MECM30002 Chap.2 Globalisation: Flows, Power and Difference
Globalisation: Flows, Power and Difference
Globalisation describes intensifying connections across distance, but it does not imply a borderless or culturally uniform world. People, capital, technologies, ideas and media images move through overlapping flows with different speeds and constraints. States, corporations and infrastructures influence those routes, while audiences adapt travelling forms to local histories and identities.
The chapter uses scapes as a mapping tool and pairs them with questions of power: who can move, who controls circulation, what becomes standardised and what new difference emerges? It also distinguishes denationalisation from the disappearance of the state. Institutions may reorganise authority across national and transnational levels while remaining central to how movement is governed.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Overlapping global flows
- 02
Mediascapes and ideoscapes
- 03
Technoscapes, financescapes and ethnoscapes
- 04
Cultural sameness and difference
- 05
Power over routes and mobility
- 06
Denationalisation and state transformation
Worked example · free
Trace a travelling video format
- 1Identify the media form and its route of movement.
- 1Map at least two interacting scapes.
- 1Explain local adaptation rather than assuming simple copying.
- 1Identify an institution controlling the route or visibility.
- 1Judge the relation between sameness and difference.
Key terms
- Globalisation
- The intensification and reorganisation of connections, flows and dependencies across distance.
- Mediascape
- A shifting distribution of media images and capacities across audiences and places.
- Ideoscape
- The movement and contestation of political ideas, values and narratives.
- Denationalisation
- The reorganisation of activities and authority beyond exclusively national settings.
- Cultural adaptation
- The alteration of a travelling form through local meanings, practices and histories.
Globalisation: Flows, Power and Difference FAQ
Does globalisation erase borders?
No. Borders and states can remain active by filtering mobility, regulating platforms, building infrastructure and allocating rights. Globalisation often reorganises authority rather than removing it. Ask which border matters for the specific flow and how actors navigate or reinforce it.
What do scapes help me do?
Scapes help map different kinds of movement that overlap without aligning perfectly. They direct attention to people, media, technology, finance and ideas. To make the analysis causal, add actors, institutions, speeds, blockages and consequences for the case you are studying.
How can sameness and difference coexist?
A common platform, genre or technical standard can circulate widely while users translate it through local languages, histories and political concerns. The shared form may create sameness at one level and new differences at another, so specify which element you are comparing.
Assessment move
Choose one media event and draw five routes around it: people, images, technology, finance and ideas. Do not assume all routes are equally important. Mark the institutions that open, price, rank or block each route. Then add two columns for standardisation and adaptation. This forces you to explain how a shared format can coexist with local difference.
Practise a three-sentence sequence: what moved, how the route was governed and what changed in the receiving context. When using denationalisation, avoid claiming that states disappear. Identify which authority moves to a platform, market, treaty or transnational network and which state capacities remain. For source work, distinguish evidence of circulation from evidence of interpretation or effect.
A view count may show reach but not shared meaning. End each case map with one inequality question: who moves easily, who bears the cost and whose version of the global becomes normal? Use that question to build a bounded thesis rather than a celebration or rejection of connection. Develop a route ledger for revision. Give every flow an origin, intermediary, destination, speed, blockage and evidence source.
Place a question mark where you have inferred movement from visibility alone. Compare the event at two scales, such as a shared global format and a local political use. Write one sentence on continuity and one on transformation before deciding which matters most for the prompt. Test state power separately from corporate power so cross-border circulation does not become proof of a borderless world.
A useful counterargument may show that common standards lower communication costs, while your response identifies who designed those standards and which meanings remain difficult to carry. Revisit the scapes only after the causal route is clear; use them to locate an overlooked flow, not as a list to reproduce. In the final outline, every paragraph should name an actor controlling a route or adapting a travelling form.
State which finding applies only to the chosen case and what additional comparison would be needed for a broader claim. For rapid recall, choose one travelling media form and name the route, gatekeeper, local adaptation and unequal consequence without using globalisation as the explanation. Then add the term only where it clarifies the relation among flows.
Compare two places or audiences on the same dimension, and state why that comparison is legitimate before drawing a wider conclusion. Record one blocked or redirected flow as carefully as successful movement because friction often exposes the governing institution.
