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Are there historical examples of countries within the ‘core’ slipping into the semi-periphery or even the periphery? Why do you think the 2008 financial crash did not lead to a raft of countries being forced out of the world-system core?

In countries with highly developed telecommunications infrastructures, homes and offices have multiple links to the outside world, including landline and mobile phones, digital, satellite and cable television, electronic mail and the internet. The internet has emerged as the fastest-growing communications tool ever developed. In mid-1998, around 140 million people worldwide were using it. By the end of 2000 this had risen to over 360 million, and, by mid-2019, over 4.5 billion people across the world were internet users, almost 60 per cent of the global human population (table 4.3).

Most superfast broadband is delivered not by satellite but via the much older method of transoceanic cables, laid on or under the seabed. The 6,600 kilometre Marea cable, laid between Spain and Virginia in the US, was a joint venture by Facebook and Microsoft and the first linking the US and southern Europe.

Table 4.3 The global spread of internet usage, 2019: mid-year estimates

Source: Adapted from www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm.

These technologies facilitate what Harvey (1989) calls time–space compression. For instance, two individuals located on opposite sides of the planet – say, Tokyo and London – can not only hold a conversation in real time but also send documents, audio, images, video, and much more. Hence, the relative distance between places is dramatically reduced and the world as experienced is effectively shrinking, allowing people to become conscious of a single global human society.

Widespread use of the internet and smartphones is deepening and accelerating processes of globalization as more people are interconnected, including those in places that were previously isolated or poorly served by traditional communications. Rapid telecommunications infrastructure is not evenly distributed, but a growing number of countries can access global communication networks, and, as table 4.3 shows, the fastest growth in internet access over the twenty-first century is in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean, as these regions begin to catch up.