Drawing from extensive literature and fieldwork in media and consumer culture, the paper attempts to offer a new perspective in an effort to envision future sociological investigations into the globalization of collective life forms.
First, the paper suggests that, in favor of spatial dimensions, the temporal aspects of globalization have been dismissed in sociological literature. Second, as an example of the above tendency, the paper proceeds to criticize the discussion on the so-called postmodern culture which is often represented by the MTV channel. The paper also argues that too much emphasis on the flat structure of the world overshadows both the theoretical and practical implications that might have been brought by sociological inquiries into the study of globalization.
In the third and fourth sections, the paper proposes an alternative view of globalization with special and due regards to temporal consciousness and practices that have recently emerged. Sustainable time and nonlinear time are discussed respectively; however, the paper demonstrates that, in reality, these two concepts are closely tied and even interwoven in relation with media narratives and global environmental risks, which have become more prevalent in everyday life.
Finally, the paper concludes that the above-mentioned double helix of time, i. e., sustainability and nonlinearity, can be best understood if we hypothesized that hyper-reflexivity is a core around which the double helix of time develops as an emerging expression of collective life in response to globalization. This hypothesis, the paper ventures to argue, in turn, enables us to cast a new light on the study of space and information society which has been criticized so far. The double helix hypothesis is also expected to promote mutual fertilization of the fields in terms of the multi-modal and spatio-temporal synthesis observed among the different levels of global life.