Over the last couple of decades, beginning from the 1990s, there is a sharp decline of letter writing in accordance to the report of US postal service. Of course, official letters are still in use and the postal department delivers them throughout the world. However, in the context of casual letter writing, there is a diminishing trend and the fundamental cause of this trend is globalization and the impact of internet communication along with other telecommunication agents. (Cowen, 132).
The late 1990s and 2000s can be referred to as a new era of sunshine gradually but progressively scattering its rays all over the world, incorporating the nations, bringing people, culture and economies close to each other. Internet communication along with other telecommunication agents, like cost effective mobile telephone, signifies increasing global connectivity, incorporation and interdependence in the economic, cultural, technological, social, ecological, and political spheres. (Barber, 29).
Global communication acts as an umbrella expression and is possibly best explained as a unitary progression comprehensive of several sub-processes, such as improved financial interdependence, augmented cultural authority, rapid progress of information technology, and superior governance and geopolitical defies that are ever more binding people and the biosphere extra firmly into one global system. (Friedman, 85).
Cultural Globalization is growth of cross-cultural relations, beginning of fresh categories of perceptions and distinctiveness such as Globalism, which exemplify cultural conduction, the desire to get through and have the benefit of foreign commodities and ideas, take on original technology and practices, and play a part in a world culture. Ecological Globalization refers to the beginning of global ecological defies that can not be worked out devoid of international collaboration, for instance climate alterations, cross boundary water and air contaminations, excessive fishing of the ocean, and the multiplicity of invasive species. (Cantor, 93-4) Social Globalization is the term for accomplishment of free flow by people of all countries.
These populations are finding communication means in form of telecommunication networking and internet services. Thus, it could narrate the aspect of the basic issue globalization and hybridization is but a two-way approach. There the basic maxims of capitalistic economy are taken into consideration at every step of formulating the strategies of marketing. (Pells, 211) It is obvious that the basic force of any business is to deal with the principals of profit and the methods of maximization of profit margin. Thus, writing letters and posting it through postal services are proving to be time consuming thus slowing down business. (Semati, 176-188).
Global communication system has also spread its wings in Technical as well as legal arenas. Development of a worldwide telecommunications infrastructure and larger across the border data flow, by means of such technologies as the communication satellites, Internet, wireless telephones, and submarine fiber optic cable, etc. Rise in the numerals of standards applied globally, such as copyright law, patents and global trade agreements. (Liebes, 76).
In present day society, the destruction of traditional cultures in order to start them into the global monoculture is more subtle than it was in the past. Most corporate and government leaders do not intend to destruct traditional cultures; for the most part, they are often unaware that they are doing so. This lack of realization seems to be nurtured by the cult of specialization, which is ever-present in western society. This allows the tendency to destroy the cultural diversity of the world in an effort to spread and expand the global economy. (Huntington, 56).
Finally, it would not be irrelevant to conclude that with the advent of information technology and internet it is almost impossible today to stay away from the concept of global monoculture. Be it Indonesia or western Africa, sooner or later the every aspect of human life and thought process would be included within the threshold of the ‘brave new global village’ obviously nurtured and edited in accordance to the western tradition and taste where time consuming letter writing through postal service is a loss. (Rockwell, 1).
The computer and technology revolution of the past twenty years have given executives even more reason to disrupt and destroy cultural diversity, attempting to “do what is best for each society and the world,” without, in fact, considering how these revisions affect each society, and one of the worst sufferer in this context is letter writing.
However, values well fed and induced by global market economy introduces us the benefits of an open world where all existing geological maps must be included into one brand name of culture and as the advertisements generally suggest- this is the ‘in-thing’ today. As a result, traditional letter writing parameters are an element of the past never to return in its conventional form. (Danan, 131-140).
Works Cited
Barber, B. Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Methuen. (1995).
Cantor, P. Gilligan unbound: Pop culture in the age of globalization. Lanham: Rowan & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. (2001).
Cowen, T. Creative destruction: How globalization is changing the world’s cultures. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (2002).
Danan, M. Marketing the Hollywood blockbuster in France. Journal of Popular Film & Television 23: 131-140. (1995).
Friedman, T. The Lexus and the olive tree. New York: Anchor Books. (2000).
Huntington, S. The clash of civilizations and the remaking of world order. New York: Simon & Schuster. (1997).
Liebes, T and Elihu K. The export of meaning: cross-cultural readings of Dallas. Cambridge: Polity Press. (1993).
Pells, R. Not like us: How Europeans have loved, hated, and transformed American culture since World War II. New York: BasicBooks. (1997).
Rockwell, J. “The New Colossus: American Culture as Power Export,” New York Times, sec. 2, pp. 1ff. (1994).
Semati, M. and Sotirin. P. “Hollywood’s transnational appeal: Hegemony and democratic potential?” Journal of Popular Film & Television 26: 176-188. (1999).