media and globalisation essay

Essay on Media And Globalization

Students are often asked to write an essay on Media And Globalization in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

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100 Words Essay on Media And Globalization

What is globalization.

Globalization means the way countries and people of the world interact and mix. It’s like different parts of the world coming together to share things like goods, services, ideas, and culture. It’s a bit like having friends from many places.

Role of Media in Globalization

Media, like TV, internet, and newspapers, helps globalization by spreading information. It’s like a bridge that connects people from far places, letting them share news and stories. Media makes the world seem smaller because it’s easy to know what’s happening far away.

Types of Global Media

Media comes in many forms. There are movies, music, and shows from all over the world. The internet also has websites and social media which lets us chat and see what others do, no matter where they are.

Impact on Culture

Because of media, we get to see and try new things from other cultures. Sometimes, this can change our own culture, like how we might start enjoying food from a different country or celebrate new festivals.

Challenges of Media Globalization

250 words essay on media and globalization, what is media and globalization.

Media refers to the different ways we share information, like newspapers, television, and the internet. Globalization is when people and places all over the world become connected and start sharing things like goods, ideas, and culture. When we talk about media and globalization, we’re looking at how the ways we share information help connect the world.

The Role of Media in Connecting the World

Media plays a big role in making the world feel smaller. With the internet and TV, we can learn about what’s happening in far-off places in just a few seconds. News from one country can spread to another very quickly, making everyone more aware of global events. This means that a kid with a computer or smartphone can see and learn about different cultures and places without leaving home.

Sharing Culture Through Media

Thanks to media, music, movies, and TV shows from one country can be enjoyed all over the world. This helps different cultures to understand each other better. For example, a child in India might watch a cartoon from the United States and learn about American life and language.

Challenges of Media and Globalization

Even though media helps us connect, it can also create problems. Sometimes, the information shared is not true, which can cause misunderstandings. Also, when everyone is watching the same shows or listening to the same music, local cultures might become less important. It’s like when everyone starts wearing the same type of clothes, and traditional outfits are worn less often.

In conclusion, media has a huge part in making globalization happen by spreading information and culture. But it’s important to remember to check if the news is true and to keep celebrating our own local traditions and cultures.

500 Words Essay on Media And Globalization

Media brings the world together.

Media has made it easy for us to know about other countries. Before, if something happened in another country, you might never hear about it. Now, you can watch news from everywhere on your phone or computer. This means we can learn about other cultures and what life is like for people who live far away.

Global News and Understanding

When we watch global news, we start to understand people from other places better. If there is a big storm in another country, we see the pictures and want to help. This makes us feel connected to the whole world, not just our own town or country.

Business and Media

Learning from each other.

Thanks to media, we can learn new things from other cultures. We might watch a show from another country and learn how to cook their food or speak a few words in their language. This helps us to be more open and friendly with people who are different from us.

Problems with Global Media

Even though there are good things about media and globalization, there are also problems. Sometimes, news from other countries can make us scared or worried. Also, when businesses sell the same things everywhere, local shops and traditions might disappear. This can make different places start to look the same, and we might forget what makes each culture special.

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Explaining Global Media: A Discourse Approach

Submitted: 21 October 2010 Published: 01 August 2011

DOI: 10.5772/17557

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Ulrika olausson *.

Örebro University, Sweden

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1. Introduction

The term “transnational” is here used to describe events, technology, processes, connections, etc. which transcend nation-state borders but do not necessarily encompass the entire globe ( Hannerz, 1996 ).

However, these notions about the media’s pertinent role in globalization processes have also been fiercely challenged by quite a few media scholars, who instead emphasize the continuing stability and centrality of the nation-state paradigm. National propaganda is often present in transnational media as well, not least in CNN, as are stereotypical and negative depictions of the “others” ( Hafez, 2009 ; Thussu, 2003 ). Given the existence of obstacles such as language barriers and the “digital divide,” which separates the “haves” from the “have nots” with regard not only to communication technology itself, but also to the skills necessary for using it, there are no real signs of a media network with the ability to constitute a global public sphere ( Hafez, 2007 ). Severe scepticism concerning the notion of global media has also been expressed by scholars within the political economy tradition who claim that global media are in fact better described as Western or American media, and only contribute to maintaining Western dominance (e.g. Herman & McChesney, 1997 ). Some authors are critical of the very idea of globalization, of the way the concept has developed and been used in the social sciences (e.g. Calhoun, 2007 ; Sparks 2007a , 2007b ). Thus, within the field of global media studies there is an ongoing conflict between the “globalists,” proponents of the fluidity argument, and the “sceptics,” who pursue the stability argument ( Cottle 2009 : 30f).

Nonetheless, these two positions – their obviously conflicting views notwithstanding – have in common one fundamental and largely taken-for-granted assumption about global media: global media are interpreted as media networks or technology whose nature is global (or at least transnational) in terms of geographic reach. I would propose, however, that having global reach is not a necessary condition of global media. From a discourse theoretical perspective, an emergent trajectory of the research field ( Cottle, 2009 ), “global” is instead understood as a discursive feature. From this point of view it could be argued that global media cannot be reduced to transnational media networks; a global discourse might develop in any kind of media, be it local, national, or transnational, as well as in any kind of media content – local, domestic, or foreign ( Berglez, 2008 ; Olausson, 2010 ). Any medium might, in fact, be labeled “global” if it provides its audiences with a global interpretative framework. Thus, the argument put forward in this chapter is that the view on global media as transnational media networks and technology needs to be supplemented with a discourse theoretical approach, which also includes national media and takes the very knowledge production of the global into consideration.

I will develop this position first by examining the arguments of the line of research that equates global media with transnational media networks, including its contradictory arguments about the ability of these networks to contribute to or be part of globalization processes. Following this, the discourse perspective will be introduced and exemplified with some empirical examples from a study on the emergence of a transnational (European) identity in national news reporting on global climate change ( Olausson, 2010 ). The chapter ends with a discussion in which the discourse theoretical approach is put in relation to broader issues of cultural and political transformation, conclusions are drawn about the media’s relationship to globalization processes, and suggestions are made for an integral explanation of global media.

By necessity, the two perspectives on global media are outlined here with rather broad strokes and the presentation might be somewhat lacking in detail and precision. This is the price to be paid when trying to squeeze the complexity of a research field into rather rigid “boxes.” Nonetheless, this categorization will hopefully elucidate the argument that the established understanding of global media as media of transnational reach needs to be complemented with a discourse approach that also includes national media if we want to achieve an integral explanation of global media.

2. Global media as transnational media networks

Cross-border communication technologies such as the internet, mobile phones, and satellites have contributed to the deterritorialization of space over the last decades, and transnational media networks and news services such as CNN, BBC World News, FoxNews, and Al-Jazeera have entered and transformed the media landscape. In a dialectic fashion, these media are believed both to constitute and to be constituted by globalization, transforming understandings of time and space ( Chalaby, 2003 ; Thompson, 1995 ). Due to their deterritorialized nature, diverse audiences, and independence of any national loyalties, arguments about their ability to loosen up distinctions between domestic and foreign have been pursued:

“The cross-border coverage of transnational television networks, their multinational audience and international production operations tear apart the relationship between place and television and challenge the traditional relationship between broadcasting and the nation-state.” ( Chalaby, 2003 : 457)

Global broadcasting corporations not only provide people with a better understanding of global politics ( Chalaby, 2003 ), they also offer new journalistic styles and formats able to transgress the nation-state outlook and, in a dialectic relationship with national news angles, give rise to new horizons for political identity and citizenship ( Volkmer, 2003 ). Accordingly, transnational media have been attributed the potential to constitute a global, or at least a transnational, public sphere ( Chalaby, 2003 ; Volkmer, 2003 ).

The idea that transnational media networks are able to move beyond the nation-state paradigm has, however, not escaped criticism. Hafez (2007 ) argues that there is not enough empirical evidence of a media system that could accurately be described as “global” in the sense of enhancing the possibilities of a global public sphere. On the contrary, the majority of empirical evidence points in the direction of reinforced stability of the nation-state paradigm. Information and news may be transnational in character, but the media in fact still are, to a considerable extent, local and national phenomena. In times of war, Western propaganda is also present in transnational media, as are polarizing perspectives of “us” and “them” and stereotypical depictions of the “other” ( Hafez, 2007 ; Thussu, 2003 ):

“Today’s international exchanges of images and information, it seems, are no guarantee for global intertextuality in news, for growing awareness of ‘the other’s’ stories and perspectives, and for an increased complexity of world views in the mass media and beyond.” ( Hafez, 2009 : 329)

Even though CNN, as the topical case in point, under regular circumstances does contribute various “global” perspectives and viewpoints, it is extremely sensitive to American patriotism and displays bias in times of military conflicts in which the US is involved, such as the 2003 Iraq war ( Hafez, 2009 ). Not even the communication technology most associated with cross-border communication, the internet, has according to Hafez (2007 ) proved to fulfil this expectation. Most people use this technology locally – to communicate with people in their nearby surroundings – not to engage in cultural interaction across nation-state borders. Furthermore the necessary technological means are far from being globally diffused; “no electricity, no internet,” as was pointed out by Sparks (2007b : 152). The nation-state paradigm is, according to this view, as powerful as ever before and has, in several respects, even gained in importance. Hafez (2007 ) illustratively labels this viewpoint in the field of global media studies “the myth of media globalization,” and Sparks (2007a ) dismisses the entire theoretical framework of globalization arguing that current developments are better explained as part of the continuing capitalist and imperialist expansion (cf. Nohrstedt & Ottosen, 2001 ).

The scepticism surrounding global media is far from new. The well-established field of international communication, based on the political economy tradition, has a long history of persistently arguing that global media are in fact best described as Western (or American) media, at most of global scope (e.g. Herman & McChesney, 1997 ; Schiller, 1993 ). The central argument of these scholars is that escalating media conglomeration has led to a notable Western (American) bias both in terms of ownership and with regard to the distribution of media products. The media achieve their global characteristics as a result of purchases made by a small number of Western-, predominantly US-based multinational media giants, who distribute their products – permeated with neoliberal values and Western lifestyles – all over the globe. Even the “glocalization” that takes place when cultural products are tailored to fit a specific local market is viewed as a commercial strategy and as such nothing more than yet another sign of cultural imperialism ( Sparks, 2007b ). The rise of competing non-western media networks such as Al-Jazeera notwithstanding, the westernizing tendencies of global media have not been eliminated since the power of western, and particularly US-dominated media networks such as CNN, is not only restricted to their own large-scale activities; they set the agenda also for other networks ( Thussu, 2003 ).

Thus, claims about cultural imperialism and cultural homogenization have been made, and warnings have been issued about the democratic dangers that surface when it is no longer possible to hold media institutions accountable to political regulation at the nation-state level. The prospects for democracy do not seem any brighter if we add the argument that active citizens, due to the commercial logic of global media, over time transform into pure consumers in Western-dominated markets (e.g. Herman & Chomsky, 1988 ; Herman & McChesney, 1997 ). The consequences of the ravages of seemingly global media, it is alleged, are harmful both to indigenous cultures and to democracy. In this fashion global media counteract rather than promote a global public sphere, and contribute to the maintenance and stability of Western (US) dominance.

In this research tradition, media conglomeration, concentration, and commercialization have functioned as the analytical point of departure – restricting the interest to the shape and structure of transnational media institutions – and claims about media effects have been made without much analytical attention being paid to the actual reception and use among locally situated audiences. As a counterbalance to this macro-perspective, the research field of cultural studies has instead focused on the micro-dimension of global media (e.g. Barker, 1999 ; Crane 2002 ; Tomlinson, 1999 ). Instead of viewing the impacts of global media as a one-way process that completely erases local cultures, scholars within this research tradition emphasize processes of cultural “creolization” ( Hannerz, 1996 ) or “hybridization,” i.e. the creation of completely new cultural expressions in the encounter between different cultural forms:

“Most forms of culture in the world today are, to varying extents, hybrid cultures in which different values, beliefs and practices have become deeply entwined.” ( Thompson, 1995 : 170, emphasis in original)

The idea of the “active audience,” quite capable of negotiating and opposing media information, has been a guiding principle in cultural studies. Suggestions have even been made (though not uncontested) that the opportunities to “pick and choose” cultural forms due to the rapid development of communication technologies and the creative hybridization that follows, will most likely lead to new and improved conditions for global dialogue ( Lull, 2007 ). Thus, cultural studies have to a considerable extent problematized the idea of the homogenizing effects of global media and questioned the cultural imperialism thesis of the international communication field.

The perspectives accounted for above are fairly well established in the research field of global media. The main arguments of international communication and of cultural studies respectively are frequently discussed in the literature (e.g. Rantanen, 2005 ), as are the “globalist” and the “sceptic” perspectives (e.g. Cottle, 2009 ). Despite their conflicting opinions when it comes to the media’s relation to globalization, the “globalists” and the “sceptics” share at least one basic viewpoint on global media, namely that the proper objects of study first and foremost are those media whose global nature is defined in terms of geographic reach. The discourse perspective that will now be discussed takes a somewhat different stance towards this assumption.

3. Global media as global discourse

The discourse approach to global media proposed here does not direct specific attention to the geographic reach of the media, but focuses primarily on the very epistemology of the global ( Berglez, 2008 ). As pointed out by Cottle (2009 : 28) in his discussion of the principle paradigms structuring the field of global media studies, it is necessary to go beyond the paradigms of “global dominance” and “global public sphere,” since these approaches to global media fail to explain how issues such as crises of different kinds are mediated and constituted in practice and how they, through their formation in the news media, achieve their “global” characteristics:

“Global crises are principally constituted epistemologically as ‘global crises’ through the news media where most of us get to know about them and where they are visualized, narrativized, publicly defended and sometimes challenged and contested.” ( Cottle, 2009 : 165, emphasis in original)

Admittedly, local or national crises, such as 9/11, the 2010 flooding in Haiti, or the 2011 Egyptian revolution, need the connectivity that a cross-border communication infrastructure provides in order to become known, more or less simultaneously, to people around the globe. But, to achieve their global features – to become global crises, involving people and generating action across the world – they are entirely dependent on discursive constructions of them as such.

Extending this line of argument, when studying the production of knowledge about the global it is necessary to acknowledge national media as equally important objects of study as any media of transnational reach. As Robertson (2008 ) argues, the issue of media globalization is an empirical question, and the assumption of most authors that global broadcasters are, or at least should be, more inclined to produce global outlooks than national broadcasters, must be empirically demonstrated rather than axiomatically asserted. In the debate on global media, however, national media, which doubtlessly still are the media that most people turn to, are most often dismissed as not significant knowledge producers concerning the global due to their inclination to depict the world according to nation-state logic ( Altmeppen, 2010 ; Hafez, 2007 , 2009 ). This logic saturates much of their contents, not least in the form of what Billig (1995 ) terms “banal nationalism,” a national mode of reporting which makes the world orbit around the nation-state, and in terms of taken-for-granted conceptions of the world as constituted by self-governing national “islands” rather than being a complex transnational network ( Berglez & Olausson, 2011 ). In national media the domestic and foreign worlds are, by tradition, separated, and the nation-state becomes disconnected from the rest of the world ( Berglez, 2007 ). At best, relations between the domestic and foreign are constructed through the domestication of foreign events, i.e. by the addition of a national angle to the story from “outside” in order to make it more relevant to the national audience as it is perceived ( Clausen, 2004 ; Gurevitch et al., 1991 ; Riegert, 1998 ).

This tendency of national media to reproduce and maintain nation-state discourse and identity must of course be acknowledged. However, the national outlook should not be viewed as totally precluding other, transnational or global outlooks on the world. As suggested by Volkmer (2003 ), national media are to an increasing extent influenced by transnational media style and formats. Furthermore, and even more importantly, due to the globalization of risks such as climate change, and conflicts such as transnational terrorism or the Global War on Terror (as labeled by George W. Bush), national discourse is constantly (and perhaps to an increasing extent) challenged by transnational or global discourses that strive for the hegemonic position ( Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 ). It is thus not a question of either national or global discourse but both-and, with national and local views functioning in interaction with transnational or global outlooks ( Beck, 2006 ).

In a similar fashion, Hjarvard (2001 ) suggests that the possible emergence of a global public sphere should be viewed in terms of both-and; the transnational communicative space that has come into existence through the development of transnational media should be seen as a supplement to national public spheres. The globalizing tendencies of politics, economics, and culture have put the national public sphere under constant pressure, as has the increasing connectivity with other national public spheres. This will ultimately lead to what Hjarvard labels a “global reflexivity,” since fewer and fewer topics can be dealt with without including information from “outside.” In this way, national public spheres will gradually become deterritorialized through the “increased presence of global connections within the national framework” ( Hjarvard 2001 : 24, emphasis added). Like Hjarvard, Cottle (2009 ) emphasizes the media’s ability to provide…

“…a transnational and global perspective on a problem that both migrates across and transcends national frames of reference or explanation, exposing international interconnections, contextualizing motives and exploring both the scope of the problem and its human consequences.” ( Cottle 2009 : 100, emphasis added)

The issue of whether or not the media are capable of displaying global or transnational connections is pivotal to the discourse approach to global media suggested here. Global discourse in the news media is, as argued by Berglez (2008 ), characterized by the depiction of connections – including antagonistic ones – between people, processes, events, and phenomena at the local, national, transnational, and global levels. This focus on interconnections between various geopolitical scales makes the global news style quite different from the traditional foreign news style, which primarily reports from one nation to another without displaying any connections between the two ( Berglez, 2008 ). If a global discourse is present, the most local (in terms of geography) of all media might be labeled “global” (in terms of discourse), providing a global interpretative framework by linking national and transnational identities or positioning a local event in a global context or vice versa.

Thus, the decisive criterion of global media, from a discourse theoretical perspective, is the ability to display complex and often subtle connections between various geopolitical scales. These relations do not have to be of the “objective” or realist kind to be acknowledged as building blocks of a global discourse. More precisely, a global discourse does not have to comprise “real” relations of causality, motives, and interconnections, for instance that it is the carbon dioxide emissions of the First World that is the cause of the extreme droughts in the Third World. The connections displayed in media discourse could also be of a purely constructivist nature, i.e. be the “creations” of media logic itself. The inherent characteristics of news media, such as their preference for dramatic and emotionally charged reporting (perhaps occasionally also supplemented with the journalist’s deliberate intent to incite action among citizens) sometimes lead to the emergence of a global discourse that involves interconnections between people across vast distances.

A telling example of this kind of global discourse, building on pure constructivist connections, is the “globalization of emotions” ( Cottle, 2009 : 99) that the media have engaged in over the last decades in relation to human suffering caused by wars or natural disasters. As noted by Nohrstedt (2009 , cf. Shaw, 1996 ), there has been an increasing tendency in the news media to display the “true face” of war, i.e. the casualties and human suffering it causes, something which could be viewed as an invitation to audiences around the world to unite in compassionate responses. In her seminal work on “the spectatorship of suffering” Chouliararki (2006 : 24) discusses on the one hand how the various routines of the media, such as almost endless repetition, in all probability create distance between the audience and the distant sufferers, and on the other hand how the media are capable also of establishing an “imaginary ‘we’ that brings all spectators together in the act of watching.” With the purpose of exploring how distant suffering is depicted in television news, and building on Boltanski’s (1999 ) theories on the topic, she distinguishes between the following three different modes of representation, each of which invites the viewers to respond to the suffering observed on the television screen in a specific way: empathy, denunciation, and contemplation. Another example, which builds on the theories of Boltanski (1999 ), is Robertson’s (2008 ) exploration of the news reporting on the 2004 Asian tsunami. In searching for a global, or cosmopolitan, outlook deriving from compassion for and empathy with the sufferers, she examines five nationally-based European broadcasters and compares them with three European channels broadcasting to global audiences. Interestingly enough, the results show that a global discourse, in terms of constructions of “togetherness,” could be found on all the channels. It was far from the case that transnational broadcasters contribute more global outlooks than the national channels; in one case a transnational broadcaster even provided a less global outlook – a finding which indisputably strengthens the argument of including national media when exploring global discourse.

As Cottle (2009 ) points out, media research has been focused on examining how news content “positions” the audience in relation to distant suffering; there has been a lack of empirical studies that show how the “discourse of global compassion” ( Höijer, 2004 ) in the news media actually is received and handled by the audience. Höijer (2004 ), however, has demonstrated that the emotionally charged portrayal of human suffering in the news tends to trigger a variety of complex responses among the audience, and her findings challenge the notion of a pronounced compassion fatigue among people in general ( Moeller, 1999 ). Audience research has also shown that the news reporting on distant suffering has the potential to trigger transnational identification with distant sufferers, if not for more than a moment ( Olausson, 2005 ; Olausson & Höijer, 2010 ). These processes of identification are characterized by the empathetic capacity for “feeling oneself in one’s fellow man” ( Boltanski, 1999 : 92).

The global discourse built on compassion in the news media is composed – not always but in many cases – of pure constructivist connections. There are no “real” relations between the sufferers and the spectators beyond those “created” in news discourse, which highlights the constitutive role of the media in the process of globalization. Global media are not only the products of a globalized economy and technology, or the intermediaries of pre-existing events, processes, or connections already shaped by globalization, but are to a considerable extent also contributors to the expansion of transnational identifications and connections (cf. Volkmer, 2008a ).

Thus, events or processes in various parts of the world, be they natural disasters, environmental hazards or wars, take global shape not only, or even primarily, in terms of worldwide impacts or as effects of the technological reach of transnational media, but also, and most essentially in this context, in terms of their formation in the news media where people, places, and objects are linked more closely together (cf. Cottle, 2009 ). This discursive demonstration or “creation” of transnational connections takes place not least in national media, their inclination to apply national angles and reinforce national identity notwithstanding.

When arguing in favor of the inclusion of national media in the search for a global discourse, it is necessary to address the question of “methodological nationalism,” raised by Beck (2006 ). Not only the media but also social research has been criticized as being caught in a nation-state logic in ways that do not correspond to the globalizing trends of late-modern society. However, the determining cause of methodological nationalism is not the study of national media per se; this fallacy rather comes into existence when the analysis is conducted through a national lens, and this could be the case whether the object of study is national or transnational in character. Or, to put it differently, when examined through a “national prism” both national and transnational media might take on national features, just as both national and transnational media might assume global features when examined through a “transnational prism” ( Cottle 2009 : 168). Indeed, the nation-state logic still permeates national news media but with a discourse theoretical approach and the analytical application of a “transnational prism” it is possible to detect at least embryonic forms of transnational or global connections also in national media, a suggestion that will be empirically illustrated below.

3.1. The question of a European public sphere and identity

Much research on the possible emergence of a European public sphere and a European identity has been carried out over the last years. Volkmer (2008b : 231), as an example of an “optimistic” view on this, argues that advances in satellite technology have created, if not a public sphere in the traditional sense, at least “a platform for new, interesting flows of trans-European communication.” However, there are also quite a few voices that are less hopeful regarding the possibility of a European public sphere. Sparks (2007a , 2007b ) concludes that despite the development of supra-national political bodies such as the EU, there is as yet no sign of a corresponding media system; most media remain confined within the borders of the nation-state. This is commonly used by authors in the field as an argument against the possible development of a European public sphere: since there is no functioning European media system, the prospects of a European public sphere are rather discouraging. And, additionally, since the national realm has considerable power as the point of reference for the making of identity, the chances of creating a common European “us” are minute. The only viable way to enhance political interest at the EU-level among citizens and to instill a sense of European belonging is for national news media to present news about the political institutions of the EU: EU policy-making, EU-level actors, EU politics, etc. The more frequently EU topics appear in various national media, the better the breeding-ground for a sense of community and for the development of “Europeanized national public spheres,” it has been argued. Accordingly, EU topics in national media have been measured quantitatively – the more the EU topics, the more the transnationalization, or Europeanization, of national news media, it has been assumed (e.g. D’Haenens, 2005 ; De Vreese, 2007 ; Koopmans & Erbe, 2004 ; Machill et al., 2006 ).

I would argue, first, that the sheer presence of EU topics in national news media does not automatically lead to the emergence of a transnational discourse. Following the argumentation above, in order for EU topics in national media to contribute transnational outlooks and not traditional “foreign” ones, they have to be, in one way or another, discursively connected to local and/or national conditions. These connections should not be interpreted in terms of mere domestications of EU topics (what will happen with Swedish moist snuff when the EU legislates against it?), which rather reproduce national outlooks (Sweden and the EU), but through the discursive intermingling of EU and national horizons, for instance the forging of a common European “us,” as in the example presented below (Sweden in the EU). Secondly, it is not only EU news in national media (whether intertwined with national horizons or not), that might contribute to a sense of EU belonging. Instead, such topics tend to impose themselves on national media from above as “Europeanization projects” ( Lauristin, 2007 ). I would suggest that the everyday reporting of events or phenomena of transnational scope is just as relevant an object of study since such events, due to their borderless character, have the potential to trigger discursive transformation. According to Beck (2006 ), it is transnationalized threats and the suffering they cause that by necessity pave the way for a global outlook, since traditional dichotomies such as internal and external, national and international, and us and them lose their validity when confronted with these kinds of dangers (cf. Nohrstedt, 2010 ); a new cosmopolitanism becomes essential in order to survive in “world risk society” ( Beck, 2009 ). The transnationalization of risks and crises such as climate change, terrorism, and financial crises pushes even national media – slowly and unsteadily perhaps, and most likely not at the same pace everywhere, yet nevertheless – in the direction of transnational modes of reporting. These transnational outlooks could well be in embryonic stages, not entirely explicit in nature, but instead common-sensical and “banal” in the words of Billig (1995 ), and deeply embedded and naturalized in the everyday language of news. This means that they are difficult to capture empirically without the aid of sensitive discourse analytical tools ( Olausson, 2010 ; cf. Berglez & Olausson, 2011 ).

Some authors (e.g. Schlesinger, 2008 ) dismiss the entire notion of a European identity and argue that there are too many obstacles, such as the lack of a common language, history, and worldview, for such an identity to evolve. However, it is not very productive to cling to this “cultural” conception of identity, which can only lead to the discouraging conclusion that a European identity is a rather unachievable project. Instead, identity could be treated in a more modest way which does not demand cultural homogeneity; from such a perspective, identity concerns the identification with a political “us,” in relation to some given events, phenomena, or issues more than others ( Mouffe, 1995 , 2005 ). Thus, European identity could simply be treated as, in the words of Habermas and Derrida (2003 : 293), “a feeling of common political belonging” as is illustrated by the empirical example presented next.

Elsewhere ( Olausson, 2010 ), I have shown how the embryo of a European political identity is being forged in Swedish news reporting on climate change. In the construction of this transnational outlook, the discursive transcendence of national identity is pivotal and occurs when the national and the transnational become so closely entwined that they merge into a common “us.” Admittedly, this study also confirms the common conclusion of media research that national identity holds a hegemonic position in national news media. In this case, it is constantly reproduced through, for instance, elements of national self-glorification such as “If any country can manage this, Sweden can,” and “Sweden is one of the countries that have succeeded best.” The national outlook is also nourished through domestications of the climate issue, for example when maps of Sweden recurrently fade in and out between images of flooded areas and other alleged consequences of the changing climate on the television screen.

However, it is also evident that the national mode of reporting does not entirely preclude the emergence of transnational outlooks. As a matter of fact, it seems as if national identity functions as a necessary anchoring mechanism in the construction of a common European “us” which momentarily dissolves the distinction between the national and the transnational. Sweden and the EU are on the one hand mentioned in the news reporting as two separate entities, but on the other hand they are also closely tied to each other in the sense of their all being part of the group of “climate heroes.” In contrast to the “climate villain,” the USA, “we,” the EU, take climate change seriously and make earnest efforts to mitigate it, the message reads. The quotation from the broadsheet Dagens Nyheter “Perhaps it is not unknown to us in Sweden and Europe that greenhouse gas emissions cause great changes in the world climate” implies how national identity is transcended and incorporated into a European identity, how a common “us” is established.

Thus, the already established and naturalized national outlook becomes a means to introduce a transnational counterpart, which is not yet an integral part of everyday thinking and discourse. In the news program, Rapport, produced by the Swedish public service broadcaster, SVT, a sense of European community in relation to the climate issue takes shape through an intriguing blend of national and transnational identity positions. In the initial phrase of the reporter’s statement a “we” that transcends the national and includes the European sphere is constructed: “Exactly the way we do things within the EU…” However, when the reporter continues, this European “we” becomes integrated within the national: “…says our Swedish Minister for the Environment,” with “our” here referring to the national community.

The purpose of these brief empirical examples of the construction of a European political identity is to demonstrate that national and transnational outlooks are not engaged in discursive struggles where the destruction of one or the other is the inevitable outcome ( Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 ). As Sparks (2007a : 150) suggests, the local, national, and global exist alongside each other in news discourse and tensions do arise between them, but “the evidence does not support the contention that one is being undermined by the other two.” I would even go so far as to claim that they in fact are highly dependent on each other: in order for less established transnational outlooks to become naturalized and integrated in everyday thinking and discourse, they need to become anchored within the familiar and established national horizon ( Olausson & Höijer, 2010 ). Thus, there is reason to suppose that national and transnational discourses work interactively and that they mutually (re)construct each other (cf. Delanty, 2000 ; Olausson, 2007 ).

4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I have put forth the argument that the research field of global media needs to acknowledge not only the trans-boundary nature of media technology but to a greater extent the very knowledge production of the global that takes place not least in national media. When the given assumptions about what exactly the “global” in “global media” refers to are changed from being a matter of geographic reach to becoming a discursive feature, then it is possible to discover transnational and even global “embryos” in several as yet relatively unexplored media contexts, as has been shown (cf. Berglez, 2008 ).

As noted by Volkmer (2003 ), there is still a remarkable focus on the cultural impact of new communication technologies in the sociological debate on globalization. Cultural transformation has also been a dominating issue, not least in the disagreements between the fields of international communication and cultural studies over the cultural imperialism thesis. Hafez (2007 ) for his part, regards absence of cultural transformation generated by cross-border communication as a sign that a truly global media does not exist. Before there is reason to talk about global media it must be clarified “whether receiving cultures are changed by transmitting cultures in the process of cross-border communication through the Internet, satellite broadcasting, international broadcasting or through media imports and exports” ( Hafez, 2007 : 14). Thus, it seems that without the evidence of cultural transformation generated by cross-border communication, the notion of global media remains utopian.

It is true that the discourse perspective on global media, as proposed here, says little about cross-border communication and cultural transformation, but it does not totally exclude these aspects. In particular, this holds true if we go beyond the traditional technology platforms of the news media – newspapers, radio, and television – and widen the focus of research to include web-based forms of news reporting. The digital versions of newspapers, for instance, offer links to other websites around the world, hyperlinks which enable user interaction, etc. The digitalization of (national) news allows, to a greater extent than previous technologies, for cross-border communication and perhaps also cultural transformation ( Berglez, 2011 ; Heinrich, 2008 ). But, what is deemed even more important here is political transformation – how the nation-state logic of political identity loosens up, is transgressed, and transforms into transnational political identities in certain contexts, as in the example above of the discursive construction of EU-identity in relation to climate change. I would argue that the discourse perspective contributes knowledge of a fundamental ingredient, both in a global public sphere and in what Berglez (forthcoming) describes as a global political culture, namely how and under what circumstances the media – national or transnational – provide their audiences with a global interpretative framework capable of including politically relevant interconnections between various geopolitical scales (cf. Volkmer, 2003 ).

A central aspect of this line of reasoning is the idea of late modernity being characterized by contingency in every respect, which means that everything that exists right now could take quite a different form in another situation and context ( Mouffe, 1995 ). The contingent character of today implies that it is not reasonable to expect the media, be they national or transnational, to produce global knowledge all the time – the reporting on certain objects or phenomena, such as global risks, is probably more inclined to assume global characteristics than the reporting on local events such as a traffic accident. But it is also true that the media do not reproduce the nation-state logic throughout their reporting. And the same goes for the media audience; our national identity positions are, in all probability, activated in relation to quite a few of the events and phenomena reported in the media, but in certain cases and under certain circumstances, possibly in relation to distant suffering or global risks such as climate change, we accept global outlooks provided by the media and take on transnational identities, if not for more than a brief moment (e.g. Olausson, 2007 , forthcoming). The national and global, as shown, are not mutually exclusive, but reinforce and reconstruct one another. Thus, it is rather unproductive to understand the media as contributing to either the stability of the nation-state or the fluidity of globalization, since they most likely contribute to both of these conditions depending on context and circumstances, and in a dialectic fashion. Stability and fluidity are two sides of the same coin.

The discourse approach to global media studies, for which I argue in the present chapter, is certainly not the perspective that provides us with the only “correct” version of reality. However, this perspective is currently somewhat obscured by the dominant view on global media as consisting of transnational media networks and technologies, and there is reason to draw attention to the discursive aspect of global media, which is something qualitatively different from technological reach. Nonetheless, I would like to bring this chapter to a close by emphasizing the fruitfulness of there being a variety of theoretical perspectives that pose different kinds of questions about global media and together enrich the research field. Considering their, in all essentials, complementary nature, the diversity of theoretical perspectives and approaches is indispensable for an integral explanation of global media.

The term “transnational” is here used to describe events, technology, processes, connections, etc. which transcend nation-state borders but do not necessarily encompass the entire globe (Hannerz, 1996).

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Global Media Journal

ISSN: 1550-7521

Media Globalization and its Effect upon International Communities: Seeking a Communication Theory Perspective

Jeffrey K. Lyons *

Pacific University

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There is a growing body of research on the topic of globalization, which seems to be a topic of broad-brush interest to scholars in a variety of fields, such as sociology, political science, ecology, international business, anthropology and communication. This paper focuses on the phenomenon of media globalization and examines a variety of theories that address multinational corporations with media properties. While there are many theories that address mass communication (Gerbner, Gross, Morgan, & Signorielli, 1986; Lazarsfeld, Cantril, & Stanton, 1939; McLuhan & Powers, 1989; Schramm, 1954), this paper highlights the need for new theories which specifically address media globalization and the unique aspects which convergence and new digital technologies offer to the media-user.

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a growing body of research on the topic of globalization. Traditional definitions of globalization focus on economics and the effects of multinational corporations. In the book Alternatives to Economic Globalization, authors Cavanaugh and Mader (2002) referred to a number of factors that are identified with the term globalization. These factors are: hyper-growth and exploitation of the environment, privatization of public services, global cultural homogenization, promotion of consumerism, integration of national economies, corporate deregulation, and displacement of traditional nation-sates by global corporate bureaucracies (p. 19).

This paper examines the topic of globalization from the perspective of the media. The primary vehicle of the phenomenon of global media is the multinational corporation. Media globalization has aided in both the production and distribution of information. Dominick (2002) has noted that the production rate of information doubles every eight years. In addition, "information is being produced at a rate that is four times faster than the consumption of information" (p. 513). The phenomenon of media globalization along with the increasing abundance of media-text production has produced various effects which are being researched by communication scholars. Media globalization is a broad topic, which includes television, radio, film, music, the Internet, and other forms of digital media. This paper will first focus upon the cultural effects of media globalization, and then discuss various communication theories that address this issue. After examining a number of media theories which address globalization, there will be a discussion on the theory which seems to best address the media globalization phenomenon.

Christopher Dixon, a media analyst for Paine-Webber has stated that a creation of a "global oligopoly" is taking place among a handful of multinational organizations which control worldwide media properties. (McChesney, 2005, p. 81). Compaign (2005) identified a short list of nine global media corporations, which represent a variety of nations, as the major players (p. 98). These corporations and their significance will be discussed in more detail in this paper. Media globalization shall be defined as the phenomenon of expanding multinational corporate media investment, resulting in the emergence of a global oligarchy of first tier corporations, which own and operate a variety of mass media content and distribution technologies including: television, radio, film, music, broadcasting, satellite, telecommunication, cable, newspapers, magazines, publishing companies, Internet content providers, and other forms of converged digital media. [1]

The Climate of Globalization

Globalization is being driven by increasingly strong international market factors fueled by organizations such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The World Trade Organization was established in 1995 and as of October 2004 had 148 member nations. The WTO is located in Geneva, Switzerland. According to the WTO, they are "the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations" ("What is the wto?" 2004). The International Monetary Fund was founded in 1945 and is located in Washington D.C... The IMF currently has 184 member nations. The goals of the IMF include: monitoring and consultation, financial assistance, and technical assistance to its members ("About the imf," 2003). Other organizations which promote globalization are: the World Bank (1946) which makes loans to developing nations, and the Trilateral Commission (1973) which focuses on trade between Japan, Europe and North America, "to foster closer cooperation among these core democratic industrialized areas of the world with shared leadership responsibilities in the wider international system" ("About the organization," 2004).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is another significant player regarding globalization policies and discourse. UNESCO was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Paris, France. As an agency of the United Nations, UNESCO functions as an international cultural think tank, which "serves as a clearinghouse – for the dissemination and sharing of information" to its 190 member nations in the areas of "education, science, culture and communication." One of the ambitious goals of UNESCO is to "to build peace in the minds of men" ("About unesco," 2003).

MacBride and Roach (2000) pointed out, that the UNESCO constitution which was adopted in 1946 addressed the flow of international information by charging the agency to "collaborate in the work of advancing the mutual knowledge and understanding of peoples, through all means of mass communication and to that end recommend the free flow of ideas by word and image" (p. 287). In 1978, UNESCO published The Declaration on Fundamental Principles Concerning the Contribution of the Mass Media. Article VII of The Declaration refers to, "the mass media contribut[ing] effectively to the strengthening of peace and international understanding, to the promotion of human rights, and to the establishment of a more just and equitable international economic order" ("Declaration on the mass media," 1978).

Without question, the driving force behind globalization is motivated by economic interests. Much of the current climate of international investment and global business is a direct result of global reconstruction, which followed World War II. Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were founded within a few years after the end of World War II. Critics of globalization say that capitalism is the driving force behind world economics. According to Amnesty International (2000), "of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations; only 49 are countries" (p. 187). Critics of globalization, such as Amnesty International (AI) are concerned that developing nations are losing their national sovereignty and that human rights violations are taking place. According to AI, "They [developing nations] have diminishing power to control mergers, take-overs and liquidations, may not know who plans to buy or sell a major industry or utility; a telephone, TV or water company may change ownership overnight" (p. 188).

Media Globalization and Corporate Expansion

Media globalization has been a natural extension of corporate expansion on an international scale. Post World War II reconstruction through organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund helped to spread globalization through financial investment. In 1974, UNESCO published a study by researchers Nordenstreng and Varis. MacBride and Roach (2000) reviewed the 1974 UNESCO study and noted that, "The study demonstrated that a few Western nations controlled the international flow of television programs, with the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the Federal Republic of Germany accounting for the largest shares" (p. 289). According to MacBride and Roach (2000), media globalization gained further momentum in the 1980's, when a prevailing policy of deregulation of media in many developing nations along with openness to private investment occurred (p. 289). McChesney (2005) also noted this trend of free-market deregulation occurring in the eighties and the nineties, in the cable and digital satellite systems around the world.

Head, Spann and McGregor (2001) noted that in the mid-1980's privatization and deregulation gained momentum in Europe, in the cable and telephone industries, through foreign investment from companies such as: Ameritech International, Deutsche Telecom, U.S. West, and Bell Atlantic (p. 414). Some nations have only recently allowed foreign investment in communications industries. In the case of China, the admittance into the World Trade Organization was a benefit that outweighed the past reluctance towards foreign investment in their national telecommunications infrastructure.

China changed its official policy in 1999, as a required component of its acceptance into the World Trade Organization. Under the new policy, China will allow foreign investors to hold up to 49 percent of certain telecommunications companies, including Internet firms. (Head et al., 2001, p. 414)

Critics of media globalization have long held that the United States is far too powerful and that it exercises cultural imperialism over smaller nations by overwhelming them with movies and television programs produced in the United States (McChesney, 2005). According to Dominick (2002), there has been international reaction to charges of cultural imperialism by certain nations "including Canada, Spain, and France [that] have placed quotas on the amount of foreign material that can be carried on their broadcasting systems" (p. 475).

Economist Benjamin Compaine (2005) answered the criticism of American cultural imperialism directly, by stating that in the twenty first century the major players are corporations from a variety of nations:

While Viacom, Disney, and AOL Time Warner are U.S. owned, many non-U.S.-owned companies dominate the roster of the largest media groups: News Corp. (Australia), Bertlesmann (Germany), Reed-Elsevier (Britain/Netherlands), Vivendi, and Lagardere/Hachette (France), and Sony Corp. (Japan). (p. 98)

Effects of Media Globalization

Researchers have noted a variety of effects resulting from media globalization. Some of these observed effects are open to interpretation while others are acknowledged by most communication scholars. Certain researchers tie their observations to their own theories which attempt to explain certain observed effects. In contrast, other researchers may take on a more descriptive approach preferring to describe detailed effects and apply the theories of other scholars as models for explanation.

According to researcher George Gerbner, the most successful television programs are no longer made for national consumption but rather for international distribution. Gerbner further noted that content is affected by the desire to increase the marketability of international television program distribution. Programs that contain violent material are considered to "travel well" according to Gerbner (Jhally, 1994). In contrast, comedy programs which may be quite successful in the United States do not necessarily do well in other countries. Comedy is culturally defined, and what is deemed funny by one cultural group may in fact be offensive to another. In comparison, violent material has a very simple story line of good versus evil. It is universally understood and in many ways culturally transparent.

Robert McChesney is a media historian and political economist. In a recent article by McChesney (2005), he criticized multinational corporations in a number of ways. First, that the global media market is dominated by eight multinational corporations which also dominate U.S. media. These companies are: "General Electric, AT&T/Liberty Media, Disney, Time Warner, Sony, News Corporation, Viacom and Seagram, plus Bertelsmann, the Germany-based conglomerate" (p. 93). Second, multinational corporations are becoming increasingly horizontally integrated, meaning that these companies both create content and own publishing companies or broadcasting networks, and are able to distribute their own product. Third, international deregulation and free-market policies have created a climate that has been conducive to foreign investment in media. Fourth, that the World Trade Organization is threatening local culture by encouraging foreign investment in local media. McChesney has observed a trend of cultural protectionism form developing nations:

In the summer of 1998 culture ministers from twenty nations, including Brazil, Mexico, Sweden, Italy and Ivory Coast, met in Ottawa to discuss how they could 'build some ground rules' to protect their cultural fare from 'the Hollywood juggernaut.' (p. 93)

Fifth, there is a well defined second tier of media conglomerates which are increasingly competing on the international level through foreign investment, mergers, and acquisitions. Half of these corporations are based in North America while the others are based in Western Europe and Japan. (This observation by McChesney is interesting since the Trilateral Commission encourages economic trade between precisely these three regions.) Second tier corporations include, "Dow Jones, Gannett, Knight-Ridder, Hearst, and Advance Publications, and among those from Europe are the Kirch Group, Havas, Media-set, Hachette, Pisa, Canal Plus, Pearson, Reuters and Reed Elsevier" (p. 94). Sixth, merger mania seems to be the rule of day when it comes to multinational corporations. McChesney noted that sixty or seventy first and second tier multinational corporations control a major portion of the world's media in the areas of publishing, music, broadcasting, television production, cable, satellite distribution, film production, and motion picture theater exhibition. Seventh, McChesney concluded that the effect of the spread of multinational media corporations has resulted in cultural imperialism, a loss of local cultural identity. McChesney summarized the motivation of multinational media corporations as such, "The global commercial-media system is radical in that it will respect no tradition or custom, on balance, if it stands in the way of profits" (p. 95).

Benjamin Compaine (2005) has disagreed with many of McChesney's criticisms of the effects of globalization of the media. Compaine tackled a number of major criticisms head on in his article "Global Media." First, Compaine disagreed with the view that a few large companies are taking over the world's media. Compaine has compared international media mergers to "rearranging the furniture," as companies are repeatedly sold and re-sold:

In the past 15 years, MCA with its Universal Pictures was sold by it U.S. owners to Matsushita (Japan), who sold to Seagram's (Canada), who sold to Vivendi (France). Vivendi has already announced that it will divest some major media assets, including textbook publisher Houghton-Mifflin. (p. 98)

Second, Compaine disagreed that corporate ownership is having a toll on effective journalism. A study by the non-profit organization Freedom House in 2000 researched 186 countries; it suggested "that press independence, including journalists' freedom from economic influence, remained high in all but two members (Mexico and Turkey) of the Organisation [sic] for Economic Co-operation and Development" (p. 99). Third, Compaine disagreed that global media can hurt local content. MTV in Brazil plays music and videos that are selected by local producers. Star TV, distributes satellite TV in India. Star was initially unsuccessful when it showed American television programs. Star TV only succeeded after it hired an Indian television executive who created Indian soap operas. Fourth, Compaine disagreed that the public would be better served by stricter regulation of the media. Media concentration can be beneficial in the case of two small struggling newspapers merging in order to survive, as opposed to one of them going out of business. Licensing and antitrust regulation can act as a barrier to new players entering the competitive landscape. Relaxing broadcast regulation expands competition. News Corp. began its investment in American media when the FCC raised the limit of national television station ownership from seven to twelve, and also struck down the rule that prohibited TV networks from owning their own programming. As a result, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. was able to build an audience with a core group of television stations and purchase 20 th Century Fox. Compaine noted, "Fox was thus able to launch the first successful alternative to the Big Three in 30 years. Its success also paved the way for three other large media players to initiate networks" (p. 101).

Marjorie Ferguson has similar views to Compaine. Ferguson (2002) has stated that cultural homogeneity is a myth which is predicated upon McLuhan's theory of a global village. The myth is not evidenced by real-world observation since identical consumer products, movies, clothes and architectural expressions are not seen in every nation. The new world order and economic globalism is not marching forward in an unchecked manner. As Ferguson has stated, "Paradoxically, we witness an antifederalist ethos competing with a resurgent regional economic protectionism in the EC, the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) and the proposed South-East Asian trading bloc" (p. 245).

In a significant historical article, Pike and Winseck (2004) argued that media globalization is not a recent phenomenon at all. Globalization began in the 1850's when "domestic telegraph systems had greatly extended their reach and become linked to a worldwide network of cable communications. . . . British companies dominated, maintaining almost complete control over the manufacture and laying of cables and owning two-thirds of the world's cables by 1900" (pp. 645-646). Pike and Winseck make three major points in their article. First, globalization is not a recent phenomenon. Some scholars have interpreted the early stages of globalization as being synonymous with imperialism, since "competing western nations utilized communications to aid in the expansion of their empires" (p. 643). Second, there is the technocratic view of globalization. This view linked the technical aspects of globalization with the global spread of modernity and civilization. Third, globalization is a natural extension of "laissez-faire capitalism," which broke through national boundaries to extend the free market economy to a global-world market (p. 644).

Communication Theories that Address Media Globalization

The trends and effects of media globalization will continue to be both observed and debated by communication scholars, sociologists, economist, and politicians alike. With the fall of communism in the USSR in August of 1991, private investment and the proliferation of multinational corporations has continued to march across Europe and the other continents of the world. The trend of continuing media globalization has showed no recent signs of retreat. Both critics and advocates of media globalization agree that there is fierce competition taking place between the first and second tier corporations. The smaller regional second tier corporations don't want to loose market share to the larger multinational corporations. It seems that market forces and shrewd political maneuverings on the part of multinational media corporations will determine the competitive landscape of the future. While this fierce battle is taking place in the corporate boardrooms of some of the worlds largest multinational corporations, communication researchers search for a theoretical basis to interpret various phenomena related to global mass media. What follows is a variety of theoretical perspectives from scholars that are addressing these questions.

Cultural Imperialism and Marxism and Critical Theory

One of the oldest theories of mass media which is also critical of globalization is cultural imperialism. John Tomlinson (2002) has addressed a number of issues related to cultural imperialism discourse. First, Tomlinson recognized that traditional Marxism divided the world into a political-economic dialectic struggle between an elite ruling class and a larger working class. For the Marxist, capitalism is interpreted as a "homogenizing cultural force" (p. 228). The idea is that capitalism propels a sort of "cultural convergence" which people are not able to resist and that cultural imperialism implies a spreading culture of worldwide consumerism. Second, cultural imperialism is used as a term which described a foreign culture invading an indigenous community. Tomlinson has criticized this common view by pointing out that indigenous culture can be an ambiguous term. Tomlinson asked, "How does a culture belong to an area?" (p. 226). Since culture is constructed by human beings, how can it be geographically grounded in the same way that plants and animals are? Tomlinson's second point is not a very sound one. Anthropologists and linguists alike can describe how the very words and customs that are incorporated into most indigenous cultures and languages are a reflection of the environment in which the people live (Geertz, 1983). Third, Tomlinson saw cultural imperialism as a critique of modernity. According to Tomlinson, "But on another theoretical level the critique of modernity becomes an argument against the dominant trends of global development. Indeed, it involves an argument about the meaning of 'development' itself" (p. 229).

Critical Theory as popularized by the Frankfurt School, was founded in 1923. It continues to be an important methodology in the study of mass communication. According to Littlejohn (2002), the Frankfurt School is well known for its Marxist traditions. The criticism of the mass media from the Frankfurt School was tied to a "harsh critique of capitalism and liberal democracy" (p. 212). Critical theory and cultural imperialism theory share common roots in Marxist ideology, which are both anti-capitalistic and generally anti-Western in their approach to the study of media globalization. Everett Rogers (1994) detailed how the Frankfurt school was a combination of Marxist and Freudian theories. According to Rogers, the term "critical school" refers to "not only a dozen or so important intellectuals originally affiliated with the Frankfurt school but also to hundreds of other contemporary scholars who consider themselves intellectual descendants of the original Frankfurt scholars . . ." (p. 109).

Cultivation Theory

George Gerbner (1977) has developed cultivation analysis theory. Gerbner's theory asserts that television has displaced traditional sources of socialization such as: the family, the church, and school:

A culture cultivates the images of a society. The dominant communication agencies produce the message systems that cultivate the dominant image patterns. They structure the public agenda of existence, priorities, values, relationships. . . . The mass media – printing, film, radio, television – ushered in the modern world as we know it. Mass communication changed the production and distribution of knowledge. (p. 205)

According to Gerbner, Gross, Morgan and Signorielli (1986), "television has become the primary common source of socialization and everyday information (mostly in the form of entertainment) of an otherwise heterogeneous population," Gerbner believed that mass media produced images from, "the mainstream of a common symbolic environment" (p. 18). Stephen Littlejohn (2002) commented that Gerbner's theory "is not a theory of individual media 'effects' but instead makes a statement about the culture as a whole" (p. 317). Gerbner predicted that heavy television viewers are far more likely to be socialized through television than light television viewers. Gerbner went on to describe what he called the "mean world syndrome" which suggests that the violent nature of television content will affect heavy television viewers to believe that the world is a violent place, where people cannot be trusted. According to Gerbner, violent television programs "travel well" across political borders since violence is easily understood cross-culturally. In contrast, comedy does not translate well in other cultures since it is inherently culture-bound.

Nancy Signorielli (1990) has done research which seems to substantiate Gerbner's theory, suggesting that heavy television viewers are more prone to be mistrustful of others and to see the world as a meaner place, than do lighter television viewers. Signorielli and Morgan (1990) have written a book titled, Cultivation analysis: New directions in media effects research, which contains a wide variety of research regarding cultivation analysis theory, from critics and adherents alike. The Museum of Television has summarized the research and controversy surrounding cultivation analysis theory:

The literature contains numerous failures to replicate its findings as well as numerous independent confirmations of its conclusions. The most common conclusion, supported by meta-analysis, is that television makes a small but significant contribution to heavy viewers' beliefs about the world. . . . In sum, cultivation research is concerned with the most general consequences of long-term exposure to centrally-produced, commercially supported systems of stories. Cultivation analysis concentrates on the enduring and common consequences of growing up and living with television. ("Audience research," 2004)

Spiral of Silence Theory

Similar to Gerbner, Noelle-Neumann also argued for the dominating effect of mass media upon the public. Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory proposed that people are more likely to publicly express their opinions when they perceive that others share their views. The spiral of silence effect refers to individuals choosing to be silent when faced with the potential of criticism by others. According to Littlejohn (2002), "the spiral of silence seems to be caused by the fear of isolation" (p. 19). Eliju Katz (2002) has made the following statement regarding the relationship between spiral of silence theory and the media:

Central to Noelle-Neumann's thesis is the notion that the media have come to substitute for reference groups. It is strongly implicit in the Noelle-Neumann papers that people decide whether or not to be silent on the basis of the distribution of opinion reported (often incorrectly) by the media. (p. 387)

Katz criticized Noelle-Neumann's lack of discussion regarding an individual's participation in reference groups. There remains a delicate balance between reference groups and mass communication. While a person may feel the effects of the spiral of silence in the face of mass media messages that are different than one's personal beliefs, being a member of a reference group with shared values may counter the silencing effect. Katz further pointed out that both Gerbner and Noelle-Neumann agreed that the "media are active agents of false consciousness, constraining people to misperceive their environment and their own place in it" (p. 386).

Dependency Theory

Dependency Theory is a means to address the role of news agencies in the international distribution of news content. Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen (2002) discussed the roots of dependency theory as stemming from the viewpoint that agencies such as Reuters, were seen as significant in certain British territories during the 1930's, in promoting British trade interests. Dependency theory itself arose from South American nations in the post-colonial stage. The theory maintained that prior colonial nations which had been exposed to North American capitalistic investment had become dependent upon western news agencies since the news-system provided a critical link between the developing nations and the larger world economy and corresponding value system. Dependency theory had an impact as part of the nonaligned nations movement, which began in 1955 (MacBride & Roach, 2000). In 1976, Mustapha Masmoudi, the Tunisian Secretary of State for information, spoke at the nonaligned news symposium in Tunis. The outcome of the meeting was to challenge the nonaligned nations to form a new world information and communication order (NWICO). The purpose of the NWICO was to advance among the nonaligned nations a "reorganization of existing communication channels that are a legacy of the colonial past" (287).

Megaphone Effect Theory

Bloch and Lemish (2003) have created a new term which they call the megaphone effect. They theorize that cultural texts which become adopted into the popular culture in the United States can be transformed into a global cultural phenomenon, through the international media. The theory suggests a two-step process. First, cultural texts cross the Atlantic (or Pacific) and enter into the culture of the United States. The second step occurs when these texts are then perceived as having wider international appeal, and are then marketed and distributed to the global community. The study analyzed: television programs, news networks, children's culture, and pop music. It suggested that the adoption of local cultural texts into mainstream U.S. culture provided a greater opportunity for their voices to be heard on a global scale. This theory is quite new to the globalization literature and as yet there are few published articles on the subject.

Global Imaging Theory

In his book, The Roar of the Crowd (1993), Michael J. O'Neill built a strong case for a more homogenized world culture, as the result of television and mass media. O'Neill is the former editor of the New York Daily News, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. O'Neill contends that, "communications technology always influences human organization. . . . As the speed of communication rises, social distance shrinks and ever larger numbers of people, widely separated by space, are drawn together into common experiences" (p. 24). O'Neil's book viewed media globalization from the point of view of a news reporter. Winston Churchill was opposed to using television but later conceded to its necessity. O'Neill attributed Margaret Thatcher's rise to political power as stemming from her television appearances in the 1974 election (p. 121). O'Neill's main thesis is that mass communication, on a global scale, drives public opinion:

Whatever the country-by-country variation, a central force in all that is happening is obviously public opinion, mobilized and distributed by mass communications on an unprecedented scale. The rise in people power is having a heavier impact on political institutions than at any other time in history, not only in Western democracies but in many areas of the world where it has never existed before. (p. 104)

O'Neill's view of communication technology as a major force behind human organizations and political movements is similar to Marshall McLuhan's theory of technological determinism. In this view, television like the printing press, and the telegraph before it, are signature technological inventions which affect society as a whole. McLuhan understood that technologies such as the telephone, television and undersea communications cables connected the world's societies together. According to Straubhaar and LaRose (2004), McLuhan used the term "global village" in the 1960's, before the advent of the Internet.

Tetrad Theory

Perhaps one of the most interesting theories regarding media globalization is one developed by Marshall McLuhan and Bruce Powers (1989) in their book The Global Village. [2]McLuhan and Powers present a model which they refer to as a tetrad. The tetrad is a made up of three elements. The first element is visual space which refers to a Western civilization mind set, based on logical systematic, linear, and Platonic reason. The second element is acoustic space, which is more holistic and Asian in approach. The third element is the tetrad itself which is a collision of these two opposing philosophies in a four part metaphor, consisting of enhancement, reversal, retrieval and obsolescence. According to McLuhan and Powers, "The tetrad helps us to see 'and-both' the positive and the negative results of the artifact" (p. 11).

The example is given of the invention of the automobile which greatly aided the need for transportation, but also changed society by transforming workers into distance commuters, dooming the inner city to skyscraper landscapes, while at the same time creating the need for suburbs. The practicality of verifying tetrad theory with social science research seems limited since it seems to be as much a philosophy as a theory of communication.

Gordon Gow (2001) has written an article about tetrad theory and relates it to special metaphor, from an ontological perspective. This approach is used as a model for the study of culture and technology. In this sense, tetrad theory is more of an epistemological perspective than a methodological approach to global mass media research.

In any case, McLuhan and Power's work does offer a number of interesting and almost prophetic observations, considering that the book was written in 1989. Before the Internet existed, the authors describe the interactive nature of the World Wide Web:

For example, the new telecommunication multi-carrier corporation, dedicated solely to moving all kinds of data at the speed of light, will continually generate tailor-made products and services for individual consumers who have pre-signaled their preferences through an ongoing data base. Users will simultaneously become producers and consumers. (p. 83)

Seeking an Interactive Model for Media Globalization

With the exception of tetrad theory, all of these theories have one thing in common. They all view mass communication from the perspective of the traditional model proposed by Wilber Schramm (1954). Schramm's theory proposed a one-to-many model in which a highly complex mass media organization (newspaper, television network, radio network, or news agency) created and then distributed messages to a mass public. In Schramm's model, the media organization is depicted as the gatekeeper of information flow. It is from this model that volumes of media effects research such as gate keeping and agenda setting studies have been based (Head et al., 2001, p. 323; Whetmore, 1993, p. 5).

George Gerbner's cultivation theory describes the effects of a top-down, one-to-many mass communication model. It does not offer an explanation for bottom-up content from a large heterogeneous audience. Noelle-Neumann's spiral of silence theory offers an explanation for why people do not speak up, when faced with intimidating messages from an impersonal mass media system, with which certain publics do not agree. Spiral of silence theory could also be used in a converse manner. What happens when the media provide a gathering place for similar points of view and expression of meaning? In the case of the Internet, the recent popularity of web logs (a.k.a. blogging) suggests that the antithesis of spiral of silence produces new communities of shared sense-making, which stimulate expression.

Dependency theory and the theory of cultural imperialism are traditionally grounded in Marxist ideology. The criticism of Marxist ideology is that the entire world is reduced to an economic-political struggle between the classes. Culture is seen as being dominated by economics. In contrast, sociologists with a constructivist epistemology believe that humans (not economic struggle) create meaning. Movements such as NWICO are an attempt for local cultural expression to have a voice, in opposition to dominating foreign cultures. Some of these movements are reactionary in nature, and make little attempt to integrate local media-texts into the larger scope of global media. An alternative, Bloch and Lemish's megaphone effect theory offers the opportunity which Marxist critical theories deny their publics. In short, megaphone theory suggests that local media-text production can have international appeal, and that mass media organizations are seeking new sources of media content for global distribution.

There is now a significant shift which is taking place regarding the globalization of media. As media convergence continues, and a higher percentage of media-texts and content are reduced to the digital domain, a new model of mass communication is unfolding. As Joseph Dominick (2002) pointed out, this new model is not one-to-many but rather, many-to-many (p. 23). Users of Internet content are suddenly empowered with the ability to post messages on web sites; they can also create their own web sites. These messages and sites can then be viewed by millions of Internet users around the world. When McLuhan and Powers' book was published in 1989, there was no Internet, as we know it today. Their prediction that "Users will simultaneously become producers and consumers" has been prophetic (p. 83). Today, anyone with access to the Internet can easily create a web page or post a message on a bulletin board. The traditional one-to-many model has been replaced by a new interactive paradigm.

Interactive Global Media Theory

A theory of media globalization based on an interactive platform is sustainable for many reasons. First, the global spread of the Internet and the increasing trend of digital media convergence. Pavlik and McIntosh (2005) pointed out that feedback in the converged world of digital communication is instantaneous in comparison with traditional analog mass communication (p. 71). Second, television is becoming increasingly interactive. Millions of viewers call in to vote, as in the case of the popular television program American Idol. High Definition Television in 2007 will have built in two-way interactive capabilities. Cable television currently has interactive capabilities allowing viewers to order a pizza directly through the cable connection. Third, there is an increasing competitive pressure between first tier multinational media corporations to offer more locally produced content. Compaine (2005) noted that the key to success for Star TV in India was the development of an Indian soap opera created by a local television executive. Jocelyn Cullity (2002) pointed out that cultural nationalism has been the key to success for MTV India. Indrajit Banergee (2002) argued that there is a significant trend in local and regional programming in developing nations, and that much of this is in response to charges of cultural imperialism. Forth, the entire discussion of communication convergence in the digital realm, which affects the Internet, telecommunications, television, movies, radio, and satellite distribution of content, is based on increasing interactivity. Consumers and media users increasingly seek interactive environments in which they can use these types of services in a seamless manner (Rushkoff, 2005). Consumers in Europe are already able to use cell phones to make purchases from vending machines. The successful marketers of the future will be those who discover new interactive solutions for a public which seeks ubiquitous solutions from a variety of digital devices. Fifth, interactive capabilities create a new growth curve, which in turn will expand the customer base of mature media technologies. Talk radio has exploded in popularity in the United States. According to Head (2001), "Arbitron reports that national shares for talk radio have risen steadily from 15.4 in 1993 to more than 17 today" (p. 305).

This paper has looked at the phenomenon of globalization from the perspective of the media. The effects of media globalization have been discussed as presented by a variety of communication scholars. Current theories of the mass media that address globalization have been presented and criticized. Finally, this paper has noted the need for more theory which specifically addresses media globalization from an interactive many-to-many model. It is time to break from the traditional one-to-many model as proposed by Schramm (1954). In addition, current communication theory needs to address the rise of the multinational first tier players, and to develop models which take into account the unique aspects of interactivity, which digital technologies provide. As Pavlik and McIntosh (2005) pointed out, the traditional analog mass communication model saw the audience as a large, anonymous public, which was passive in its use of the media. In contrast the new paradigm of digital mass media sees the audience in a completely different manner. The audience is now fragmented, known and addressable. This new audience is engaged, and active in participation. It actively creates media content and new communities of content exchange. This paper is a call for new communication theory to be created which will address these emerging phenomena.

About the author: Jeffrey K. Lyons, M.A., is a faculty member in the College of Communication at Hawaii Pacific University. He is currently working on his Ph.D. in Communication Studies at Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA. He is a member of Broadcast Education Association. He can be reached at [email protected]

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[1] In this paper, the term first tier corporation shall refer to significant multinational media organizations. The term second tier refers to regional corporations, while third tier are the smallest players, with only local influence.
[2] McLuhan and Powers collaborated on the project. The book was published nine years after McLuhan died.

Home / Essay Samples / Social Issues / Globalization / Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

Category: Sociology , Social Issues
Topic: Effects of Social Media , Globalization , Media Influence

Pages: 5 (2221 words)

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