Coined by the writer Marshall McLuhan in his books “The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man” (1962), and “Understanding Media (1964) The Global Village has been described by understanding that “the globe has been contracted into a village by electric technology and the instantaneous movement of information from every quarter to every point at the same time. In bringing all social and political functions together in a sudden implosion, electric speed heightened human awareness of responsibility to an intense degree”.
What I would define the global Village to be is a sense of worldwide community that adheres to standards and motions set forth by all variations of culture, norms, and lingo.
What I have described is the internet.
The internet is a key factor in the community that is the Global Village. Its communication reaches all walks of life, while other classical forms of media such as books, music, and newsprint reach only a localized audience. In “The Book of Probes”, Marshall McLuhan states that “The Book is a more passive form than radio – it is a more completely packaged form of information”. We understand through this statement that while being passive, the book is restricted in manners of globalization and culture. With culture comes understanding and the book is a form of understanding that cannot be comprehended by all.
We know that the Global Village is an idea created by Marshall McLuhan that allows us to understand the impact of globalization, without a negative connotation. The Global Village is a revered idea which in many ways is a variation of globalization. McLuhan again introduces a whole new aspect to the violence attached to a unified world. In the book, “War and Peace in the Global Village”, he says that “The agony of our age is the labor pain of rebirth”. The global village is a form of worldwide metamorphosis that is in its hostile stage right now.
Karen F. Evans contradicts McLuhan’s ideologies on the Global Village. She says in her book “Maintaining Community in the Information Age” that the revolutions in transport and communications have brought men into closer contact with each other and bound them in a new way; the division of labor has made them more interdependent; tremors in one part of society affect all others. Despite this greater interdependence, however, individuals have grown more estranged from one another”. McLuhan however, has followed through with not only the repercussions of these traumatic times, but the overall outcome of an era of violence.
In an interview by CBC featuring McLuhan, he describes the communication like “a continuously sounding tribal drum, where everyone gets the message”. He uses the world tribal in the sense that the world is forming into one tribe, where media is the beating drum.
Many positive effects have emerged as a result of globalized media. One example is the removal of culture from music. In the article “Ambiguity of Identity in the “Global Village”: Ellington, McLuhan, and the Afro-Eurasian Eclipse.” McLuhan with Ellington outlines the impact of jazz music on a global scale. It is stated in this article that music has surpassed religious, cultural, and economic boundaries set in stone by former inhabitants of the land. We see it in today’s music, where all sorts of races are playing music that belonged to another race less than 50 years ago.
The Global Village is a variant of a less hostile globalization. Technology has created a new era of understanding and unity for people all over the world. We force ourselves through this violent era in faith of a reborn world. This rebirth may not take place in our lifetime, but we see this Global Village as a hope for unity. This metamorphosis is a learning stage which is necessary in order to understand one another. McLuhan says “The human family now exists under conditions of a global village. We live in a single constricted place resonant with tribal drums”.
Bibliography:
Evans, Karen. Maintaining community in the information age: the importance of trust, place and situated knowledge. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Print.
Mcluhan, Marshall. War and Peace in the Global Village. Corte Madera: Ginko Press inc. , 2001. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall, David Carson, Eric McLuhan, William Kuhns, and Mo. Cohen.The book of probes: Marshall McLuhan, David Carson.. Corte Madera, CA: Gingko Press, 2003. Print.
“Global village (term) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.” Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_village
McManus, L. (2012). Ambiguity of Identity in the “Global Village”: Ellington, McLuhan, and the Afro-Eurasian Eclipse. Jazz Perspectives, 6(1/2), 179-196. doi:10.1080/17494060.2012.721294
“Marshall McLuhan – The World is a Global Village (CBC TV) – YouTube.” YouTube. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Oct. 2013. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeDnPP6ntic>.
McLuhan, Marshall, Stephanie McLuhan, and David Staines. Understanding me: lectures and interviews. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press], 2003. Print.
Keller, Suzanne. Community: pursuing the dream, living the reality. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2003. Print.
SpeakOutAhmed 