The Issue of Poverty in the Process of Globalization

The concept of “Globalization,” which refers to the state of increasing mutual communication and interaction among people, societies, and states, is perhaps one of the most widely used concepts in the social science literature of the 20th and 21st centuries. The establishment of global institutions in the 1960s, followed by the rapid increase in the number of countries transitioning to a free-market economy from the 1980s onward, accelerated the momentum of the process called “globalization” as it took the entire world under its influence. Just as this process succeeded in occupying the whole world, it also managed to encompass every sphere related to human beings, from politics to economics, technology to communication, and demographics to culture. Its impact on economics, one of these spheres, forms the basis of discussions arguing that globalization widens the gap between every macro and micro-scale economic layer, benefiting a small minority while producing poverty for the vast majority.

Poverty has been a social issue that has constantly occupied human beings from the early ages of history to the present day, not merely in the post-globalization era. Like every social issue, the causes and consequences of poverty embody psychological, sociological, cultural, political, religious, technological, and communicative dimensions. As such, the problem of poverty is a phenomenon that must be addressed from a multifaceted perspective.

In this context, the issue of poverty is discussed in our book—particularly through the form it has taken during the process of globalization—along with its grounding in the field of communication, encompassing conceptual, empirical, and interdisciplinary dimensions. Accordingly, the book first examines the relationship between globalization and Neoliberal policies—a product of the globalization process—and poverty on a conceptual level, followed by an empirical framework through various country examples, disadvantaged groups, and practices, and finally, through its reflections in the field of communication.