What is Globalization?

It is difficult for me to think of Globalization without the negative connotations that it conjures in my mind--without associating it with capitalism especially. Globalization is thought to be the technological extension of information availability to those who have not been privy to it in the past and it seems to me to be mainly the opening of markets for free-market capitalism, although I can imagine that there is a space in which it is not intrinsically tied to capitalism (globalization as, "enhancing international understanding and empathy, because people are better to each other through international channels of communication" (Curran and Park 7)).
However as Norris points out in his editorial in which he coins the poignant phrase "information poverty", it costs money to have access to these outlets for communication and those who do not have become further subjugated; allowing for further disparity.

And even if we are to think of Globalization in terms that are not directly monetary, even though you may not have to "pay" for what you are accessing, the very venues (film, television, internet) which are becoming flooded with material, are still in many ways perpetuating a sameness and a narrative that is still deeply deeply tied to the western tradition, the way in which we think about the information and communication is influenced by free-market capitalism, it is still making promises of "wholeness" and "understanding". The very concept that we can somehow gain understanding of other cultures, that they can represent themselves to us, is fictive. For I do not believe that Globalization can circulate these counter-narratives without commodifying and reducing them.

Curran, James and Myung-Jin Park. De-Westernizing Media Studies. New York: Routledge, 2000.

Norris, Phillip. "Information Poverty and the Wired World". (Do not have publisher/copyright information?)