The Discourse of Globalization - Shifts in the discursive Representation of Economic Globalization in the United States - Two Examples

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,7, University of Kassel (Fachbereich Sprachwissenschaften), language: English, abstract: 1The term globalization has gained a lot of prominence during the last two decades. First introduced into the public and academic debate in the 1960s, it has become a 'buzz-word' indicating widespread changes in the realms of politics, culture and, most important, economies around the world since the end of the Cold War and the demise of the bi-polar system in the early 1990s. However, after having been discussed for more than two decades, the concept of globalization still is a contentious issue in public debate as well as in academic circles. In fact, looking at the vast amount of, often quite contradictory, literature on the topic, globalization can be regarded as one of the most controversially discussed issues in the public and academic2sphere. Controversies not only exist regarding the question of who benefits from the, vaguely defined, globalization process, but also regarding the very basic question whether globalization really exists or is just an exaggerated view on a process which has taken place for a long time (Held et al. 1999, Hirst and Thompson 1996,Ohmae 1990).