MODULE 2 COMMUNICATION, CULTURE AND

GLOBALIZATION

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

At the end of this module, the students must be able to:

1 Learn about globalization as a phenomenon; its implication and how it has affected
communication.
2 Explain how local and global issues affect communication.
3 Adopt cultural awareness and sensitivity in communication of ideas.

CONTENT

A. WHAT IS GLOBALIZATION?

Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people,

companies and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade
and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the
environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity,
and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.

B. IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON COMMUNICATION

1. Virtual Interactions. For example, communicating via email to distant team

members requires a certain etiquette and nuance not necessarily required in
face-to-face interactions.

2. Cultural Awareness in Speech. For example, when two people are speaking
the same language, cultural differences can affect vocabulary, colloquial
expressions, voice tone and taboo topics.

3. Cultural Awareness in Body Language. For example, students at school are

taught to understand acceptable speaking distances, conflict styles, eye contact
and posture in different cultures, accepting that the physical expressions of their
own culture are not universally accepted.

4. Time Differences. The advent of global collaboration introduces another new

dynamic to communication skills – the need to communicate and share
information with people across several time zones.
C. IMPACTS OF GLOBALIZATION ON GLOBAL COMMUNICATION

1. Availability of Information. The World Health Organization has expressed the

view that with the spread of businesses delivering internet, satellite TV and
mobile services, the costs of such information technologies drop. The decreased
price makes it easier for people across the world to make use of the World Wide
Web and the resources available.

2. Business Conduct. Long-distance travels are no longer necessary for business

people should they require a meeting with a partner overseas. Internet
technology makes it possible to exchange business information and conduct
video conferences. Additionally, enhanced communication allows businesses to
promote their products more efficiently in the international market.

3. Social Awareness. Information technology and networks enable people across

the world to share opinions, views, work on projects and research different areas.

4. The Problem. Despite its quick spead and continuous development, global
communication has not reached the majority of people on all continents. The
WHO indicates that at leat 70 percent of all people in Africa will never make a
single phone cakk or use the internet. This points out the need of a more
extensive application of communication technologies as part of the process of
globalization.

SKILL BUILDER 5
Direction: Read the article below and write a reaction paper. It has to include a
summary of the article and your reaction to the work. If it is your first time writing a
reaction paper, kindly click this link https://bit.ly/3iKpZJc for tips on how to write one.
The Flight from Conversation
Sherry Turkle

WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have
sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work, executives text during
board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on
dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact
with someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to
hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. I’ve learned
that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what
we do, but also who we are.
We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled,
we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to
be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because
the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used
to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.

Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests
them. To some this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another,
even as we are constantly connected to one another.

A businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. He doesn’t stop by to talk;
he doesn’t call. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He says they’re “too busy on
their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. “I’m not telling the truth. I’m the one
who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But I’d rather just do things on my
BlackBerry.”

A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully,
“Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.”

In today’s workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the
job wearing earphones. Walking through a college library or the campus of a high-tech start-
up, one sees the same thing: we are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously
connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens. A senior partner at a Boston law firm
describes a scene in his office. Young associates lay out their suite of technologies: laptops,
iPods and multiple phones. And then they put their earphones on. “Big ones. Like pilots.
They turn their desks into cockpits.” With the young lawyers in their cockpits, the office is
quiet, a quiet that does not ask to be broken.

In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people —
carefully kept at bay. We can’t get enough of one another if we can use technology to keep
one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right. I think of it as a
Goldilocks effect.

Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can
edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body.
Not too much, not too little — just right.

Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of
cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of
this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time
we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.

FACE-TO-FACE conversation unfolds slowly. It teaches patience. When we communicate

on our digital devices, we learn different habits. As we ramp up the volume and velocity of
online connections, we start to expect faster answers. To get these, we ask one another
simpler questions; we dumb down our communications, even on the most important matters.
It is as though we have all put ourselves on cable news. Shakespeare might have said, “We
are consum’d with that which we were nourish’d by.”
And we use conversation with others to learn to converse with ourselves. So our flight
from conversation can mean diminished chances to learn skills of self-reflection. These
days, social media continually asks us what’s “on our mind,” but we have little
motivation to say something truly self-reflective. Self-reflection in conversation requires
trust. It’s hard to do anything with 3,000 Facebook friends except connect.

As we get used to being shortchanged on conversation and to getting by with less, we

seem almost willing to dispense with people altogether. Serious people muse about the
future of computer programs as psychiatrists. A high school sophomore confides to me
that he wishes he could talk to an artificial intelligence program instead of his dad about
dating; he says the A.I. would have so much more in its database. Indeed, many people
tell me they hope that as Siri, the digital assistant on Apple’s iPhone, becomes more
advanced, “she” will be more and more like a best friend — one who will listen when
others won’t.

Deadline: _____________

Good job! You have just learned on the implications of

globalization and how it has affected communication.
You are now ready to gain awareness on the various cultures that
shape communication and adopt sensitivity in communicating your
ideas.