Globalisation is the process through which countries and people become more connected and interdependent through activity across borders.
A student in Singapore buys a notebook made in Indonesia, attends an online lesson taught from India and messages a cousin in Australia. Goods, services and information move across borders in different ways.
Globalisation involves growing cross-border flows, or movements, of goods, services, money, people and ideas. Businesses can invest in activities abroad, for example by paying to set up a factory. People can travel for work or study, and teams can share knowledge across continents. Repeated connections can make activities in different places depend on one another.
The world does not have to become identical for globalisation to occur. Countries still have borders, laws and different circumstances. Some people and places are more closely connected than others, and a global connection does not prove that everyone benefits equally.
Worked example: Making a short film together
A Singapore film club works with students in Japan. They exchange scripts online, transfer money to pay for music from a composer in New Zealand and visit Japan to film a scene.
- The scripts cross borders as information and ideas. The music is a service supplied from another country, and payment moves in the other direction.
- The visit adds a movement of people. Globalisation therefore includes more than importing physical products.
- These connections let people in different countries contribute to one project. Their languages and personal identities need not become the same.
Watch out for this
Globalisation means every country now has the same culture and way of life.
Globalisation describes growing connections and reliance across borders. Similar products or practices may spread, but differences and borders can remain.
Check your understanding
A designer stays in Singapore while creating a website for a client in Kenya. They discuss changes online and the client pays from Kenya. What does this show?
- There is no global connection because neither person travels.
- A cross-border exchange of services, information and money.
- Globalisation has made their countries' ways of life identical.