Marshall McLuhan

http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm

McLuhan was the first to popularise the concept of global village and to consider its social effects.His insights were revolutionary at the time, and fundamentally changed how everyone has thought about media, technology, and communications ever since.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_McLuhan

In the early 1960s, McLuhan wrote that the visual, individualistic print culture would soon be brought to an end by what he called "electronic interdependence": when electronic media replace visual culture with aural/oral culture. In this new age, humankind will move from individualism and fragmentation to a collective identity, with a "tribal base." McLuhan's coinage for this new social organization is the global village.