Week 2
Globalisation…huh?
Globalisation is a term that most struggle to define, with myself included. The deeper you dive into Globalisation, the more there is to know regarding it, whether it be economic, political or cultural. To illustrate how much globalisation as a theory has evolved, 20 years ago it was defined as this:
“Globalisation refers to all those processes by which the people’s of the world are incorporated into a single world society, global society” (Albrow, 1990:45).
Now this definition is still a valid one, his view on the world becoming homogenized is one that is shared by most and is hard to argue against. However it is missing some key notions that I think are very important in a definition that covers all basis.
Mainly, the definition given by Albrow is missing the “distinction between the phenomenon itself and the consequences” (Rantanen T, 2005 p 6), there is no mention of how events that happen miles away shape local events. It lists that processes occur, but does not specify on what the processes are.
There is no perfect definition out there; however by joining the main ideas of a number of experts and authors you can construct a decent summary. For Giddens it is the intensification of social relations, Thompson is the interaction and dependency and for Robertson and Waters they focus on the consciousness in which people are aware of their social and cultural arrangements receding.
References
Rantanen, T 2005, ‘Theorizing media globalization’, The media and globalization, Sage, London, pp. 1–18.
globlogisation 
I have found myself in a similar situation to you, each time I attempt to understand globalisation better, I found myself feeling more confused. The array of definitions out there is astounding, but I think you are on the right track. The way to best understand globalisation is to take what you understand to be true and real from each definition and put it together to make your own definition, because no single definition seems to cover every aspect of what I understand globalisation to be. Great post, I look forward to reading more about your understanding of the term.
I also found myself struggling to find a fitting definition of globalisation. I agree with you completely in saying that the definition really is a Frankenstein of all of them, take a piece from each and hey presto! This is such a wide spanning topic, how do you really summarize the change of almost everything in the world. I also agree that people consider globalisation to be what they themselves are aware of, which is probably why there are so many definitions.