THE GLOBAL VILLAGE AND CULTURAL IMPERIALISM

Cultural imperialism is the  the idea that one culture can either influence or dominate another in much the same way as nations have invaded and controlled other nations. It is closely related to global communicated which can defined as the communication across borders, social, political and cultural divides. On the other hand, global village is a phrase coined by Marshal McLuhan to describe the world that has been shrunk by modern advances in communications. McLuhan likened the vast network of communication systems to one extended central nervous system. It could also be define as the extension of influence or dominance of one nation's culture over others.

Cultural imperialism is the practice of promoting a more powerful culture over a least known or desirable culture. In clear context, cultural imperialism and the global village concept have more or less a common goal, this can be to unite and and make the world everyone's. The theory of cultural imperialism was developed in the 1970's by Herbert Schiller to explain the media situation as existed at that time. It can have both positive and negative effects on global communication. It can promote generally positive agendas like equal rights and improve lives of many people. Moreover, it can also prove detrimental to 'ínferior''cultures and cultural values when a dominant culture takes over. Furthermore, it can be argued that  cultural imperialism is prevalent in today's media climate, where core countries own the majority of global media and export their cultural values. Nonetheless, it has also recieved criticism for not considering the agency and free will of the target audience and ignoring the idea of cultural resistance.

The global village is one world connected by an electronic nervous system. It was predicted by Marshal McLuhan, making it part of our popular culture before it actually happened. It can also be defined as the idea of an increasingly unified world where effects of globalisation allows us to overcome the limitations of physical distance. We are now connected by many convenient modes of travel, global media, advanced technologies and seamless information transfer and so did we become a sort of single global community all because of the global village concept. In addition, adverse effects of flactuations in agricultural productions in one area can be reduced by pooling production from other areas, peace/understanding, goodwill and cultural allignment is facilitated among countries that were once vastly, different and at war. Companies have access to much wider and larger muktinational markets and are consequently able to procure the necessary input materials and services at more competitive prices, to due global supply. "The world is getting smaller, moere available and familiar to our minds and emotions, it is now a global village" is a quote from Marshal McLuhan's video on youtube in the 1970's.