Intro: Anti-Globalisation and the New Media

What is Anti-Globalisation?

“Anti-Globalisation,” in and of itself, is not anti-globalist at all, but anti-one type of globalisation. As a neutral term, “globalisation” simply means “International Integration,” and almost no one is against it. As Chomsky says, “no one is against being able to call your friend in Italy.” What Anti-Globalisation refers to, then, is the specific kind of international integration that is occurring right now–a version in which (say the Anti-Globalists) power and wealth are systematically transferred from the populations of nearly every country in the world to a select few executives and investors in transnational corporations. This process is facilitated by a number of other movements in global economics: neo-liberalism and trade liberalisation, Free Trade initiatives, and mass privatization of public sectors.  These movements, in turn, are overseen and protected by International Organisations such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank, OAS,  G8 and G20, and so on. These organisations have notoriously little transparency and often their policies are laser-like in their focus on free-trade, privatization, and foreign access to markets, which little to no regard for human rights, environment, or labor on the part of either corporations or governments (Barlow, 2001).

What is the New Media?

Since the late ’90′s, “mass media” companies (television, radio, newspaper) have undergone merger after merger, becoming subsidiaries of large multinationals (GE owns NBC and its parters; Viacom owns CBS; Disney owns ABC) while simultaneously seeing a precipitous decline in audience.  Traditional news sources are being replaced by a more participatory media–the internet (Castells, ’96). It is this “New Media,” in fact, that has allowed the Anti-Globalisation movement to itself go global. The new millennium has seen the rise of worldwide protests organized by groups like Reclaim the Streets and World Social Forum, to name only two, as well as the well-organized protests of the G8 and G20 in Seattle in ’99 and Pittsburgh in ’09.

In addition to anti-global activism being facilitated by the Net, the movement has bypassed corporate-owned news reporting as well, with by-the-public, for-the-public news media springing up throughout the Web. Independant Media Center, OhmyNews, and Global Post all use thousands of volunteer (or practically volunteer) reporters to cover events worldwide on a scale and scope wholly different from that of the mainstream TV and print newsmedia.

Joseph Stiglitz (2001 Nobel Prize winner in Economics) on Globalisation

References for Anti-Globalisation and the New Media

Barlow, Maude and Tony Clarke. Global Showdown. Toronto, Ontario: Stoddart, 2001.

Klein, Naomi. No Logo. New York, New York: Picador, 2002.

—. The Shock Doctrine. New York, New York: Metropolitan, 2007.

Castells, Manuel. The Rise of Network Society. Boston, MA: Blackwell, 1996.

Seoane, Jose, and Emilio Taddei. Resistencias Mundiales. Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2001.