Week 8 - Technology and Globalization Flashcards
List and define the following terms: globalization, outsourcing, offshoring, the Grandma Problem.
globalization: the growing interdependence of the world’s economies, cultures, and populations, brought about by cross-border trade in goods and services, technology, and flows of investment, people, and information.
outsourcing: when a company hires another company to manufacture its products
offshoring: a practice related outsourcing and which typically involves hiring companies to arrange for manufacturing in countries with weak labour protections and poor standards of living for workers.
Grandma Problem: the threat of the Internet is sanitized by content ‘magicians’, e.g. TaskUs
Identify and recognize why companies outsource and offshore their manufacturing processes.
- less stringent rules on occupational health and safety/less regulations on environmental damage
Recognize the central industries that offshore and outsource.
- technology
- clothing production
Identify which companies have and have not experienced high levels of offshoring and outsourcing, and what factors contribute to this.
Identify and recognize the pros (upside) of globalization.
- increased worldwide economic output
- more opportunity for people to live better lives to some extent in 1st/2nd worlds - 600 million people emerged from poverty in the last 30 years
- easier movement and travel of people
- remittances - driver of economic growth in developing world
- greater access to diverse cultural experiences
- rise of democracy
- less pandemics
Identify and recognize the cons of globalization and the risks that it poses to humans and the environment.
- rise of individualism
- more land brought under cultivation leads to increased deforestation
- losing land to grow the global economy
- usage of more resources i.e. water and fossil fuels as worldwide production and consumption increases by wealthier people
- > accelerates global warming and climate change
- unsustainable use of world’s resources due to current models of economic growth
- globalization has not rid the world of violence
- democracy and economic growth do not always go hand in hand
- increased polarization of wealth
List and identify what content moderators are searching, recognize why burnout is common, and identify the occupational risks posed by this kind of employment.
people that are hired to clean-up offensive stories on the internet, including:
- inappropriate sexuality and nudity
- graphic content i.e. beheadings
- illegal activity i.e. drugs, domestic violence
Identify how and why content moderation is an example of offshored and outsourced labour in a globalized world
much is still done in the
US, often by young college graduates like Swearingen was. Many companies employ a two-
tiered moderation system, where the most basic moderation is outsourced abroad while more
complex screening, which requires greater cultural familiarity, is done domestically. US-
based moderators are much better compensated than their overseas counterparts: A brand-
new American moderator for a large tech company in the US can make more in an hour than
a veteran Filipino moderator makes in a day. But then a career in the outsourcing industry is
something many young Filipinos aspire to, whereas American moderators often fall into the
job as a last resort, and burnout is common.
Ryan Cadeno says he made $500 a month as a contractor for Microsoft. M O I S E S
S A M A N / M A G N U M
Identify and recognize how offshoring and outsourcing work in the context of Apple’s relationship and Foxconn.
practice of outsourcing and offshoring the manufacturing process is a hallmark of globalized activities. The celebrated and sought-after brand, Apple, has been criticized by contemporary observers for their practice of outsourcing and offshoring their production practices for popular tech devices, including the iPad, iPhone, and Apple Watch.
Identify and recognize the kinds of conditions faced by people who work at Foxconn factories in Chengdu, China.
-dangerous and exploitative conditions
-human toll of these practices are built into the technologies that western and elite populations covet and will stand-in-line for hours around the world. Simply, the authors state that Apple is one of the most admired brands, so there is little motivation for them to undergo rapid, uncomfortable change.
legs swell until they can hardly walk. Under-age workers have helped build Apple’s products, and the company’s suppliers have improperly disposed of hazardous waste and falsified records, according to company reports and advocacy groups…More troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers’ disregard for workers’ health
Identify the critiques of labour conditions in factories run by Foxconn, Apple’s supplier, in China and list the factors that contribute to these conditions both in Chengdu and in an international context.
List and identify what Apple has done to address the poor labour conditions in factories where their products are made.
- A supplier code of conduct
- Better safety protections for workers
- A more vigorousauditing process
Identify and recognize how and why people have criticized Apple’s corporate practices, including with spoofed ads like the one in the header above.
spoof advertisement parodies Apple’s subcontractor Foxconn for it’s exploitative working conditions. It uses the visual convention of Apple headphones, which are iconic and recognizable, to imply that Apple is complicit in Foxconn’s record of poor labour practices, which have been blamed for a series of suicides by workers in their factory in Chengdu,
