In what ways is British society a global society?

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Matthew Savka

SY1401 Globalization Esssay

In what ways is British society a global society?

Introduction

What is a global society and what characterizes a global society.  These are two key questions which need to be addressed with reference to the British society and cultures that it possesses.  How is society changing? Is it moving towards a single global society or is this simply a false interpretation of the changes that are occurring.  Are our national identities gradually fading due to these changes or are they still strong?  Which aspects of modern society have led to the use of this word globalization?  Throughout this essay I am going to look into the initial questions raised here and further questions that arise with my studies and research into this topic and hopefully provide evidence to back up my arguments.

What is globalization?

A couple of definitions of globalization that I have come across are as follows:

        “The growing world wide interconnection of societies so the world appears as a single system”

Giddens defines globalization;

“as the intensification of world wide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring a million miles away and vice versa.”

Giddens 1990, page 64

In this sense British society is quite global because, as is the case with most other developed countries, we rely heavily upon communications technology which has enabled these world wide events to be seen or reported on in real time all around the world, and this is a large aspect of modern British society.  

Abercrombie and Ward argue that the word globalization refers to global processes and global outcomes that are of course two separate things.  These are their two definitions:

“Globalization (process): processes operating on an emergent global level which overtime are compressing the distance between people and places within different societies, and which increase the sense that we live in a single world.”

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“Globalization (outcome): an end-state in which the whole earth is criss-crossed by global processes and in which individual places, groups of people and individual societies have lost their significance and power – there is a single global economy and society.”

Abercrombie and Ward, Contemporary British Society, 3rd edition, 2002, page 13.

The processes definition I personally agree with, but I do not agree with the outcomes one at this point in time.  I believe that it may be possibly in many years time but that is not the case now.  British society has taken on many aspects of global ...

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