From Rural Village To Global Village: Telecommu...

We live in a world that is constantly changing. The way we connect with others has changed and so has the way we view the world. We are now living in a global village. This means that there are no boundaries when it comes to communication and relationships. We can connect with anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time. With technology becoming more advanced and social media becoming more popular, the global village is only going to continue to grow. So what does this mean for our future? And how do we make sure that everyone benefits from this growing community? Read on to find out!

From Rural Village to Global Village: Telecommu...

Its concept means that our rural villages are no longer separate entities, but interconnected parts of a large community where knowledge, culture, and even languages and lifestyles have merged into one.

The enabling force behind the rise of global villages is the emergence of the global transportation and communications infrastructure. In particular, the decreasing cost of personal communications technologies has allowed individuals and small groups the sort of access to channels and viewers that once was the exclusive province of major telecommunications players. The example of the Kaiapo and Txucamarramae swapping tribal tapes typifies what is possible.

The spread of TVs, radios, and telephones into the third world has contributed greatly to the rise of global villages, but except for the Internet, the tape recorder and VCR player were the most important. Unlike the first three, cassette and VCR players require no infrastructure beyond the availability of electric power, easily delivered by battery or generator. The VCR thus brings video to locations far beyond the reach of broadcast transmitters, as well as the ability to produce as well as consume media.

In essence, the Internet is a primitive emergent cyberspace whose population is growing steadily, and whose environment continues to become richer, more complex and visually more engaging. But this space has a unique quality: in cyberspace, there is no distance between two points. And it is this quality that makes the Internet so potent a medium for fostering a global villages world.

But this global culture will exist in parallel with the many global villages. As they grow up, neither teenager will abandon his or her local cultural values, but both will become more immersed in the global continuum. Depending on the context, each will switch repeatedly between local global village worldview and global culture worldview.

Indeed, the first-order consequence of the rise of global villages may be the redrawing of national boundaries and even the disappearance of some national governments as populations around the world shift their primary loyalty from national to cultural units. The weakening of communist power in Eastern Europe led to a revival of old cultural loyalties-and rivalries. These rivalries broke up Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. Even staid Canada is flirting with breakup as groups from the Quebecois to the Mohawks flex their cultural muscle. Communication of similar events occurring elsewhere on the globe helped inspire local action. Similar patterns can be discerned all over the world. In Africa, where national borders arbitrarily drawn by European monarchs at the turn of the century cut across cultural boundaries, the result is likely to be especially dramatic in the next decade or two.

In rural southern Zambia, where families and entire communities depend on subsistence farming to survive, the lack of telecommunications service had been an ongoing barrier to developing a stronger, more vigorous economy. This is why a pilot project to provide the village of Chikanta with basic, low-cost telephone access was a vital first step in planting the seeds to help improve local conditions. 041b061a72