The Digital Divide

Ever since information technology sprung up, there have been talks about digital divide.

What exactly is the digital divide?
It is the gap between those people with effective access to digital and information technology and those without.

Social problems are inevitable in relation to the digital divide.

Firstly, on an individual level, those without access to digital and information technology lose out a lot. They are deprived of information and knowledge. But in the first place, in order to have access to information, they need the monetary capabilities. But without proper education and skills, they are unable to get a job that pays well enough to afford such simple and basic tools of communication. Technology to such people is a luxury.

This shows a virtuous cycle. In order to have access to technology and information, you need money. But to earn money, you need information and education. So only the rich are able to purchase technology, to gain more information and educate themselves and their offspring, thus generating expertise to produce even more advanced technologies.

Looking at this, there seems to be some truth about what Minister Mentor said. To quote from his speech, “you marry a non graduate, then you worry about whether or not your son or daughter is going to make it to the university.”

With the parents both holding a degree, they are assumed to be drawing a high salary. With a high salary they are able to finance a good education and also take drastic measures to shift houses in order to get their children into a good school.

We can therefore see from the above that the digital divide and the income disparity go hand in hand as social problems.

Secondly, moving to the commercial level, globalization and technology have made the world smaller (figuratively) and also made the capital markets much more deeply connected and interdependent on each other compared to the days of the barter trade.

As can be seen in the recent credit crisis, the bankruptcy of major financial institutions (e.g. Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch) affects the whole global economy. Technology has made it easier to trade overseas. Investors in Asia are investing and following the stock markets in the US. The aftershock of the credit crunch has started to spread to Europe and Asia. In fact, no county is spared because all our financial institutions are connected.

But one thing to note is that, economies with vast technologies and infrastructure are the ones whom are hardest hit. Areas with lesser technology are probably less dependent on the US economy and so the effects of the credit crunch might not reach them as quickly as the other countries.
Hence, we see that technology has made it much easier to generate wealth, but it also means that a grave mistake, as in this case the ease of lending from financial institutions, will bring the fall of investors as well.

Next, bringing in science, we see that the bulk of science and technological improvements and research centres are very much coagulated in certain countries, namely USA, Japan and Western Europe. Billions of dollars are pumped into research every year. With new breakthroughs like in vitro- fertilisation developed from such research centres, the rich (who naturally have access to information via technology) are able to overcome child-bearing issues. Whereas the poorer couples who have trouble conceiving, no matter how badly they want a child despite their current financial situations are not able to have such a method available to them.

Once again the problem of the virtuous cycle comes into the picture and the poor are deprived of making use of technological advancements.

All in all, technology doesn’t cause social problems. But we are able to see that the lack of a ubiquitous introduction of technology throughout the world actually aided in worsening the social problems that are already plaguing society and the global economies.

the sars epidemic

The SARS Epidemic

This epidemic has caused problems in the global sense and showed how the world came together to fight.

It showed the (lack of) cooperation of the Chinese Government and media. During the outbreak, the Chinese government lied about the actual number of infected. They played down the seriousness of this epidemic somehow giving their citizens some sort of complacency that the situation is not as bad. It sparked fear that the situation is much worse after it was known that the Chinese government lied about the actual numbers. This problem is reiterated in the recent milk powder scandal in China where the media were paid to not disclose the fact that there is melamine in Sanlu’s milk powder due to the ongoing Olympics.

It showed how globalised and connected the world is to the point that any epidemic as such will be disastrous to the world. Due to globalization and with the advancement of technology, travel has become a very important part of our lives. Be it for business or leisure, thousands are travelling around the world. This makes the world more vulnerable to epidemics like Sars. Even during the 1918 Spanish flu, 20 to 40 million people died from the flu virus. So if the Sars virus is not contained as it was in 2003, the numbers would be a much larger one probably increasing exponentially.

The origin of this disease comes from the rural agricultural areas where people and animals live under the same roof. This wasn’t a problem before as animal viruses will not infect humans. But SARS is different. Having mutated from the animal virus, it now attacks human cells. But the rural areas have been in this manner for years. With the occurrence of SARS, this has to change in order to prevent a recurrence. The rural areas played a major role in this whole epidemic. Perhaps the government needs to realize that funds should be channelled such areas to ensure that there is a certain level of hygienic practice carried out in these rural areas. But it is difficult to implement as some countries are too huge unlike in Singapore. That being said, there are minimal agricultural activities in Singapore. There need to be a balance on the development of rural areas and urban areas.

When SARS first emerged, nothing much was known about the virus. World Health Organisation (WHO) realised that this was no simple virus. A lot of work was put into finding out the strain of the virus and hopefully learn more about it to be able to deal with it. WHO, as a supranational organisation, fought hard to fight this virus. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends. They are part of the United Nations. And for such an epidemic which affects so many countries, it is inevitable that WHO has to be involved. Despite this, countries cannot leave it for WHO to solve the problem. Respective health departments have to cooperate with them to ensure that the safety of the people is not compromised.

Lastly it is the role of the state. Singapore government has done well to curb the spread of the disease. It used a hospital solely to quarantine SARS patients, it stop schools so that there is lesser contact among people. They also used thermal imaging to screen people entering Singapore, entering the polyclinics and hospitals to check the temperatures of people to decrease the spread of the disease. The government took control of the situation and protected the lives of the citizens. Such control is needed during an epidemic because it affects other people in the country due to the infectious nature.

Urbanisation

Urbanisation is the physical growth of urban areas into rural or natural land as a result of population in-migration to an existing urban area. Metropolitan areas expand when people migrate from the rural areas to work or even to live in the city. As more people migrate to the urban areas, there is a need to increase administrative services. There are also more people of different ethnic groups coming into the city. With globalisation, migrants also come from other countries.
Different Asian, Hispanic groups migrate to America. They occupy what is called “transnational spaces”. These spaces will then consist of many people speaking many different languages. Some migrants set up business here, meeting the increasing demands for administrative services and others eg bringing back the existence of warehouses, retail outlets in these areas.
This “transnational commerce” aids the country’s economy as they are able to communicate with people from their place of origin. An example is how Chinese and Mexican merchants brought the warehousing and industrial estates in Houston back to life by importing food products via the port and hence providing supply to a vast area there.More products in other countries can now be found in America due to such commercial activities brought in by urbanisation.
Urbanisation also brings about multi-culturist society. Migrating to urban areas, the merchants bring along their culture with them. Their racial presence is then known in America. Ethnic festivals and heritage are highly regarded not only by the people of the respective ethnic groups, but also by the other Americans. America is hence a multicultural society.
However, there are problems due to these migrations. In a society, an individual has a social space in society and hence a physical space. No one would be happy should their physical space in society be taken over. Hence, during the industrial period, ethnic areas were not welcomed and politicians made use of government policies to “destroy” these areas via slum-clearing policies. Reasons cited were that these areas caused health problems and brought about more crimes to the society. In Houston, Chinatown was relocated to facilitate the expansion of the central business district. Due to the civil rights movement later on; Americans are more tolerant to other ethnic groups.
No doubt the first generation migrants have brought their culture into the country; their children assimilate into the American way of life, chasing the American Dream. This somewhat creates a similar identity throughout the society. From the second generation migrants onwards, they are quite American in all aspects. They speak, talk and live their lives like American, but look different. This brings about a new aspect about identity. For example, they will see them self as Chinese-American. Identity is now further broken down into more categories. Some may feel alienated because they do not look American and they do not behave or speak like people from their origin.
Another problem of urbanisation is the creation of urban slums. People move from the rural areas to the urban areas in search of jobs and to lead better lives. But not all are well-educated and have the necessary skills to hold a job in the urban areas. They may then be unemployed for a long period of time, and are stuck with the financial obligations that they created when they moved. The occupants of the urban slums form the lowest class of urban citizens. They are living in urban areas with an income disparity.
They may be in debt and take up low paying jobs but live in the urban areas. In worse cases, they may turn to crime out of desperation. This can be seen in the many minority ethnic group gangs formed in the America. The Mexicans move to America, taking low paying jobs and live in the periphery of the urban areas. Up til now, such migration is still occurring.
Urbanisation and globalisation goes hand in hand, no doubt there are advantages spurring from the increase in economical activities, control is needed to prevent rapid urbanisation. Government policies can be set up to minimise the problems that comes with rapid urbanisation. More help can be rendered to improve the current situation of the urban slums.

Nationality

An identity can be based upon many attributes as mentioned. Identity can be formed based on a person’s or a group’s history, geography, biology, work place, collective events, power apparatus and religious beliefs.
Nationalism is a form of legitimized identity. Patriotism is thus brought about by nationalism. There is nothing bad about feeling for your country and being proud of it as Confucius preached about loving our country. But with globalisation and the ease of migration, there are differing views about nationality. Current residents do not welcome new migrants for the fact that they are not born here or have not lived in the country for a long enough period of time. Take for example in Singapore, with the current government policies that encourages migration, citizens are not happy and tend to avoid them. Although there are other reasons such as increased competition for jobs, the recent Beijing Olympics speaks volume. The table tennis team won the first medal for Singapore in 48 years. However, being a team filled with China-born peddlers, it is no wonder that a substantial amount of Singaporeans do not feel proud of their achievements. The peddlers were, in the minds of Singaporeans, not likely to be able to sing the National Anthem. Also, the fact that they were not born here or lived in Singapore for a long enough time are the main reasons cited among voices on the Internet.
Such problems signify to a certain degree: xenophobia. Being of a similar race Chinese is by no means any help. The peddlers were seen as Chinese from China, period. One fifth of the population is migrants.
What social problems will this lead to?
The peddlers are just a minority of the ever-increasing Chinese nationals coming here to Singapore. Alienation of migrants is something to think about. One attribute that go along with their identity is poor civic mindedness (relative to Singaporeans). Their accent is another factor. They prefer to communicate in Mandarin. And even that, may not be fully understandable by bilingual Singaporean Chinese. Alienation may cause them to turn to crime. They feel left out of the society, sticking to their own kind. Having to endure the prejudice and discrimination (treatment) towards them, more segregation within the society will occur.
So what really constitutes to being a nation of a country? Clearly it doesn’t mean being born in a particular country. The meaning of an identity or a Singaporean in this case, is different to different people. For the migrants to really be a Singaporean, it takes more than just a passport. It requires the change of mindsets of the citizens of the country and that will take a long while to do.

Social Problem to Global Problem?

According to Anderson, a nation is an imagined community. Each nation has its own identity and ideology. For example, Singapore is a secular Republic State. North Korea is a country bound by communism beliefs and countries like Pakistan and Iran are Islamic Republic States.

With such differing ideologies, it is inevitable that conflicts are present. Political parties see themselves as superior and would like to see their beliefs being adopted in other countries. War and conflict are therefore pertinent in the world even up until today.

War occurs for several reasons with some nations wanting to spread their ideologies or purely due to the fact that the other nation has natural resources that are highly sought after.

The work and trade system has increased the rate of globalisation. With industrialisation occurring, super powers such as the United States of America (USA) and United Kingdom (UK) have huge influence over the global organisations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These countries see themselves as the infallible. With them being the superpower, it is quite likely that countries with different ideologies do not see eye to eye with their views. Knowing this, war and conflicts happen between countries, driving the need to have the most sophisticated weaponry for their army, naval and air force.

Countries with strict religious beliefs tend to run their countries based on a particular religion. Unfortunately, when rich and influential persona in such a country has extreme radical beliefs, there is a chance that the country might fall into the hands of such people. With great influence and power, these extremist are able to gain forced support of the people. These people live in fear and due to the lack of good governance; there is little that can be done.

The difference in ideology created great discontent between the two countries. The September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre triggered the war between the US and Afghanistan. Such attack creates a lot of social problems. The attack sparked the fear of flight for people all over the world, fearing that the same event will repeat itself. People have a misunderstanding of Muslims. Discrimination against Muslims grows in the US and vice versa in Afghanistan.

US, being the land of emigrants, started to see a large discontent and fear of the Muslims living there. The Muslims there may feel alienated due to such behaviour from their fellow Americans. Violence and hatred spew across the Middle East.

In a recent survey in the Middle East, only 46 per cent of respondents named al-Qaeda, while 25 per cent said they did not know and 15 per cent said the US government was behind the attacks.
This shows that many in the Middle East doubt the actual cause of the September 11 attacks which is the trigger for the war. These people will definitely not have a good image of the United States. These social problems have moved to an international scale.

The differing ideologies between countries have escalated into a global problem.Terror cells in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore also sparked fear in these countries. Singapore claiming to be pro-US has become a target of terror cells. Australia, which sent troops to Afghanistan were also affected. The Bali Bombings and bus bombings have fuelled the fear throughout the world.

With such hatred going on in the world, it would take many generations before peace can be attained among these countries. For now, everyone in the world is living in fear.

Crime

One of the root causes of crime is desperation. As discussed in previous lectures, globalization has caused unemployment for blue collar workers in developed countries due to the shifting of manufacturing into other countries with cheaper labour. Hence, these people may feel helpless and alienated from the society due to this fact. They find it hard to find a job with their limited skills. They start to engage in criminal activities either to fund their survival and/or to show their dissent with the government policies which are not helping them.
Another cause of crime may have come from the glamour in the media and computer games. In many movies and computer games, criminals and their activities are the main theme. Young people indulging in these games and movies idolise the criminals and become desensitised to these criminal acts. Games such as Counter-strike and highly criticized Grand Theft Auto are the common name of games when issues of youth violence are discussed. The tendency to glorify such acts or to use violence to settle disputes is high. In America, there was a case of a few bank robbers imitating the criminal acts in a movie called Pulp Fiction to rob a bank. It was said that these robbers had planned the robbery to something similar to their idols in the movies. These bank robbers were also part of the unemployed, alienated from society.
Materialism is a wide spread phenomenon in the globalised countries too. The need to own the latest gadgets, cars and clothing is found in many. Desperate to keep up with the latest trend and to be able to fit into social cliques, crime may be one of the avenues used by people own such a gadget. Resale of stolen goods to others in order to gain some money has also been used by people whom are alienated or are jobless.
Political agenda is also another reason why crimes are committed. Groups with a different political view or belief may use crime as a way to scare the commoners or show the political party in charge that they mean business and they will resort to whatever means to get their voices or opinions heard. Acts such as bombings, assassinations are carried out to portray their discontentment with society, demanding their needs via threatening the public’s safety.

The Impact of Work and Trade on Society
Wealth
The distribution of wealth most certainly distinguishes people from one another. And the way that wealth is distributed is due to which economic system the world is based on. With the new international division of labour, most of the wealth generated is for the post-industrialising nations. The exploitation of this system has been on for a long time. Drawing flak, it all boils down to the way the world is run. Following Adam Smith’s theory of a capitalist economy, there is a high need for efficiency in today’s world. With a fast paced lifestyle, the advancement of technology and the increasing rate of literacy, people in post-industrialising nations have the hunger for new products and the spending power. This further increases the need for mass production and of course with profits in mind, cheap production costs are highly sought after.
Skills
The new international division of labour, as mentioned by Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx, creates solidarity among workers. Each worker is skilled in one part of the production process, making them feel isolated and alienated because as time goes by, they do not feel like they are accomplishing anything. They will not have a sense of accomplishment as most are not likely to see the finished product unless they are trained to work at the end of the production line. They also see themselves as groups in terms of the production process.
With expertise in a particular part of production, these workers are very vulnerable should they be laid off. They would then have to retrain themselves in order to land a new job. This phenomenon is happening in many countries. In Singapore, the government have to offer courses and get blue-collar workers to upgrade themselves to ensure employability when large MNCs pull out from the country in seek of cheaper sources of labour.
We know that the superpowers like US and Great Britain and MNCs have taken advantage of the other people in Third World countries. The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organisation have been largely controlled by these superpowers to aid their greed and boost their economy. We need a new economic system that can supply the efficiency required for the consumption of people in First World countries and at the same time, benefiting the people in Third World countries. This seems impossible as we are asking for all the good things from the different economic ideologies. The encouragement of fair trade will certainly help in the long run. Companies like Starbucks have made this initiative. But are people in First World countries willing to pay higher prices to aid the Third World country people out of poverty? Imagine fair trade prices for all the goods, it clearly undermines profit for the MNCs and increase financial strain on people in the First World country.
The social problems due to the current economic structure and dominance of superpowers and MNCs will certainly continue for a long time. We need to eradicate such dominance in order to subdue the social problems created for others via exploitation.
Political agenda by the IMF and World Bank
Countries like japan are exporting rice to other countries, bringing up the prices of rice. Leading to riots by consumers
Trade unions, NGO can empower the government
Educate the people abt their rights.

Tutorial 1

Globalization has been going on for a long time since the ancient civilizations. The phenomenon has changed over the years affecting more people and at a greater speed. With improving technology and hence the ease of communication and travelling, globalization now occurs at a faster rate and on a larger scale.

Due to huge migrant activities and the media, cultural exchange occurs much more easily. Young people tend to follow new cultures and indulge in them, hence slowly losing their own unique culture. Migrants assimilate into their new environment and some get married to foreigners, creating many people of mixed races. These people may identify themselves with the culture of the country in which they live in despite looking like someone from another culture. This occurs much less so in the past when migrant activities were limited due to difficulty with travel and possible social stigma that came with marrying someone of another race.

With the media, many youths adopt values from other cultures despite being very much physically around people of their own culture. The constant blaming of MTV which introduced the Western culture to most Asian countries is one proof of how much globalization has affected culture now. However, this is a very controversial issue as there are other factors such as parenting that affect the behaviour of young people hence creating social problems within society.

As mentioned earlier, with the rate of globalization has been fuelled by ease of transport among others, and this creates more opportunities for drug traffickers to illegally export and push drugs to people all around the world. With the many flights available throughout, the abuse of drugs has created a global problem. Drugs made in Columbia are being sent to various parts of the world. Drug lords like Pablo Escobar made millions of dollars from the drug business. Although he is being killed, Columbia is still producing bulk of the drugs today. There is no doubt that drugs can create devastating social problems that may cripple an economy if not controlled.

Income disparity is another problem that is seen in most first world countries. In Singapore, the income disparity has been widening. There are many households that have a monthly income of about $1200 despite the fact that the number of millionaires in Singapore are increasing. With wealth and education, the wealthy people are able to further replicate their success and put their children through tertiary education. While the poor have to slog hard to make ends meet, at times sacrificing their children’s opportunity for tertiary education.

Globalization has created a loss of jobs especially for blue collar workers in Singapore. Large MNC’s have decided to shift their production to countries whereby labour is much cheaper. This creates unemployment for blue collar workers and thus creating lots of financial problem especially since most of these workers do not have the expertise for other jobs. With a high unemployment rate, the economy of the country is affected and jobs need to be created fast. This affects our society as more money has to be spent by the government to attract other investors and to have campaigns get these workers to upgrade their skills.

Globalisation has good and bad points. Obviously some people are at a disadvantage, and this is a problem for all first world nations. The social problems that come along with globalisation cannot be fully eradicated but can be minimised with the right government policy and attitudes of the people (culture).

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