Focus on Words

UNIT 1 Modern world: Globalization
The United Nations Building
The bank HSBC operates
across the globe
Highway in the USA
Before you read
1. What does the term globalization mean?
2. What is economic globalization?
3. What is meant by political or cultural globalization?
4. What is Global Information System (GIS)?
5. Do you know the terms consumer society? consumerism? How do you understand it?
Globalization is among the most frequently used words of this century. There is a
lot of talk today about it. What exactly is globalization? To some extent, the term means
whatever people want it to mean. In fact, globalization covers much of what is going
on in the fields of economics and finance, politics and culture in this century.
On the whole, in economics, the term
usually refers to the fact the world has
become one market, with free exchange of
goods and capital. In the middle of the
twentieth century global expansion of US
and European multinational companies and
corporations takes place.
Furthermore, politics also becomes
globalized, creating co-operation between
countries.
Above all, globalization refers to the development of a Global Information System,
global telecommunications infrastructure, using such technologies as the Internet,
communication satellites, submarine fiber optic cable, and wireless telephones. TV and
the Internet, development and growth of international transport have created a unified
3