Globalization VS Localization

This week's topic was especially important to me because verlin and me had our presentation based on this topic! Globalization Vs Localization.

While localization can be easily understood in journalism as referring to the local circle or industry of journalism globalisation in journalism may seem a little more complex to understand. We decided to base our presentaion on globalization because after reading up on the topic we realised how much impact globalization has had on the journalism industry.

There are pros and cons to the effect of globalization. On the down side globalization has allowed Transational Corporations (TNCs) to dominate the media industry which has in turn allowed them to exert their power on a global scale and causing media ownership to become more concentrated. Secondly, globalization has also caused the homogenization of messages that are delivered to audience. Hence, although there is a global audience, there isnt a global voice. The lack of diversity in news and the stardardisation of messages will inevitably cause the quality of journalism to suffer.
That being said, globalization isnt all that bad. Globalization has allowed countries with a smaller media industry to get stories from around the world without journalists actually having to be there. Take singapore for example, we can often see news reports from Reuters and BBC in our local news papers and that has allowed us to be updated about news around the world. Globalisation in journalism also helpes to break cultural barriers and allow people to be more receptive to different ideas, opinions and issues around the world. The reports on an issue in a certain country may lead to the discussion of the same issue in another country. Hence, globalization can help magnify issues going on around the world and get people to start talking about it.

To sum it all up, while it is hard to determine if globalisation is good or bad right now I believe that with the right attitude and improvements, globalisation can and will be good in the long run. However, in order to improve the quality of the effects of globalisation in the journalism industry, journalists should strive to provide quality hard news and the public should also play their part by demanding hard news instead of soft news.