Technology and Globalization

The term “globalization” and related terms such as global system, global economy, and global culture have been used since the mid-1980s in both the popular and academic literature to describe the “temporal-spatial compression” of the physical world (Harvey 1989). New information and (tele)communication technologies (ICTs) are viewed as linking distant localities into one globalizing world in a synchronous time zone that goes beyond real territories. The speed and mobility generated by electronic networks becomes indispensable for creating the physical conditions of globalization, tying together the world as a whole (Virilio 1997; → Mobility, Technology for).