Time-space compression Flashcards
Describe the ‘shrinking world effect’
Travel times decreasing due to tech advancements so people begin to feel closer
Give an example of the shrinking world effect (travel times across the world)
1700 - HMS Dolphin - 2 years
1930 - Propellor aircraft - 8 days
1990 - Jet aircraft - 31 hours
Name five factors that have accelerated globalisation
- TNCs
- Computers and the internet
- Lower transport cost
- International organisations
- New market
How do TNCs accelerate globalisation?
- Exchanges raw materials, components, goods, shares and investment
- Trading blocs
How do computers and the internet accelerate globalisation?
- Social interconnectivity
- 24hr reporting
- Decreased import and export costs
- Increased air pollution
- Cheaper bulk moving
How do lower transport costs accelerate globalisation?
- Extensive family networks causing multi-cultural societies
- Unified global community
How do international organisations accelerate globalisation?
- Old, local cultures merge with globalising influences
- Interdependence
- Cheaper workers abroad especially call centres
How do New markets accelerate globalisation?
- Successful western influences
How have roads aided globalisation? Give an example
- over 1bn cars in the world
- 1/4 million miles of roads in Britain alone
Give an example and explain how bridges have aided globalisation
- Forthnanjing bridge, China
- through mountains and above farmland
- longest expansion bridge over river
How have containers aided globalisation?
Every year 16 million containers are used over 400bn miles
Makes items cheaper
Cost less than 1% of the price
How has air travel aided globalisation?
Ticket prices reducing and time-space compression
Give an example and explain how the channel tunnel has aided globalisation?
31.4 miles long
400 trains a day
54,000 tonnes of freight
Describe the London tube
Over 500 trains on 250 miles every day
1/6 Londoners
Name five important innovations in transport and trade
- Steam power
- Railways
- Telephone and telegraph
- Jet aircraft
- Container shipping
Describe steam power
In the 1800s, Britain became the leading world power using steamships and trains to move goods and armies along trade routes into Asia and Africa
Describe railways
Railway networks expanded globally in the 1800s, by 1904, the 9000km Trans-Siberian railways connected Moscow with China and Japan. The proposed HS2 from London to the North is expected to halve journey times
Describe telephone and telegraph
The first telegraph cables across the Atlantic in the 1860s replaced a three week boat journey. In parts of Africa where telephone lines were never placed, people are ‘jumping’ straight to mobile phone use
Describe jet aircraft
The intercontinental Boeing 747 in the 1960s made air travel more accessible to more classes and recent expansion of cheap flights has brought it to the masses in richer nations
Describe container shipping
Around 200 million individual container movements take place each year a.k.a ‘backbone of the ecnomy’ since the 1950s. The Chinese vessel ‘Cosco’ is 366m long, 48m wide and can carry 13,000 containers
Describe early model filming cameras
Heavy, wooden and manually operated by rotating a rod that couldn’t pick up sound or colour, only cinemas could show film reels that could only last two minutes
When was the first news TV broadcast
1936
Name the two formats of filming
Mechanical spinning disc and electronic format
When was the first successful bi-directional clear speech on the telephone?
1876
When was the internet invented?
1969
When was Skype founded?
2003
Give two benefits and two problems of container ships
+ Bulk transportation reduces cost and fuel use
+ Shifted the balance of economic power from Europe to Asia
x Exploits cheap labour in Asia
x Dominated by a few shipping and delivery companies
Give two benefits and two problems of e-tailing
+ Fast delivery times reduces cost for storage
+ Easier access to a global market
x Difficult for national governments to track sales to calculate business tax
x Overthrows local businesses and manufacturers
Define a ‘throw-away society’
A human society that is strongly influenced by consumerism, a critical view of over-consumption and excessive production of short-lived or disposable items that increase waste
Name two social impacts of E-tailing
- Reduces local custom
- Exploits sweatshop workers
Name two economic impacts of E-tailing
- Reduces local economy
- Makes business tax hard to claim by governments
Name an environmental impact of E-tailing
- Land destroyed in LEDCs for storage and warehouse production (pollution)
Define ‘economies of scale’
Items from e-tailers are cheaper due to bulk buying and lower operating costs
Name five global flows and networks
- Capital
- Commodities
- Information
- Tourists
- Migrants
Describe capital as a global flow
At a global scale, major capital flows are routed daily through world stock markets, in 2013 this reached $5 trillion a day
Describe commodity as a global flow
Valuable raw materials have always been traded but flows of manufactured goods has increased due to low production costs and low wage economies
Describe information as a global flow
Real time communication allowing goods to be bought quickly but also an increase in social media with 1.74 billion facebook users in 2016
Describe tourists as a global flow
Budget airlines have brought a ‘pleasure periphery’ with easy access in wealthy nations and emerging economies e.g. Africa’s FastJet
Describe migrants as a global flow
Movement of people is the hardest due to immigration laws and so most governments have a ‘pick and mix’ attitudes towards global flow embracing trade but restricting migration
What has been the result of the five major global flows?
Interdependency and connectivity
