GLOBAL MEDIA

International mass media has played a vital role in enhancing globalization as it linked
societies closer, with the exchange of ideas, culture, and multiple information. It has managed to
do so with the help of capitalism. However, the process of globalization of culture constitutes a
debate on whether mass media has been pluralistic and neutral in facilitating the flow of ideas, or
has it been an instrument for the domination of Western culture.
This section will focus on the three major analytical perspectives of media globalization
that developed in the field of international communications. Sreberny (1996, as cited in
Rantanen, 2005) defined three models that emerged in three subsequent phases: 1)
communications and development, 2) cultural imperialism, and 3) cultural pluralism. The
communications and development model views media as instruments of change in developing
countries with its capacity to alter values and attitudes towards modernization. On the other
hand, cultural imperialism asserts an uneven relationship in the flow of ‘hardware’ transfer of
technology and media alongside the ‘software’ transfer of cultural products that contribute to the
dependency on the part of the developing countries to developed countries (Rantanen, 2005).
Finally, the third model of cultural pluralism asserts a more optimistic view on the diversity of
global media relations, constitute by a variety of producers and locales (Rantanen, 2005).

Free Flow of Information: The Road to Modernization?

The post-World War II period would mark the prominence of the models of development
through mass media and the free flow of information, particularly under the leadership of the
United States. Several scholars term the models of communications and development (Rantanen,
2005) as the modernization paradigm (Bah, 2008; Boyd-Barrett, 1977; Fejes, 1981) which views
that the reason for the absence of modernization in the developing world is not due to the lack
natural resources. The primary hindrance to a country’s development is the lack of human
resources, and education and mass media would have the fundamental tasks of building human
capital (Melkote & Steeves, 2001).
 Mass media were viewed to play critical roles in development in the modernization
paradigm. Wilbur Schramm (1964 as cited in Melkote & Steeves, 2001), one of the pioneering
scholars of this paradigm, observed a positive association between communication components
to that of the social, political and economic components in national growth. According to him,
"the task of the mass media of information and the “new media” of education is to speed and
ease the long, slow social transformation required for economic development and, in particular,
to speed and smooth the task of mobilizing human resources behind the national effort” (p. 27 as
cited in Melkote & Steeves, 2001).
Another key proponent of modernization is David Lerner (1958) who proposed that
developing societies must follow the Western concept of modernity in order to achieve
development. He emphasized the importance of empathy, stating that “as people are more
exposed to media, the greater is their capability to imagine themselves as strange persons in
strange situations, places and time than did people in any previous historical epoch” (p. 52). The
psychological mechanism of empathy, he argued, enables people to mobilize efficiently in a
modern society that is participant, literate and urban, contrary to that of the traditional society
which is non-participant. Lerner (1958 as cited in Boadu, 1981) posited that mass media has the
power to foster the learning of empathic skills. The interactive and integrative capabilities of
media that prevent societal disintegration are critical to the success of efforts to modernize
(Boadu, 1981). This view resonates with Benedict Anderson’s (1983) thesis on nations as
imagined communities. He emphasized the role of printed communication and capitalism in
instilling nationalism and the sense of belongingness among people who do not know each other,
by creating imagined communities.
Everett Rogers (1965-1966), whose ideas were influenced by Lerner, espoused the same
paradigm but forwards a nuanced relationship by treating mass media as a factor that intervenes
between antecedents and consequences of modernization. In his theoretical model, the
socioeconomic antecedents would determine the capacity of mass media exposure to result to the
indicators of modernization as illustrated in Figure 6.1.

Figure 6.1 Roger’s Model of Mass Media Exposure and Modernization

 Source: Rogers (1965-1966, p. 616)

The presence of mass media in societies have been observed by modernization scholars
as correlated to the social, economic, and political indices of development. The strength and
power of mass media to influence societies lies in its “one-way, top-down and simultaneous and
wide dissemination” and its capacity to shape social processes, create meanings, identities, and
aspirations of a community (Melkote & Steeves, 2001). These theories greatly influenced the
development programs implemented by international agencies such as the United Nation’s
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations, Development
Program (UNDP), and the United States Aid for International Development (USAID) (Fejes,
1981).
However, the role of media as an intervener and instrument in the modernization process
has been widely questioned and disputed. Curran and Park (2005) laid down the criticisms of the
paradigm of how the governments espousing the Western model of modernization used the
media system in sustaining control over the population rather than promoting education for
democracy. They also stated how the national development model was used to justify the
arbitrary exercised of political power, political indoctrination and the restriction over the
freedom of expression.
By the end of the 1970s, criticisms against the modernization paradigm grew in strength
and influence questioning the assumptions and conceptualization of the paradigm especially in
the context of non-Western and developing societies. This period would mark the shift to the
cultural imperialism paradigm, seen as a reaction of resistance of the developing world towards
the damaging effects of US hegemony and liberal expansionism during the Cold War.
Demanding for the Balanced Flow of Information: A Fight against Cultural Imperialism

The cultural imperialism paradigm grew in influence from the 1960s to the 1980s in the
context of the Cold War and the period of decolonization and post-colonialism. Third World
countries formed the Non-Aligned Movement with a united purpose stated in the Non-Aligned
Countries Declaration of 1979, also known as the Havana Declaration:
the common struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, expansionism,
racism, including Zionism, apartheid, exploitation, power politics and all forms and
manifestations of foreign occupation, domination, and hegemony. (as cited in
Osmańczyk, 2003, p. 1599)
The movement was also against the uneven flows of information associated with uneven
development through the pretense of the free flow of information and the freedom of expression.
In actuality, it “meant ‘‘free-market’’ expression, meaning those who owned the media had the
right to decide what was expressed in it” (Buchanan, 2014, p. 392).

Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Havana, 1979

Source: Picsviewr.com
Cultural imperialism theory argues that global audiences are exposed to media messages
dominantly deriving from Western industrialized states (Kraidy, 2002). Herbert Schiller (1976),
the clearest and most influential theorists of the cultural imperialism tradition (Sparks, 2012)
defines cultural imperialism as:
the concept of cultural imperialism today best describes the sum of the processes by
which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum
is attracted, pressured, forced and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to
correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centre of the
system.(p. 9)
The theory takes on a macro-perspective of global power dynamics and struggles among state
economic relations, particularly the concentration of control and resources at the expense of the
development of the rest of the world.
The concepts “cultural imperialism” and “media imperialism” have minor differences but
most of the international communication literature considers the latter as a category of the former
(Kraidy, 2002). Media imperialism is defined by Boyd-Barret (1977) as:
the process whereby the ownership, structure, distribution or content of the media in any
one country are singly or together are 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. (p. 117)
Media imperialism model views modern communication media has having been designed to
maintain and expand dependence and domination over the world (Fejes, 1981). It is a stark
contradiction to the assumptions of the modernization paradigm that sees communications media
as tools for development. Cultural and media imperialism approaches, together with its variant
concepts of “cultural dependency” and electronic colonialism” (Hesmondhalgh, 2005), view
media as an instrument of major powers that serve as an obstacle to steady progress between
developed and developing world (Fejes, 1981).
 Media Imperialism and American Way of Life

Source: İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi (n.d.)

According to Hesmondhalgh (2005), the concept of imperialism means “building of

empires” however the use of the term cultural imperialism implies that with the end of the age of
direct political and economic control by colonial states, a new form of indirect power and
concern has emerged. Cultural domination over less-developed countries that would foster
desires for Western lifestyles and products among post-colonial societies that would pave the
way for the entry of Western-based transnational corporations that would then dominate non-
Western economies (Hesmondhalgh, 2005). He employs a political economy perspective in
viewing media as cultural industries – those who own the capital and infrastructure and exert
political control determine the messages produced and the cultural products exported, which in
turn dictates the western socio-cultural norms and values of liberalism and capitalist
consumerism to weaker and poorer states.
The Western dominance in news broadcasting, specifically of international news agencies
such as Reuters, AFP, UPI, and AP, have been viewed by scholars as contributory to the
spreading of biased images and prejudices of colonialism towards the South and reducing nations
as places of “corruption, coup and disaster” (Matos, 2012, p. 3). The limited agencies that serve
as limited sources for international news have been accused of contributing to the
homogenization of global culture that privileges Western interests and values and of influencing
perceptions of national governments by bringing global issues to the local level and vice-versa
(Matos, 2012).

Box 6.1. Who owns the global media?

Source: Zenith Optimedia as cited in Richter(2016)

According to Zenith Optimedia’s (as cited in Richter, 2016) annual global ranking
of the largest media companies in the world. Television remains to be the most important
advertising medium, but it is now followed by internet which has replaced print media as
the second. Digital advertising has been on the rise, with five digital companies – Google,
Facebook, Baidu, Yahoo, and Microsoft - included in the Top 30 and representing 65
percent of the entire internet advertising market, and accounting for more than a third of
the revenues of the largest media owners listed in the top 30.
The contributions of media imperialism scholars such as Schiller served as a foundation
to an international campaign directed towards the United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESCO), to demand change in its communication policies with the goal
of balancing the relationship between developed and developing states (Sparks, 2012). In the
1970s and 1980s, the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) debate was
the central concern at the UNESCO. Representatives from developing nations forming the Non-
Aligned Movement during the Cold War demanded significant changes in international
communications media in the current world order which they accused of “neocolonialism” and
“cultural imperialism” by the West and their transnational corporations (Buchanan, 2014).The
NWICO movement was a collective resistance to pressure UNESCO to change the dynamics of
news media that has been dismissive of the interest and needs of the less affluent world, to
change the “one-way flow” of news, media, and cultural products between the North and South
to a “two-way” flow (Buchanan, 2014).The political struggle among developing nations was
initially a struggle for a “New International Information Order,” alongside the similar call for a
“New International Economic Order,” which symbolizes the South’s resistance against the
symbolic and economic effects of imperialism (Sparks, 2012).
The NWICO movement resulted to the report of the MacBride Commission entitled
Many Voices, One World (UNESCO, 1980), which forwarded recommendations that aimed to
promote independence, diversity, and pluralism of media and to strengthen the national media of
the South. The report aimed to address the problems of the unequal access and flows of
communication due to media commercialization and concentration. However, the
recommendations were fruitless and were perceived as failures; moreover, major powers such as
the United States and the United Kingdom opposed the requests and withdrew from UNESCO
but eventually rejoined (Buchanan, 2014).
Sparks (2012) points out the major shortcoming of the NWICO. The movement had been
incoherent in its critique of the structural inequalities derived from the power struggles between
the North and South that significantly limited human communication. Moreover, the movement
had been tainted with the strategic political alliances with authoritarian leaders who sought
regulation of the media to repress and silence the opposition. He emphasized that “a critical
project that recognised only those abuses committed by corporate and business interests while
remaining blind to those of repressive states could never expect to win general acceptance at a
theoretical level” (pg. 286).
Furthermore, the paradigm of cultural imperialism has also faced several criticisms.
Arguments against the theory have been directed to its theoretical coherence (Tomlinson, 1999)
– its ambiguity and extensiveness which poses the question of what exactly constitutes cultural
imperialism in the unequal cultural exchanges of countries (Sparks, 2012). The paradigm has
also been criticized of romanticizing the national as an agent of resistance that is worth
protecting while failing take into account that the state could be as oppressive and homogenizing
(through nationalism) to societies as the global (Rantanen, 2005). In addition, Sengupta and Frith
(1997) emphasizes the changing global structures of the media and stated that “the cultural
imperialism argument that is framed in terms of ‘centres’ with power over disempowered
‘peripheries’ may have to be reevaluated as the ‘new’ media slowly penetrate into developing
nations” (p. 14). Transnational communication system and new media have provided new and
creative opportunities to establish bonds and solidarity in creating cultural communities (Ang
1990). This change has been apparent in remarkable historical events where new media was used
by marginalized to instigate social change such as in the case of the Zapatista Uprising in 1994
against the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Battle of Seattle protests
during the World Trade Ministerial Conference of 1999. Still, Sengupta and Frith (1997) also
acknowledge that as regards the role of television, it cannot be discounted that it remains to be a
powerful socializing agent within Third World nations (p. 15).
Case in point: Media and Terrorism

In 2017, United States President Donald Trump claimed that the US news media were
underreporting terrorist attacks by Muslim perpetrators (Logan, 2017). How accurate are his
statements? Do Western media over report or underreport terrorist incidents involving
Muslims?

Kearns, Betus and Lemieux (2017) investigated the role of religious affiliation, particularly
of Muslims, in predicting the extent of media coverage on terrorist attacks. Their study
covered terrorist attacks in the United States from 2011 to 2015 with a total of 89 attacks.
Data were drawn from the Global Terrorism Database where terrorism isdefined as “the
threatened or actual use of illegal force and violence by a non-state actor to attain a political,
economic, religious, or social goal through fear, coercion, or intimidation” (as cited in
Kearns, Betus & Lemieux, 2017).The data for media coverage was based on 2,413 news
articles drawn fromUS-based print sources supplemented by online news coverage from
CNN.com that were gathered through LexisNexis Academic.

Their findings show that news media drastically give more coverage to terrorist attacks by
Muslims, particularly by foreign-born Muslims, despite the far less common instances of
these attacks (Kearns, Betus, & Lemieux, 2017). While arrests, target types, and fatalities
also influence media coverage, attacks by Muslim perpetrators remain to be the strongest
predictor by 4 ½ times more coverage despite controlling for these factors.Let us examine
their data presented in the visualizations below and answer the following case questions.

Source:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/13/yes-the-media-
do-underreport-some-terrorist-attacks-just-not-the-ones-most-people-think-
of/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b4e8757c89a5
 Case questions
1. How do US news media cover different types of terrorist attacks?
2. What do you think would explain the underreporting and overreporting of certain types
of attacks by the US news media?
3. Is US President Trump’s accusation of media bias warranted? In what way?
4. What are the implications of Western media’s focus on linking terrorism and Muslims?
5. Do you think that Western media play a role in reinforcing Islamophobia?

Full article:
Kearns, E. M., Betus, A., & Lemieux, A. (2017, March 13). Yes, the media do underreport
some terrorist attacks. Just not the ones most people think of. Retrieved from The
Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/03/13/yes-
the-media-do-underreport-some-terrorist-attacks-just-not-the-ones-most-people-think-
of/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.b4e8757c89a5

Updated and published research:

Kearns, E. M., Lemieux, A., & Lemieux, A. F. (Forthcoming). Why Do Some Terrorist
Attacks Receive More Media Attention Than Others? Justice Quarterly. Retrieved from
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2928138

Despite the arguments against the cultural imperialism paradigm, the merits of the
approach continue to be recognized by scholars. Tomlinson (1999) a staunch critic of the theory,
maintains its relevance as it highlights the expansionist nature of capitalism and its capacity to
shape global culture. Similarly, Rantanen (2005) sees the strength of the paradigm through its
macro-level analysis that is based on the uneven and asymmetrical political, economic relations
of the world system, and the implication of such in developing societies.
On the other hand, other various scholars such as Sparks (2012) have updated and
improved the cultural imperialism framework into the current context of intensifying media
concentration, expansion of influence and control of transnational media corporations, and
widening of gaps between the North and South. He examines the theoretical ambiguity of
Schiller’s conceptualization and proposes a new alternative that does not suffer the same
crippling flaws of the classicalaccount and a superior theoretical account of the contemporary
developments in international communication. He reconsidered the concept of imperialism, with
the driving force not being limited to a single state but conflict and competition among large-
scalecapitalism which is allied with their home states. Instead of a single center, an array of
competing states of varying powers and influence compete and in some instances coordinate
their political and economic power to exert control over less developed and weaker countries
(Sparks, 2012).
The comic portrays how Western news broadcasting perpetuates biased and prejudiced images
of non-Western nations.

Source: Postmodernbarney.com (as cited in Quote Master, n.d.)

Cultural Pluralism: Transition from homogenization to heterogenization

Criticisms against the cultural imperialism paradigm would eventually pave the way for
the emergence of a new paradigm termed "cultural pluralism" (Sreberny 1996 as cited in
Rantanen, 2005). Other scholars would also refer to the paradigm as "cultural globalization"
(Matos, 2012). The paradigm shift was a departure from the "one-way" model of cultural
imperialism towards a more nuanced and sophisticated analysis of "multidirectional flows"
among country relations (Matos, 2012). It was a reaction to the treatment of the paradigms of
modernization and cultural imperialism to the role of the audience as passive receptacles of
information and ideas. The contemporary approach recognizes the capacity of the audience in
reacting and mobilizing toward resistance and empowerment, according to their socio-economic
context and cultural preference (Matos, 2012).
This shift in paradigms would be regarded by Rantanen (2005) as the homogenization-
heterogenization debate (see Table 6.2), with the past two paradigms, the development, and
imperialism approach as being under the homogenization school with their assumptions on the
impact of globalization on media and cultures. The heterogenization school, on the other hand, is
anchored on the definitions of globalization as hybridization, synchronization, re-
territorialization, and indigenization (Rantanen, 2005). Contemporary media studies have
focused on “unpacking” the audience and its capacity to receive and interpret messages. It is a
departure from the view of the homogenous audience to an audience that is fragmented with
distinctive tastes (Rantanen, 2005).
.
Table 6.2 Rantanen’s (2005) different paradigms of the global, the national and the local

Source: Rantanen (2005, p. 76)

The heterogenization school has also been criticized in several aspects. Sparks (2012)
describes the new orthodoxy as “systematically marginaliz[ing] the role of the state,” as
pervasively seen from the slogans of “think global, act local” and “glocalization” (p. 286). While
it is of importance that the overemphasis of the state is corrected, is it, however, problematic to
dismiss the significance of the role of the state (Sparks, 2012). Criticisms of heterogenization
school have also been enumerated by Rantanen (2012), such as the power it provides the
audiences without taking into account the inequality their access to media and communications,
and the neglect of the economic clout of global media firms and their concentration in the United
States.
Studies would also present empirical evidence that is not reflective of the assumptions of
the paradigm. Gordon’s (2009) study on Jamaican media, challenges the cultural heterogeneity
and diversification thesis and argues the proliferation of homogenization of American culture
evidenced from the imported models for the production of local television content. She argues
that while adaptation of American programme models have been successfully localized to the
point of producing original and separate products, as seen in the telenovelas of Mexico and
Bollywood films of India, such success has not been present in Jamaica where “local
programmes do not bridge the gap between local and global to the point where an original genre
is actually created” (p. 324).