Global Village 2.0
More about expression. Less about encounter.
Nowadays, identities are no longer confined to nationality. The idea that we are all global citizens living in a global village struck me when I was still in primary school. At that time, my school was teaching about environmental issues. Not until I had started my university did I realise that the idea of ‘global village’ actually means a lot more than an environmental slogan.
The concept of ‘global village’ that is popularised due to Marshall McLuhan is actually greatly associated to technology advancement and information boom instead of environmental issues. McLuhan argues that our global village is a ‘brand-new world of all-at-once-ness’ where time and space is compressed. However, I would rather call this as ‘global village 1.0'. It was an era where satellite technology and instant communication such as email and ICQ became popular across nations. To quote from McLuhan, it was the period where the global village is ‘a space in which people encounter each other in depth all the time’.
In 2014, our global village has taken one little step further into a place where everyone has his/her say on everything. Our global village today is so much more than satellite technology and instant communication. We have numerous communication platforms including social media, forums, online communities etc.
People do not only encounter and communicate but speak up on the Internet regardless of who they are and whether there will be an audience.
This is our ‘global village 2.0' . Our global village has evolve from stage 1.0 to 2.0 due to the rise of Web 2.0 especially all those social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Therefore, I have came up with a list of the contemporary characteristics of our global village 2.0.
- Consciousness of the world as a whole
- the rise of universal values such as democracy and human rights
- environmental issues - Multiculturalism & Assimilation
- heterogenisation & homogenisation happen simultaneously - Time-space compression (David Harvey, 1985)
- simultaneous happenings (Marshall McLuhan, 1962) - Interconnectedness
- global flow of all sorts
- e.g. information flow
- though inequality in global flow still occurs - Most importantly, we are all ‘PROSUMERS’
- everyone has his/her say on everything
- people consume and produce at the same time
- less about encounter, more about expression