For my final post, I will be discussing yet another one of Cairncross' predictions for the future of the world regarding communications. One of his assumptions was that the modern world would see a rise of the English language in all the nations of the world. He coined his prediction, "the rise of English," and he meant that english would eventually become the global language. He believed that new communication practices and the dominance of English speaking people in business and entertainment would allow the language to become the most dominant language in the world. I think that Cairncross was accurate in his assumption that most nations in the world would adopt english as their second language. However, I think it has much more to do with entertainment than it does with business. Not all people are involved in the business world. Some people have careers that are not at all associated with international commerce or telecommunicating; therefore, I do not think business is the reason that english is such a popular language world-wide. I think it definitely contributes to the reason that english is a dominant language; however, the real cause behind English's dominancy is America's control of international media and Hollywood. Like I stated before, not everyone is in business; however, everyone loves to be entertained. With the emergence of new technologies in the twentieth century such as televisions, movies, and the Internet, people all over the world now have access to all these technologies and they want to watch television shows and movies. However, the film and T.V industry originated in America, one of the top english speaking countries. America is known for producing the best television shows and movies, and countries all over the world watch these programs and a lot of the time they can not be translated so non-english speakers end up watching the program in english. Since there are so many films and t.v shows that are produced in english, those programs end all over the world. The only element that all these countries in the world have in common is that they are watching programs in english and people of many different languages can connect with each other on the small amounts of english they have learned from the programs. Because of Hollywood, english has become the most recognizable language and therefore, people from different countries want to learn it. However, there is a down side to a common global language. An author named David Crystal wrote a book about how english become the global language. However, he states that, "the 1990s were a revolutionary decade, in that respect, with a proliferation of new linguistic varieties arising out of the world-wide implementation of the Internet, an emerging awareness of the crisis affecting the world's endangered languages, and an increasingly public recognition of the global position of English"(114). He is expressing that english became the dominant world language because of new technologies in communication such as the internet. However, he is also stating that the rise of english might be causing an endangerment of other less known languages. I think that it is important for the world to be connected by a common language like english; however, I also think that nations should keep their unique heritages and languages relevant so that we don't ever lose them.

References
Crystal, D. (2003). English As a Global Language. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.

CC

Mini-Project #5

At the end of Cairncross' guide to new communications, he makes a bold and somewhat unattainable prediction about the future of global morality and politics. Cairncross predicted that future communication technology would connect nations together and that bond would foster peace between all the nations of the world. He coined his prediction "global peace," and I think that in some ways he is accurate in his assumption; however, ultimately I believe that his prediction is too far fetched and is an incorrect description of the camaraderie between nations today. I think that he is right about the fact that global trade has given a lot of third world countries the chance to expand their economies and connect with other countries. I also think he was correct in believing that new technology, such as video cameras on phones and websites like Youtube, would give people from all over the world a chance to share videos about their own lives and cultures. The interconnectivity would allow people to start understanding other people's traditions and cultures and connect with them even though they live across the world from each other. There has definitely been an increase in connectivity between different nations because of new communication technology; however, I don't think it is enough to create global peace. The fact is, although everyone loves the idea of global peace, the imbalance of wealth in the world is still too vast for nations to be peaceful with each other. A lot of the time, impoverished countries are violent because they are unhappy with their economy and global status. There is an online article that explains the complex relationship between poverty and peace and it's authors states that, "[i]n today's increasingly interconnected world, the 'haves' cannot ignore the suffering of the 'have-nots',"(Chollet and Brainard 1). The authors are conveying that people in wealthy countries can no longer ignore the misfortunate people of impoverished countries because they are made aware of them on the news and the internet. However, the authors also state that people who want to help have a hard time doing so because impoverished countries tend to be violent. The authors expressed that, "[p]oor, fragile states can explode into violence or implode into collapse, imperiling their citizens, regional neighbors, and the wider world as livelihoods are crushed, investors flee, and ungoverned territories become a spawning ground for global threats like terrorism, trafficking, environmental devastation, and disease,"(Chollet and Brainard 1). As long as there is poverty in the world, there will most likely be violence as well because those nations are typically too unstable to hold a successful government. Although nations are more connected now than they ever were before, global trade and communications cannot create total economical success in impoverished countries. Therefore, Cairncross was right about new communication technology promoting the idea of global peace within the world; however, he was not correct in believing that future communication would be successful in eradicating war and violence from the Earth. 

References:

Chollet, D. H., & Brainard, L. (2007). Too Poor for Peace? : Global Poverty, Conflict, and Security in the 21st Century. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press.