The Shrinking Global Village

While television seemingly brought locations closer, the transmission of the medium delayed receiving the information. Restrictions included technology and the limited amount of time and channels on television to air all available information. McLuhan did not foresee the Internet, which is bringing together people who are no longer restricted by time or location. The global village is much more compact than McLuhan probably dared to visualize. People in remote areas may have satellite dishes that hook them up to the world. Newspapers have made the transition from print to continuous updates on Web Sites. Satellite radio is in its infancy and may soon reach all the corners of the world. Seemingly, no matter where in the city you are, where in the country you live or where in the world you are located, mass media has made the world shrink so that we are living in an increasing smaller and smaller global village. Newspapers, television stations, radio stations are old media reinventing themselves so they also have a world wide audience on the Internet. In addition, Web sites such as YouTube and MySpace have helped create entire global communities that constantly upload and download information. For example, MySpace has host sties in North America, Asia, Europe and Australia. This connects people in these regions, but there is also a vast international component so people from all over the world can meet. While MySpace is founded on building a community that includes profiles, pictures, chats and blogs, YouTube is known for sharing videos, many original. It estimates that people watch 70 million videos on the site daily and encourages people to upload personal videos for other to views.