Volume: 27  Number: 5  Page: 392–412  doi:10.2167/jmmd396.1

What Does the Word ‘Globalisation’ Mean to You?: Comparative Perceptions and Evaluations in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and the UK

Peter Garrett, Betsy Evans and Angie Williams Centre for Language and Communication Research, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK

Political leaders, the media, business people, trade union leaders and academics continually refer to how globalisation is impacting on our lives. Governments may at times argue that globalisation benefits us, and at others attribute to globalisation many of the major problems we currently face. What do ordinary people make of all this? We do not have a systematic account of their understandings, in terms of the primary associations they make with globalisation, and how they orient to it in terms of resistance or support. 302 respondents (groups from the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand) were asked to note the first five things they associate with the word ‘globalisation’. Their most salient associations centre on issues of economy, culture, power and communication. Differences emerge in the contrasting priorities that the groups give these categories and how they evaluate them in positive or negative terms, with the US respondents holding a comparatively more positive outlook.

Keywords: globalisation, folk perceptions of globalisation, USA, UK, Australia, New Zealand

© 2006 P. Garrett et al.

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