News Globes – Worldwide
The words worldwide have two meanings. The first meaning is worldwide in its literal sense, which means “all around the world.” In its more common use, however, worldwide generally refers to the quantity of people who watch a news story through the media but don’t personally see it. For example, when a plane crashes near Los Angeles, this will be news all over the United States. However, if you live in Los Angeles and that’s where the crash occurred, this is global news, or worldwide news.
The second meaning of worldwide is more of an adjectival form. The adjective worldwide applies to a news event that occurs anywhere and to any people anywhere. So, when an earthquake occurs in Chile, this is worldwide news because it is happening to people everywhere, even though they may not be located in Chile. When a plane crashes into a building in Los Angeles, this is worldwide news as well, because it is occurring to people in every part of the country but especially to those living in Los Angeles.
This is the second use of the term worldwide. While it technically could also be considered an adjective, it is more often used as a noun. A news event that is worldwide is an event that occurs all over the globe and in which the news reports is made available to people living in every part of the earth. These include events like natural disasters, wars, and other major events that are able to affect the whole globe.
When people refer to “worldwide” they are usually talking about the quantity of individuals and countries which can potentially be reached by getting access to the Internet. It is important to note that a globe doesn’t actually encompass the entire world. The Globe has the most surface area of all the planets in the solar system combined. The Internet, on the other hand, is simply a very large collection of potential places where one could get access to the World Wide Web at any given time.
If we want to be global citizens and stop seeing our nation as divided into “red states” and “blue states”, then we need to take a step back and realize that the entire globe is interconnected. The Internet is open to everyone in the entire world. While some people disagree with the idea that the Internet is a “worldwide surveillance tool”, this is true for a lot of things.
For example, if someone in a blue state had committed a crime in a red state, they would be “reached” by the Internet. Similarly, if a person living in Los Angeles was arrested for murder, they would be able to learn about the crime in New York just by using their home state’s Internet service provider. This same principle applies when it comes to global news.