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

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).

Conclusion

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.

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