Word of the Day

: October 1, 2014

global village

noun GLOH-bul VIL-ij

What It Means

: the world viewed as a community in which distance and isolation have been dramatically reduced by electronic media (such as television and the Internet)

global village in Context

Thanks to crowdsourcing and the generous response of the global village, the couple received enough donations from strangers all over the world to pay their sick daughter's medical bills.

"Adding fuel to each of these contagions is our ever-growing web of connections to the global village, with the virtual tethers now so much a part of our daily lives that they no longer surprise. Every Facebook user, in theory, is just a single friend request away from some 1.3 billion others." - Clifton Leaf, Fortune, August 22, 2014

Did You Know?

The term global village is closely associated with Herbert Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian communications theorist and literature professor hailed by many as a prophet for the 20th century. McLuhan's mantra, "the medium is the message," summarized his view of the influence of television, computers, and other electronic information sources in shaping society and modern life. By 1960, he had delineated his concept of the "global village," and by 1970, the public had embraced the term and recognized the idea as both exhilarating and frightening. As a 1970 Saturday Review article noted, "There are no boundaries in a global village. All problems will become so intimate as to be one's own...."