ABSTRACT
The onset of modernity and accompanying globalisation through the expansion and invention of communications technology creates a social development in which modern institutions are distinct and separate in form from traditional types (Giddens 1990: 6). Three features, the pace of change, the scope of change and the nature of modern institutions account for this separation and distinction (Giddens 1990: 6). Giddens also describes modernity as a double-edged phenomenon. Through the worldwide spread of modern social institutions, greater opportunities for humanity exist than ever before, but there is also a dark side in which capitalism, industrialisation and the expansion of bureaucracy can, for example, produce large-scale human degradation and destruction of the material environment. Central to any analysis of the above is the concept and notion of society.
