Intercultural Communication Studies VXII: 3 2008 Vaagan New Media and Globalization: Norway and China

Last year I visited China three times to attend conferences and, as it turned out, to meet with many of the contributors to this special issue of Intercultural Communication Studies. I was quite pleased with the networking and discussions with my colleagues. Then one of my Norwegian students criticized my frequent airplane travels between Norway and China, claiming that it was having a negative impact on global CO2 emissions. Why did I not instead use video conferencing or other civilized means of new media and mediated communication forms that are gaining currency with increased globalization? Baffled at first, and almost regretting that I had recommended my students read, T. Freidman’s (2006) The World is Flat. The Globalized World in the Twenty-First Century, I was forced to systematize my thoughts on communication in an increasingly globalized world. Luckily, many types of communication at the interpersonal level are still direct and physically face-to-face. These need not be transmitted through or depend on media. Yet a significant and apparently increasing proportion of our communication even at the interpersonal level is mediated in the sense that it is delivered through or with the assistance of media technologies (Thussu, 2006). These range from increasingly sophisticated mobile phones to blogs and cyber communities like Facebook or MySpace. The ubiquitous Internet facilitates many of these new communication forms and is making them ever more mainstream. In a sense, yesterday’s citizens are becoming tomorrow’s netizens