Globalisation, according to Financial Times, can be defined as the integration of international economies and cultures through the means of communication, trade and transportation. (Lexicon.ft.com, n.d.) The globalisation of communications has brought on new channels of communication, such as the Internet and social media, which have facilitated the exchange of information across the globe in an instantaneously fashion.
Ever since the advent of the Internet and digital communications, information is readily accessible all across the globe. Consequentially, this has brought global audiences, organisations and cultures closer together. Two way symmetric communications have enabled entrepreneurs, small businesses and, most importantly, innovators and creators to collaborate and come to solutions to modern issues. (Tench and Yeomans, 2014) As an example, Foldit, a multiplayer online game in which players work and compete against each other to create protein structures and solve prediction problems – was used by researchers in an unprecedented way. The implementation and refocus of using this game by researchers of the Nature Structural and Molecular Biology journal in 2011 led to players folding and solving the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus, a protein that plays a major role in AIDS development in rhesus monkeys. Scientists had been trying to understand this protein for the past decade to no avail. (Medeiros, 2014) It is important to note that this feat could have not been achieved if it were not for the interconnectivity of masses and the globalisation of communications.
To focus the effects of globalisation on local industries, we turn to Mexico who has been experiencing financial turmoil ever since new financial reforms transformed the nation into a foreign investor’s dream.
Mexico has been an interesting and unsatisfied beast in modern neoliberal globalism markets. To understand the economic trends in modern day Mexico, it is important to consider that its economy was controlled by the Spanish kingdom for more than three centuries and was based around the exploitation and mining of minerals, specifically silver. Additionally, after the war for independence, many Mexicans opposed foreign involvement or investment in their newly sovereign nation. Furthermore, Mexico’s economic history in the first half century since its independence was an unstable one. Constant changes of whole political cabinets, deserting gachupínes (Spanish colonisers) with their savings of gold and silver and a recurring threat of invasion from foreign European nations that saw opportunity in a vulnerable nation, such as France, led to Mexico’s skepticism towards foreign investment in following decades.
Otero (2004) talks about how the country transitioned from economic models twice ever since its independence from Spain in 1821. The last couple of decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century saw the first transition where ‘economic liberalisation’ ruled the economic sphere. This liberalisation meant that the government expropriated many of the indigenous land and even privatised organisations such as the Catholic Church. It wasn’t until the Mexican Revolution when the country’s economy became more independent from foreign powers, specifically from the United States, and counter-movements made mostly of peasants, workers and teachers rose in prominence and gained a powerful voice through unions and syndicates. The progression to the nationalisation of oil and state led education guided the direction towards Mexico’s ‘societal protection’ tendencies. (Otero, 2004)
The current state of Mexico’s economic policy towards adopting globalist ideologies is the cause of an ever-growing national debt and the constant fluctuation of political parties in power. However, it is doubtful whether this drift towards adopting neoliberal market ideologies once again will be beneficial to Mexico’s economy and its local industries. This in part due to the growing discontent and the uncertainty of whether the welfare of the average Mexican worker has been met after the signing of certain documents that push for free trade and privatisation, such as NAFTA and national economical reforms brought on by Mexican president Peña Nieto’s current administration. The aperture to foreign involvement has made the local industries both notable and vulnerable to international eyes.
Many argue that globalisation has been an agent of harm in local industries by eroding opportunities of growth and exporting entire operations overseas due to cheap labor and more lenient employment regulations. Accompanied by criticism, many automotive, electronic equipment and manufacturing companies such as Delphi, Bosch and Flextronics, have been offshoring operations from the US, UK and Germany to industrial cities in Mexico since the 1980s. (Booth, 2013) At the same time, it can be argued that globalisation has aided many local industries in blossoming and gifted them growth opportunities which were inaccessible before such is the manufacturing and automotive industries in Mexico. Automotive industries sporadically being born in cities like Puebla or León can be factors of economical well being and investment to the area that had not seen before. This is important to note because in the case of television, the same franchises from the US have tried to steer their way into Mexican households, i.e. 100 Latinos Dijeron is the Spanish adaption of American TV show Family Feud.
Source: MundoMax (2014). 100 Latinos Dijeron [Image]
Moreover, the access to communication has carried the creative industries in Mexico to receptive audiences across the globe. Thanks to the access of wide reaching communication tools and digital advertising channels such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram and online communities such as 500px, Flickr and DeviantArt, nowadays designers, painters, filmmakers and other creative professionals have been able to export their talent and make a living and a career out of their efforts. To illustrate how globalisation has helped smaller creative industries and professionals, the northern industrial city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico serves as an example of how the globalisation of communications has driven the local industries.
Arturo Damasco and René Nava, two Mexican illustrators from the same city, were met with the opportunity to travel across the European continent and collaborate with fellow artists on a project called Magos Latinos with the sole purpose of designing and painting murals that depicted the stories of the violent history and the current state of the city. The opportunity to travel arose after Nava organised Color Walk, a project aimed at turning Ciudad Juarez into an open air walking museum in which both local and international muralists were able to design the city’s buildings into majestic sights. (Martínez Prado, 2014) Color Walk gained regional recognition after being praised on social media and news outlets. Damasco saw a considerable amount of attention when he designed and painted a 400 square meter mural portrait of local celebrity Juan Gabriel in an Andy Warhol style. Damasco’s name and career grew prominence from the art piece commissioned by the local authorities. (Castro, 2015)
Source: Trueba, Fernando. (2015). Le Tour De Juanga. [Photograph]
It is important to note that the attention local artists such as Nava and Damasco garner from globalisation not only benefit the individuals but it also creates growth opportunities for local industries, such as tourism, to strengthen in the area. According to studies made by the Centre for Economics and Business Research Ltd., arts and culture play a major role in driving tourism in the UK. This in turn adds to the country’s GDP, as well as creating spillover benefits and skills beneficial to other industries. (Centre for Economics and Business Research Ltd., 2013) With travel and tourism contributing over 14.8 percent to the country’s GDP in 2015, the same theory could be applied to Mexico. (World Travel and Tourism Council, 2015)
Source: World Travel and Tourism Council. (2015). Travel and Tourism: Economic Impact 2015 Mexico. [Graph] Available at: https://www.wttc.org/-/media/files/reports/economic%20impact%20research/countries%202015/mexico2015.pdf
Globalisation created a resurgence in dead industries in a domino effect-like pattern for the city of Ciudad Juarez. Following the trend, Ciudad Juarez experienced a rebirth of tourism from residents of its sister American city El Paso, with whom they share a border, as well as from other communities in the region. This resurgence in tourism occurred after crime rates decreased and feats such as Color Walk were accomplished. Social events such as the cycling tour of El Tour De Juanga, in which families and communities were invited to cycle around the city and visit the different murals of the open air museum – were born. Additionally, businesses such as Turibús Juárez emerged whose sole service was to drive tourists around the city visiting key historical sites as well as the murals painted by international artists. (Luján, 2015) The turn of events led to capital being reinvested into the city and other cultural attractions which would then hire local artists to create pieces of sculpture. One can argue that the arts and culture created by the local creative industries in Ciudad Juarez played a major role in the resurrection of the tourism industry.
It is worthy to recognise that the opportunities arising from globalisation in the creative industries and communications in Mexico have birthed as a byproduct an international interest in the country’s culture, and to an extent, to its social and political issues. This global interest in foreign social affairs has become a driving force behind the phenomena known as participative citizenship that is currently being seen in many developed countries. (Yigit and Tarman, 2013) The global support and backing that the Ayotzinapa movement gained back in 2014 was unprecedented. One of the major contributors to the awareness of this particular movement was freelance digital marketer Alberto Ecsorcia. (Devichand, 2015) Ecsorcia was responsible of tailoring the hashtag of #YaMeCansé, which was used a total of 4 million times on social media sites, to steer the media’s eye towards social issues afflicting Mexico and to feed the trend of participative citizenship. The movement’s global acknowledgement in the media reinforces the idea that the level of visibility it received could have not been achieved if it were not for social media and the globalisation of communications.
Source: YaMeCanse.MX. (2014). Ya Me Cansé. [Photograph]
To add, the need to collaborate and take action on social issues was not only reinforced from a global landscape. As an example, local photographer Monica Lozano was responsible for managing and bringing Inside Out to Ciudad Juarez as a means to raise awareness of the diverse stories that stem from this city. The project Inside Out , as their website cites it, is
‘an international participatory art project that allows people worldwide to get their picture taken and paste it to support an idea and share their experience.’ (Insideoutproject.net, 2011)
The project started out in 2011 in Paris by an anonymous French artist simply known as JR. The project began gaining support in cities around the world. To emphasise on the reach of the project, local artists and photographers, rather than the project’s creators, were the ones responsible for organising similar events in their respective localities.
Remarkably, Inside Out in Ciudad Juarez gained particular recognition because many of the stories shared were of people affected by the wave of violence the city lived through between the years of 2008 and 2012. Lozano and a team of local photographers took the portraits of the many people and pasted them on walls, under bridges and most notably on the concrete walls of the Rio Grande situated on the border between Mexico and the United States. People across the border were able to see the portraits which served as an instrument of protest towards the lack of empathy the neighbouring community expressed. The project garnered attention across the region and the world, largely through social media and online newspaper articles. The largest beneficiary of the project was Lozano after her work procured sufficient attention to be invited to the premiere of Inside Out’s official documentary at Robert DeNiro’s Tribeca film festival in New York City. (Camacho, 2013)
Source: InsideOutProject.net. (2011). Inside Out Juárez. [Photograph]
Undeniably, positive outcomes have emerged thanks to the globalisation of communications. However, the ease of access to information in today’s digital landscape can also make ideas susceptible to theft. For example, the many fashion designs that the Mixes, an indigenous group of people of the state of Oaxaca in Mexico – have created and incorporated as part of their clothing and culture were recently copied and rebranded under French designer Isabel Marant’s clothing line. (El Universal, 2015) However, this also garnered widespread uproar and attention which led to the French designer issuing an online apology and the indigenous people gaining distinction and support for their cause. It is important to be mindful of the negative implications when discussing the benefits globalisation has brought into play in the modern marketplace, such is the case of theft of intellectual property.
Source: Harp, Susana. (2015). [Photograph]
The entertainment industry in Mexico is part of the group chiefly affected by the rampant piracy currently affecting the economy. As a stark example, Tepito is a neighbourhood near Mexico City’s central plaza which serves as a market for smuggled goods such as electronics and pirated movies and music albums. A growing demand in these goods have seen piracy stroll an uninterrupted trail in Mexico. This demand stems from the devaluation of the peso seen during the 1990s which led to the average worker no longer having the spending power to purchase foreign goods and resorting to knockoff brands. (Navarette and Ascencio, 1996)
In Grillo’s publication, Beating the Black Market, he interviews Dr. Norman Aswat, an economist from UNAM, who argues that this demand is caused by a vicious cycle commenced because of the economic state of the average citizen. Wages are considerably low in Mexico in comparison to the average American worker, which leaves citizens with very little to no disposable income. This, consequentially, leads people to purchase products in the black market which are usually priced at 40 percent cheaper than the original brands in some cases. The diverted capital not spent on established retailers’ shelves stalls economic growth and in turn leads to wages and profit remaining low. (Grillo, 2003)
However, piracy has become an untameable beast in Mexico. The theft of ideas, illegal distribution of content and the leniency of punishable action can leave multinational companies such as Levi’s and Walt Disney, whom are some of the most affected by piracy in Mexico, in a position of impotence to pursue legal measures. With around 57.8 percent of the country’s workforce involved in informal employment it is almost impossible to maintain an actionable plan to deter these black markets. (Luna, 2015) Measures have been taken against these issues but with recent legislation, copyright violations have been decriminalised in the country and are only punishable with fees which in turn make the outlook of protection of ideas become a hazy image. It is important for governments to take action to educate on the harms piracy creates on the same citizens that purchase products from the black market such as stagnating wages and piracy becoming customary.
Source: INEGI. (2015). Translated: Number of persons working in an informal business. [Graph]
One of globalisation’s corollaries is the competition across markets, sometimes putting smaller organisations and individuals at a disadvantage against multinational companies. According to Thomas Hatzichronoglou’s report on globalisation and competitiveness for the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development, countries that opened up their markets to foreign investment and affiliations followed parallel paths in experiencing greater exposure to international competition and external factors. The report also touched on the point that smaller countries experience higher levels of this exposure. (Hatzichronoglou, 1996) Allowing access to a developing country’s market to foreign factors can deteriorate the growth potential of local industries. As an example, studies by the Center for Economic and Policy Research show that the NAFTA agreement did not aide Mexico’s GDP growth as expected from 1994 to 2014. Their GDP only grew an 18.6 percent in comparison to their previous growth of 98.7 percent from 1960 to 1980. (Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2014) This data poses the question whether competition stemming from globalisation affects creative industries the same way it affected other industries.
Source: Center for Economic and Policy Research (2014). Mexico and Latin America: Average Annual Real Per-Capita GDP Growth, 1960-2013. [Graph] Available at: http://cepr.net/documents/nafta-20-years-2014-02.pdf
The wider reach of audiences accessible to creative professionals also means that audiences have a wider range of options to choose from when hiring services. Creative professionals are now aiming at ways to differentiate themselves from an ever growing and multidimensional workforce pool. Professionals are resorting to personal branding and purchasing programmatic advertising to position themselves directly onto the audience’s devices. (Marshall, 2014) Further research is required on whether or not the competition seen between brands and individuals offering the same services is beneficial for the creative industries in Mexico. However, cases wherein large companies hire small creative firms or one-man production houses over bigger and well established advertising agencies are worthy of notice.
Indeed, the Mexican creative industries have seen more benefits from the globalisation of communications than losses. In order for the creative industries in Mexico to thrive in a global market, the accessibility to the market from independent competitors brought on by the wider reach of audiences through digital communication needs to be promoted. Monopolies currently held by several companies in Mexico are what have deteriorated the drive to compete in the market. However, trends point towards a more neoliberal market with greater competition. As an example, the program incentivised by the government known as Régimen de Incorporación Fiscal, or RIF, is pushing informal business owners to register as formal businesses and has led to smaller businesses reaping the benefits of tax breaks. (Luna, 2015)
Additionally, policies that currently protect intellectual property in Mexico need to be better enforced. Mexico’s intellectual property laws are protected by a plethora of national and international laws. However, the largest issue at hand is enforcement and punishment of violators of these laws. According to the Microsoft sponsored report by The Economist, Mexico’s software, publishing, software, entertainment and clothing industries are between some of the most affected by the theft of ideas and designs. (The Economist Intelligence Unit Ltd, 2010) Policies and video campaigns have been launched by the government but trends point to no detriment of these practices.
Barrowclough and Kozul-Wright (2008) describe that developing countries, such is the case of Mexico, have acknowledged the importance of investing in infrastructure to support newly knowledge-based economies such are the creative industries. However, it will not be an achievable goal to some developing countries because many, if not the majority, lack the basic necessities, resources, commodities and the education to incubate these new economies. The attention is currently aimed at solving the engulfing poverty and inequality.
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