Week 8 Blog

Week 8 Blog.

Image credit: http://www.webstoke.com/ 

 

I have a confession to make, I am a shopping addict.  There is nothing that I like better than seeing my hard earned dollars hanging where I can see them, in my wardrobe. Shoes, hats, bags, dresses, I don’t care if I have 6, if it’s a bargain I’m in.  Males be ware, if you hand me a visa don’t be surprised to see a shockingly depleted balance.  So how does this relate to my social network? As a self-confessed addict, one of the most tempting places for me to cast my eyes on is my social network, being covered in advertisements from various clothing manufacturers from across the globe, but how does this global trade of clothes effect my local community’s economy?

 Technology such as the development of Facebook has been essential in the globalisation of economic activities, resulting in a transformation of the ways corporations organise and produce (Dickens, 2007).  Consumers are often motivated by the products price, and thereby the cheaper the product the more likely the consumer will choose to purchase it.  The clothing that I buy online are usually manufactured in foreign countries, were labour is cheaper resulting in a cheaper price.

Transnational corporations such as the clothing corporations that I often purchase greatly influence the global market, due to their potential to control and coordinate various production companies in a wide geographical span (Dickens, 2007). But while we mere Facebook users have been casting our eyes over the bargains on the other side of the world that are available with the click of the mouse, the “real effect of the globalising process are not being felt at a global or national level but at the local scale” (Dickens, 2007, p.439). It is due to this globalisation that business owners in communities may struggle to make ends meet (Dickens, 2007, p.439).

In the future I shall endeavour to consider the impacts of my actions when choosing which corporations to buy from, and attempt to buy from those closer to home and in my local community to prevent the backlash on local business due to globalisation.

References

Dickens, P. (2007) Winning and Losing: an Introduction. London, England: Sage Publications Ltd