Globalization and contemporary literature
T. A. Pushparajah and M. Manobavan
Globalization survives by controlling information flows and
globalization has profound impact on the human populous as it controls
the pathways of information, as such, in the context of this article we
will specifically focus on the contemporary literature and media, and
how globalization has affected them
The era of globalization is typically defined as a time in which the
sovereignty of nation-states has declined and modes of exchange operate
with increasing ease and speed across national boundaries of states.
 Recent
debate over globalization gives the notion that ‘whether it is myth or
reality?’ this is due to the pace of economic transformation in which
states are no longer close units, modes of advanced communications have
changed to unexpected proportions.
The overwhelmingly magnetic global culture which emanates from
Hollywood, gives way to the formation of a homogeneous world where time
and space seem to be breaking up above all global polity which controls
present world.
All this paved way to the cosmopolitan culture which is the ‘trendy’
and the ‘affluent’, as well as paving way to ‘risk taking’ – which is
against the traditional conservative approaches.
If you look at the impact of globalization over societies is
manifold. What obvious is that political, economic, cultural and social
events become more and more interconnected, and as such, they have more
impact on the social dynamics, both positively and negatively.
One of the aspects which is quite painfully obvious and inherent are
globalization ‘the phenomenon’ domineeringly controls the global
economic system.
But, what is inherent, yet of very high influence on the society is
that (‘the phenomenon’) in controlling the flow of funds also exercises
brutish and dictatorial control over the flow of information and, as
such, one can argue that by controlling the information, globalization
survives and evolves into the most influential and domineering control
mechanism of the global system.
Positive and negative implication of globalization over literature
and mass media are quite shocking especially use and abuse of WWW.
Recent statistics show 4.2 M Websites are containing pornography and
42.7 percent users of the WWW are pornographic viewers in the world.
If you look at the influence of mirror news agencies with regard to
their perspectives of war and conflict; whether they maintain neutrality
is still debatable. Martin Bell in his seminal work Through Gates of
Fire stated that an important element of modern warfare is the
management of perceptions.
Writing in general has changed dramatically. On one hand publishing
industry has become captive of multinationals but on the other hand WWW
& Blogs provide radical and independent venue(s) to writers.
Furthermore, new trend cut and paste which is ‘plague’ of plagiarism has
ebbed the writing skill of people.
If you look at the present scenario, the ways by which we transfer
information have changed, so if the ways and modes change, will that
reflect on literature? If the ways by which we transfer information are
changed, then obviously the literary forms will change.
For example, from the time immemorial, the ritualistic story-telling
activities of the prehistoric and ancient human societies gave way to
scriptures ‘ola’ leaf manuscripts then, thanks to Gutenberg for paper,
publishing and books, Paper freedom allowed people started to write but,
publishing is a problem still.
But with an advent of the WWW the act of publishing, one’s writing is
only at the distance of a mouse click. This has given more freedom to
the writers but, is freedom in this regard good or bad? Could it lead to
fabrications and misinterpretations?
An extremely toxic by-product of globalization’s effect on mass-media
is ‘The Paparazzi’. Some irresponsible media have ruined many lives and
organizations. For example, the Paparazzi chasing Princess Diana –
leading to her death… by car accident! Singer Michael Jackson’s (MJ)
public as well as personal life created and ruined (alike) by the
Paparazzi. We cannot inference just because it is published on the WWW
or telecasted via the media does not make it factual or actual. So, ‘the
new freedom’ given to literature and mass-media via the globalization
phenomenon is not that good.
Some speculations on how globalization might shape new literary
forms, the cellular phones which have created mayhem in the recent past
in Sri Lanka, still texting can this evolve to the proportions of a new
form of literature while considering now that cell phones provide the
venue to text in local languages.
The “Bloggers’ World” is expanding and evolving and what could be its
next phase of development? TV, Radio and the print media are also
available on the WWW. As such, there are no clearly defined boundaries
between types of media forms and the boundaries are being shattered and
are dissolving.
Boundaries which were clearly defined in previous times - between
literary forms and mass-media types become fuzzy as globalization
imparts its influence which, probably will lead to a new form of global
literature “globallit” However the downfalls of “globallit” may be
question of integrity of information presented, lack of coordinated
control mechanisms, lack of uniformity, many formats and diversity
leading to confusion etc.
To conclude, globalization is the domineering and controlling force
of all global process via finance. This is possible through, how this
phenomenon of globalization impacts on the transfer and flow of
information/knowledge.
As such, the impacts of globalization on the mass-media and
literature are quite obvious. This is leading to an evolution of
mass-media forms and literary forms towards completely new frontiers
where, the unexpected is always to be expected and, unless a coordinated
control mechanism is not available, this situation might cause calamity
and chaos! |
