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

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

Jeffrey K. Lyons 

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.