The Web of Time and the Dilemma of Globalization

Time is affected signi cantly by the spread of the Internet throughout the world. On the one hand, the new communication technologies provide for "round-the-clock" operation, threatening to obliterate time as a function of a culture's sense of identity. On the other hand, the Internet enables local cultures to resist the globalizing and homogenizing tide. The situation points to a dilemma. Local cultures nd it hard to resist integrating itself with the world through the Internet, but at the same time they feel a real need to protect and to promote their identities. This article tries to show that local cultures nd the medium an appropriate and effective one in putting forward their agenda. As the globalizing force signi ed by the Internet tends to occur at a super cial level, different conceptions of time can coexist at the same time. The emerging conception of time is thus characterized neither by the premodern one of identi cation of time with nature, nor by the modern one of an abstract entity pointing forward, but by a "web" allowing for different strands to go their own way while weaved together to create a coherent pattern, and this is how the dilemma is resolved. A case study of the Thai conceptions of time and the current debate on changing the time standard is presented in order to illustrate the point.