization.
References
- CSIS (Center for Strategic and information Studies), Information Technology and Globalization, 2006.
- Jonathan M. Harris and Neva R Goodwin, New thinking in microeconomics: social, institutional, and environmental, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003, page 62
- Marcelo M. Suraez-Orozco and Desiree Qin- Hilliard, Globalization: cultural and education in the new millennium, University of California Press,2004, page 17