The spread of global communication technologies and global media empires has helped create a world of globalised culture. (Cairncross, 2001)
International news represents an important subset of geographical content. Estimates are that 80 percent of text documents contain geographical references. Hence the internet consists of news stories that are essentially "geotagged" with information about the countries or territories of the world mentioned within each story. The main country with internet content is America, with the most net users too. (Headline Series, 2004)
Global firms that sell only homogeneous content are less likely to have an audience according to Compaine (2002).
For this reason, multinational companies localise the content with where it will be broadcast in mind. An example of this is MTV, although there is a recognisable MTV content, in Brazil the programme is determined by local producers (MTV, 2004)
An example of the importance of local content is in the local news and the public’s interest in local stories that will impact their existence. (Boyd, 2004) CNN International is one example of a company that recognises the importance of localising content. American content has decreased from 70 percent in 1996 to 8 percent in 2001. (CNN, 2004)
The news media is not the only outlet where local or global content has an impact. Even on the internet, language serves as one of the most important boundaries on Web surfing. In February 2001, Google reported that English accounted for 70 percent of the languages used to access its site. By January 2002, English accounted for 57 percent and, was just over 50 percent in 2003. (Google, 2004) Global Reach shows the diversity of languages online.
On the internet Companies offer geolocation services enabling Web sites to determine the physical locations of individual users to find the internet-access point nearest to a particular spot. (Reshaping World Communications, 2004) Google sponsered a contest, from which the creation of geographic tags was invented. The inventor wrote software that added "geotags" to pages based on the analysis of postal code and address. (Reshaping World Communications, 2004)
Homogenous global content is not substitute for communication on a local level as indicated by the direction that international news services are taking. People are interested in the things that affect them and hence will always be a call for local content in communication. (Boyd, 2001)
Belinda Dickson 20:01, 28 Oct 2004 (EST)
