Media GlobalizationApproaches to Theorizing International Communication

Formation of Theories

•Theories offer ways of approaching the subject of International communication.▫At the end of the First World War the main

focus remained on the effects of communication by the Imperial powers.

▫The formation of “public opinion” by Walter Lippmann (1922).

▫The propagation of wartime “propaganda” by Harold Lasswell (1927).

Formation of Theories

•Two broad but often interrelated approaches to theorizing international communication can be seen. These are;▫Political Economy approach.▫Cultural Studies approach.

Formation of Theories• Political Economy

Approach.• Propagated by Karl Marx,

focuses on and questions the underlying structures of economic and political power running the system.

• It is a critical research which examines the patterns of ownership and production in the media & communication industry.

• The content of media systems is analyzed within the context of social and economic power relations based on national and transnational interests.

According to Karl Marx;“The class which has the means of material production has control at the same time over the means of mental production so that, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it… Therefore, the ruling class regulates the production and distribution of the ideas of their age: Thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of that epoch”.

Formation of Theories• Cultural Studies Approach.

• Focuses on the role of communication & media in creating and maintaining shared values and meanings.

• Growing research in this field has enabled this approach to become increasingly influential.

• Started in Britain in the 1970’s with the study of popular culture and their role in the reproduction of social hegemony & inequality.

• It focused on how media texts work to create meaning and how culturally situated individuals work to gather meaning from texts.

• Cultural study scholars assert that people create their own meaning from the texts they receive from the media.

Theories of International Communication• Free flow of Information• Modernization theory• Dependency theory• Structural Imperialism• Hegemony • The Public Sphere• Cultural Studies

Free flow of Information• The “free flow” doctrine was essentially a part of the

liberal, free market discourse.• Championed the rights of media proprietors to sell

wherever and whatever they wished - Propagated media proprietors rights.

• The concept of “free flow” served both economic and political players - Perpetuation of Capitalism.

• For Western governments “free flow” helped to ensure the continuing and unreciprocated influence of western media on global markets.

• It also strengthened the West in its ideological battle against the Soviet Union.

• It provided a vehicle for the US government to inject its views on international audiences.

Modernization theory• Western nations assumed that International

communication was the key to the process of modernization and development in the Third World.

• Could be used to spread the message of modernity by the transfer of economic and political models of the West.

• It was based on the idea that mass media could help transform ‘traditional societies’.

Modernization theorists• Its most enthusiastic

proponent was Daniel Lerner,The Passing of Traditional Society (1958).

• Another key modernization theorist was Wilbur Schramm,Mass Media and National Development (1964).

• In his work, The Passing of Traditional Society, characterized media as a mobility multiplier, which enables people to experience events in far-off places forcing them to reassess their traditional way of life.

• The Western path of ‘development’ was presented as the most effective way to shake off traditional ‘backwardness’.

• Schramm saw media as a “bridge to a wider world”.

• A vehicle for transferring new ideas and models from the North to the South, and within the South from urban to rural areas.

• The timing of Schramm’s book was significant as the 1960’s had been proclaimed by the UN as the “Decade of Development”.

Modernization theorists• Leading theorist Everett

Rogers belonged to the ‘development as modernization’ school.

• Saw a key role for mass media in international communication and development.

• The top-down approach to communication, a one-way flow from government or development agencies to the Southern peasantry at the bottom, was seen as a panacea for development.

• Mass media were assumed to be a neutral force.• Since the media has and continues to have close proximity to the

ruling elite, they tend to reflect their view of development.• Under the Cold War context, the modernization theory emerged

at a time when it was politically expedient for the West to use the notion of modernization in order to influence the newly independent countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

A Critique of Modernization theory• The assumption of modernization theorist that modern and

traditional lifestyles were mutually exclusive and their dismissive view of cultures of the “indigenous native”.

• Failed to comprehend that the dichotomy of modern versus traditional was not inevitable.

• Traditional cultures can also deploy modern communication methods to put their case across.

• Scholars in the South critiqued that modernization programs were exacerbating the already deep social and economic inequalities in the developing countries and making them dependant on Western models.

• As a result of the debate, mainly propagated by Latin American scholars, the West acknowledged that the theory needed reformulation.

Dependency theory• Concept emerged in Latin

America; 1960’s and 1970’s as a consequence of the political situation in the continent, with increasing support by the US for right-wing authoritarian governments.

• The realization amongst the educated elite that the development approach to international communication had failed to deliver.

Arguments:• Development for these countries

was shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the “peripheral nations” in a position of dependence.

• Make conditions suitable for dependent development.

• The cultural aspects of dependency theory, invested in the production, distribution and consumption of media and cultural products.

• The dependency theorists aimed to show a link between discourses of ‘modernization’ and the promotion of vested interests of international media organizations and their governments in the West.

Dependency theory & the birth of Imperialism

• Gunder Frank, 1969.▫ “TNC’s based in the North

exercise control over developing countries by using the terms of global trade – dominating markets, resources, production and labor. Development of these countries was shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the ‘peripheral’ nation in a position of dependence – to make conditions suitable for ‘dependent development’”.

• Herbert Schiller▫ “Dependence on US

communication technology and investment coupled with the new demand for media products necessitated large-scale imports of US media products, notably films and television programs. This inexorably promotes an ‘American way of Life’ which Western advertisers take advantage of by mediating a consumer lifestyle”

Cultural Imperialism• The idea of cultural

imperialism was most clearly defined by the work of Herbert Schiller, ‘Mass Communication and Empire’ (1969 – 1995).

• Working within the neo-Marxist tradition, Schiller analyzed the global power structures in the international communication industry and the links between transnational businesses and dominant states.

• The argument stated that in the pursuit of commercial interests US-based transnational corporations, often in league with Western military and political interests were undermining the cultural autonomy of Southern countries.

• Creating a dependency on both the hardware and software of communication and media in the developing countries.

• Schiller found historical continuities in its quest for systemic power and control of global communication.

Media Imperialism• Another prominent aspect

of dependency was identified by Oliver Boyd-Barrett in the 1970’s as Media Imperialism.

• An examination of media inequalities between nations and analyzing the hegemonic power of mainly US-dominated media systems on the world.

• Media ImperialismThe process whereby the ownership, structure, distribution or content of the media in any country are singly or together subject to substantial external pressures from the media interests of any other country or countries, without proportionate reciprocation of influence by the country so affected (1977).

Structural Imperialism

• Imperialism dependent upon the exchange between five arenas of interest.▫ Economic▫ Political▫ Military▫ Communication▫ Cultural

• The basic mechanism of structural imperialism revolves around two forms of interaction.▫ Vertical

Vertical interaction principle maintains that relationships are asymmetrical.

▫ Feudal Feudal interaction principle states

that there is interaction along the spokes, from the periphery to the centre hub, but not along the rim, from one periphery nation to another.

By Galtung (1971);• The world consists of

developed ‘centre’ states and underdeveloped ‘periphery’ states.

• Each centre and periphery state possesses a highly developed core and a less developed periphery.

• There is a harmony between the core of the centre nations and the centre in the periphery nations.

Structural Imperialism

• Galtung’s theory is particularly relevant in understanding global news flows from the centre and the core to the periphery via international news agencies.

• Thus the cores version of news will be reflected in the news in the peripheral regions.

• This has been called the ‘agenda-setting function’ of the international media.

• However, globalization of new information and communication technologies and the resultant wiring up of the globe, and the emphasis on cultural hybridization rather than cultural imperialism has made dependency theories less fashionable.

• However structural inequalities in international communication continue to render them relevant.

Mid-term Assignment • Discuss an international event that is currently

unfolding in the news. How do the theories in your book explain this phenomenon? Are there any aspects of the phenomenon that disagree with the theories presented? Explain?

Hegemony

•Gramsci’s conception of hegemony is rooted in the notion that the dominant social group in society has the capacity to exercise intellectual and moral direction over society at large and to build a new system of social alliances to build its aims.

The Public Sphere• Developed by Habermas this concept conveyed that by the eighteenth

century, a ‘bourgeois public sphere’ had emerged in an expanding capitalist society.

• These entrepreneurs were becoming powerful enough to achieve autonomy from State and Church and increasingly demanding wider and more effective political representation to facilitate expansion of their businesses.

• A greater freedom of the press was fought for and achieved with parliamentary reform.

• However, as capitalist expanded and attained dominance, the call for reform of the state was replaced by an effort to take it over to further business interests.

• Though the idealized version of the public sphere has been criticized, it provides a useful concept in understanding the democratic potential for communication.

• Especially today, with globalization of the media there has evolved a ‘global public sphere’ where issues of international significance can be articulated through the mass media.

Cultural Studies Perspective• The cultural studies perspective was led in the 1970’s by Stuart

Hall. • It also became known as the Birmingham School.• Did pioneering work in exploring the textual analysis of media,

especially television and ethnographic research.• Hall’s model of ‘encoding-decoding’ media discourse was

especially influential.• This model emphasized how media texts are given preferred

readings by producers and how they may be interpreted in different ways thus creating impartiality in content.

• This impartiality makes audiences accept the dominant meaning conveyed in the discourse.

• Evident especially while depicting foreign, mainly Eastern cultures, Western media tends to keep them subordinate to Western culture.