Transcript Remember Five Trends in World Communication

Remember Five Trends in
World Communication
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Convergence/Digitization
Demassification
Conglomeration/Consolidation
Globalization
Deregulation
Globalization
Transformation of communication
spaces and social relations
 Economic phenomena: transnational
corporations (TNCs). Top 200 (89 in
U.S., 25 in Japan) produce between 1/3
- 1/2 of the world's output
 Cultural phenomena: texts,
representation, identity
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Cultural Globalization
Occurs across national borders
 new political and cultural identities
 characterized by transnational horizontal
integration of media which structures,
processes, and audience/media interactions
 in contrast to vertical integration
(prohibitions against foreign ownership,
restrictions on cross-media ownership
Global Media Systems
commercial news agencies: UPI, AP,
Agence France-Presse, Reuters
 TNC's: corporations that maintain
facilities in more than one country,
planning operations and investments in
a multi-country perspective
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Global Media…
film: Hollywood!!!
 radio: U.S. commercial, public in Britain,
Canada, Netherlands, community radio but
withering support
 the Internet: whose rules? developed vs.
developing countries,
 dominance of OECD countries in formulating
legal and regulatory environment
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Some Definitions
oligopoly (--istic): occurs when only a
few companies dominant an industry
 commercialization: when the state
replaces some forms of regulation
based on the public interest and public
service
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Horizontal concentration of
ownership
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a firm in one line of media buys a major
interest in another media operation not
directly related to the original business;
or when it takes a major stake in a
company entirely outside of the media;
can result in conglomerate ownership
where firms are in different lines of
business
Vertical concentration of
ownership
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Concentration of firms within a line of
business that extends a company‘s
control over the process of production
and/or distribution
Who Owns the Media?
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Disney
Vivendi
AOL/Time Warner
News Corporation
Bertelessman
Viacom
(see
http://www.mediachannel.org/ownership/)
Media Globalization
new models of media ownership and control
(mergers and acquisitions)
 decline of public communication on a global
basis
 effects: larger cross-border flows of media
outputs, growth of media TNCs, centralization
of media control,
 spread & intensification of commercialization
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Pro-Globalists
tends to push stodgy state-controlled
media into 'better' media
 dissemination of popular culture into
far corners of the world
 Western values (individualism,
skepticism of authority, rights of women
and minorities) can be disseminated
 promotes media literacy
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Anti-Globalists
extension and proliferation of
commercial model of media
 media outputs > commodified, does not
meet needs of citizens
 loss of cultural sovereignty as foreign
markets are opened to global market
system
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Crit. Of Globalization from
McChesney & Herman (1997)
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THE MAGIC OF THE MARKET
market treats audience as consumers
public sphere function is not important
'free choice' is an illusion - audiences are not
free to choose their content
commercial media are dependent on
advertisers, and advertisers want affluent
audiences
centralization of ownership makes it hostile
to dissent & conservative in nature
Cont’d: Professionalism &
Objectivity Rule
Really?, under centralized media
ownership
 Case of Conrad Black
 Media censorship in Post 9-11
environment
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Active Audience?
Is the power of media firms
exaggerated?
 Are people brainwashed by Western
media fare, or are they using it
'creatively'?
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New ICTs
Does it open the door to new forms of
content and entrants?
 Can the Internet become a democratic
mass medium, or is the Internet
becoming corporatized?
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Brief History of Media
Globalization- Post WWII
U.S. TNCs dominate
 Doctrine of 'free flow of information'
was official policy in UNESCO
 Postwar reconstruction of German,
Italian and Japanese media systems
 U.S. Voice of America - largest
broadcaster in world
 English as the 'official' world language
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U.S. advertising agencies dominant
 Recorded music industry - concentration
and cross-media corporate control
 TV: news and sports fare big for U.S.
broadcasting and for export
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1970s
global media system profit driven, TNC
dominated advanced capitalist nations,
particularly the U.S.
 Post-Colonialism
 NAM - Movement of Non-Aligned
Nations, criticized current media system
for: western monopolization of global
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news services; attention to needs of
developed nations
 domination of entertainment
programming
 undermining of national sovereignty
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NWICO Debate
UNESCO and MacBride Commission study of
global communications and suggested
solutions
 1978 Mass Media Declaration passed by
UNESCO, called for eliminating global media
imbalances and need for media to meet
national development purposes
 rejected state media monopolies
 supported freedom of journalists and freedom
of press
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U.S., Britain did not have sympathy for
NWICO and UNESCO attacked
 they withdrew from UNESCO in 1985
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1980s
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wave of global liberalization
TNC expansion, many inter-corporate
alliances, international financial alliances
IMF- International Monetary Fund
World Bank - developing country lending
agency, infrastructure building
GATT- General Agreement on tariffs & Trade
WTO- World Trade Organization
1990s
NAFTA - North American Free Trade
Agreement (really late 1980s)
 FTAA (Free Trade Agreement on the
Americas)
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Currently
Culture and trade debates
 Indigenous cultural protection
 Right to Communicate platforms
 Exacerbated by Internet, but
 Digital Divide Issues
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