Routledge Handbook of Digital Media and Communication

26Globalization and post-globalization

Terry Flew

Globalization is a concept with deep roots in communication and media scholarship. Definitions of globalization generally refer to its relationship to changes in consciousness and experience that arise from access to global communication technologies. This is seen in the highly influential definitions of authors such as Anthony Giddens, Roland Robertson, and David Held and Anthony McGrew:

Globalization can … be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.

(Giddens, 1990, 64)

Globalization as a concept refers both to the compression of the world and ...