Globalization

Globalization was one of the most important catchwords in communication studies in the past decade. “Global village,” “global public sphere,” “global civil society”—phrases like these have characterized the debate on the new phenomena of mass-mediated [Page 271]transnationalization in all fields of politics, society, and culture.

Cross-border communication is defined very unsystematically in the globalization literature, sometimes as inter- and trans national and sometimes as inter- and trans cultural communication. Cross-border thus describes those processes of information exchange in the course of which system borders, of the nationstate or culture, are transversed. Nearly all contemporary attempts to grapple theoretically with globalization that tackle issues of communication emphasize the nation-state or culture. Theoretical thought on globalization and media can be divided into three fields: (1) system connectivity, (2) ...