The pioneering thinker about the media, Marshall McLuhan, coined the term, "the global village" in the 1960s to express his belief that electronic communication would unite the world. The advent of the internet over the past 10 years has paralleled the emergence of globalisation as a concept. Proponents and critics of globalisation have very different perspectives on the internet’s role.

Pro globalisation

Many within developing countries see the internet as an opportunity to gain access to knowledge and services from around the world in a way that would have been unimaginable previously. Internet kiosks, mostly facilitating email with overseas relatives, for example, are springing up in many parts of Africa.

The internet may also facilitate opportunities for economic development in industries such as tourism.

The internet and technologies such as mobile telephony allow developing countries to leapfrog steps in their development of infrastructure. A poor land line telephone system in the Philippines, for example, is being rapidly bypassed by mobile phones with internet access.

Globalization has drastically improved access of technological latecomers to advanced technologies and, to the extent that technological upgrading is important for development, it provides a unique opportunity for low-income countries to raise per capita income. Research shows that improved access to technology imports is improving the demand for skilled labor in many low-income countries.

Links:

Stephen Kobrin of The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania contributes a paper on "Economic Governance in an Electronically Networked Global Economy" -
http://www-management.wharton.upenn.edu/kobrin/

A media round table addressing the question "Are the New Media Good For Democracy?" intersects with debates about globalisation. Browse at http://www.idea.int/2001_forum/media_roundtable_agenda.htm

The African Development Forum conducted a conference in 1999 on the challenge to Africa of Globalisation and the Information Age. Full documentation is available online.
http://www.bellanet.org/partners/aisi/adf99docs/infoeconomy.htm

A report in the online journal devoted to internet issues, First Monday, examines how Thai culture has been preserved on the internet.
http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_8/hongladarom/index.html

Globalization, a peer-reviewed journal devoted to the examination of social, political, economic, and technological globalization, also uses the Internet to discuss globalisation - http://globalization.icaap.org/

The World Bank has compiled a report on the role of the technology in development
http://www.worldbank.org/html/extdr/hnp/hddflash/workp/wp_00053.html

The United Nations agency, Unctad, has published a report, E-Commerce and Development that may be downloaded from its website.
http://www.unctad.org/en/pub/pubframe.htm

Anti globalisation

Although the internet started off as a communal medium for sharing information, principally among academics, it is increasingly becoming the tool of transnational corporations to market their information products around the world.

Because it is rich countries generating most of the content on the internet, it becomes a form of cultural imperialism, in which western values dominate. English is the language of the internet.

The internet is also creating new gaps between the rich and the poor. Rich countries have much greater access to the internet and communications services generally. We are moving from an industrial age, in which wealth was created by manufacturing, to an information age in which wealth is created by the development of information goods and services, ranging from media, to education and software. Poor countries are not taking part in this information revolution and are falling further behind.

Links:

The first Global Civil Society Yearbook, Global Civil Society 2001, is the flagship publication of the Global Civil Society Programme at the London School of Economics. Two chapters discuss the use of Internet. For an excellent access point to cutting edge debates - http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook/

For a perspective on the Australian movement see the paper "Death of Distance or Tyranny of Distance? The Internet, Deterritorialisation and the Anti-Globalisation Movement in Australia" that can be downloaded from the Australian National University http://rspas.anu.edu.au/ir/publications.html

A report prepared for the International Federation of Library Associations by Alfred Kagan on the Electronic Information Gap outlines issues of information richness and information poverty.
http://www.ifla.org/VII/dg/srdg/srdg5.htm#6

Roberto Verzola, who is coordinator of Interdoc, a network of non-government organisations tracking the impact of the internet in developing countries and secretary of the Philippine Greens has written extensively on the subject.
http://hyper.vcsun.org/HyperNews/battias/get/cs454/recread.html?inline=-1&nogifs