Lesson 7.

Media and Globalization

. Globalization entails the spread of various cultures and ideas. Spread of culture such as films made in
Hollywood are shown across the globe. Spread of ideas such as the notion of the rights of
thelesbians, gays, and bisexual, and transgender, LGBT communities.People who travel the globe
teaching and preaching their beliefs inuniversities, churches, public fora, classrooms, or even as guests
of afamily play a major role in the spread of culture and ideas.But today, television programs, social
media groups, books, movies, magazines, and the like have made it easier for advocates to reach
larger audience. Globalization relies on media as its main conduct for t h e s p re a d o f g l o b a l c u l t u re
a n d i d e a s . T h e re i s a n i nt i m ate relationship between globalization and media which
must beunraveled to further understand the contemporary world.

Media and Its Function

Jack Luleposted this questions: Could global trade have e v o l v e d w i t h o u t a f l o w o f

i n f o r m a t i o n o n m a r ke t s , p r i c e s , commodities, and more?; Could empires have stretched
across the world without communication throughout their border?; and Could religion, music,
poetry, film, fiction, cuisine, and fashion develop as they have without the intermingling of media and
cultures? Luke describes media as a means of conveying something such as a channel of
communication. Technically speaking, a person’s voice is a medium. However, when commentators
refer to media, they mean the technologies of mass communication. Print media includes
books, magazines, and newspapers. Broadcast media involve radio, film and television. Digital
media cover the internet and mobile mass communication. Internet media include e-mail,
internet sites, social media, and internet-based video and audio. What media do and how they affect
societies? Marshall McLuhan once declared that the medium is the message. His
statement was an attempt to draw attention to how media, as a form of technology reshape societies.
Thus, the television is not a simple bearer of messages, it also shapes the social behavior of users
and reorient family behavior. Since it was introduced in the 1960’s, television has steered
people from the dining table where they eat and tell stories to each other to the living room where
they silently munch on their food while watching primetime shows. Television has also drawn people
away from other meaningful activities such as playing games or reading books.

Today, the smart phone allows users to keep in touch instantly with multiple people at
the same time. Prior to the cellphone there was no way for couples to keep constantly in
toucho r t o b e u p d a t e d o n w h a t t h e o t h e r d o e s a l l t h e t i m e . T h e technology and the
not the message makes for this social changepossible
.The Global Village and Cultural Imperialism

McLuhan analyzed the social changes brought about by television. He declared that the
television sets and listened to the same stories and their perception of the world would contract. Later
McLuhan and media scholars further grappled with the challenges of a global media culture. A lot of
these early thinkers assumed that global media had a tendency to homogenize culture. They argued
that as global media spread, people from all over the world would begin to watch, listen to, and read
the same things. This thinking arose at time when America’s power had turned it into the world’s
culture heavyweight. Commentators believed that media globalization coupled with American
hegemony would create a form ofcultural imperialismwhereby American values and culture would
overwhelm all others. In 1976, Herbert Schiller,a media critic argued that not only was
theworld being Americanized but that this process also led to the spread of American capitalist values
like consumerism. John Tomlimsonsays that cultural globalization is simply a euphemism for Western
cultural imperialism sinceit promotes homogenized, westernized, consumer culture.

Critiques of Cultural Imperialism

In the 1980s, media scholars began to pay attention to the ways in which audiences understood
and interpreted media messages. The field of audience studies emphasizes that media
consumers are active participants in the meaning-making process, who view media texts through
their own cultural lenses. In 1985,Ien Ang, an Indonesian cultural critic studied the ways in which
different viewers in the Netherlands experienced watching the American soap
operaDallas.Through the letters from 42 viewers, she presented a detailed analysis of audience-
viewing experiences. Rather than simply receiving American culture in a passive and
resigned way, she noted that viewers put a lot of emotional energy into the process and
they experienced pleasure based on how the program resonated with them. I n 1 9 9 0 , Elihu Katz and
Tamar Liebesdecided to push Ang ’s analysis further by examining how viewers from
distinct cultural communities interpreted Dallas. They argued that texts are received differently by
varied interpretive communities because they derived different meanings and pleasures from these
texts. Thus, people from diverse cultural backgrounds had their own ways of understanding the
show. The Russians were suspicious of the show ’s content believing not only that it
was primarily about America, but it contained American propaganda. American viewers
believed that the show though set in America was primarily about the lives of the rich. Apart from the
challenge of audience studies, the cultural imperialism thesis has been belied by the renewed
strength of regional trends in the globalization process. Asian culture has proliferated
worldwide through the globalization of media. Japanese brands from “Hello Kitty” to the “Mario
Brothers to Pokémon” are now a part of global popular culture. The impression is true to
Korean Pop (K-Pop) and Korean telenovelas which are widely successful regionally and
globally. The observation even applies to culinary tastes and the most obvious case of globalized Asian
cuisine is thesushi.And while it is true that McDonald’s has continued to spread across Asia as it
is also the case that Asian brands have provided stiff competition. The Philippines’ Jollibee
claims to be the number one choice for fast food in Brunei. Given these patterns, it is no longer
tenable to insist that g l o b a l i zat i o n i s a u n i d i re c t i o n a l p ro c e s s o f fo re i g n c u l t u re s
overwhelming local ones. Nevertheless, it leaves room for dynamism and cultural change.

Social Media and the Creation of Cyber Ghettoes

By now, very few media scholars argue that the world is becoming culturally homogenous. Apart
from the nature of diverse audiences and regional trends in cultural production, the internet and
social media are proving that the globalization of culture and ideas can move in different
directions. While western culture remains powerful and media production is still
controlled by a handful off powerful Western corporations, the internet, particularly the social
media is challenging previous ideas about media and globalization. As with all new media,
social media have both beneficial a n d n e g a t i v e e f f e c t s . O n t h e o n e h a n d , t h e s e
f o r m s o f communication have democratized access. Anyone with an internet connection or smart
phone can use Facebook and Twitter for free. These media have enabled users to be consumers and
producers of information simultaneously. The democratic potential of social media was most
evident in 2011 during the wave of uprisings known a s t h e Arab Spring.Without access to traditional
broadcast media like TV, activists opposing authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya used
Twitter to organize and to disseminate information. Their efforts toppled their respective
governments. More recently, the women’s march against newly installed US President Donald
Trump began with a tweet from Hawaii lawyer and became a national even global movement.
However, social media also have their dark side. In the early 2000s, commentators began referring
to the emergence of a splinternetand the phenomenon ofcyberbalkanizationto refer to the various
bubbles people place themselves in when they are online. In the United States, voters of the
Democratic Party largely read liberal websites and voters of the Republican Party largely read
conservative websites. This segmentation, notes an article in the journal Science has been
exacerbated by the nature of social media feeds which leads users to read articles, memes, and
videos shared by like-minded friends. As such, being on Facebook can resemble living in an echo
chamber which reinforces one’s existing beliefs and opinions. This echo chamber precludes users
from listening to or reading opinions and information that challenge their viewpoints, thus, making
them more partisan and closed-minded. This segmentation has been used by people in power who
are aware that the social media bubbles can produce a herd mentality. It can be exploited by
politicians with less than democratic intentions and demagogues wanting to whip up popular
anger. The same inexpensiveness that allows social media to be a democratic force likewise makes
it a cheap tool of government propaganda. Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has hired armies of
social media trolls-paid users who harass political opponents to manipulate public opinion through
intimidation and the spreading of fake news. Most recently, American intelligence agencies
established that Putin used trolls and on-line misinformation to help Donald Trump win the
presidency- a tactic the Russian autocrat is likely to repeat in European elections he seeks to
influence. In places across the world, Putin imitators replicate his strategy of online trolling and
disinformation to clamp down on dissent and delegitimize critical media. Critics of the increasingly
dictatorial regime of theTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoganare threatened by online mobs of
pro-government trolls, who hack accounts and threaten violence. Some of their responses have
included threats of sexual violence against women. As the preceding cases show, fake information
can spread easily on social media since they have few content filters. Unlike newspapers, Facebook
does not have a team of editors who are trained to sift through and filter information. If a new
article, even a fake one gets a lot of“shares,” it will reach many people with Facebook accounts.
This dark side of social media shows that even a seemingly open and democratic media may be co-
opted towards undemocratic means. Global online propaganda will be the biggest threat to face as
the globalization of media deepens. Internet media have made the world so interconnected that a
Russian dictator can influence American elections on the cheap. As consumers of media, users
must remain vigilant and learn how to distinguish fact from falsehood in a global media landscape
that allows politicians to peddle what President Trump’s senior advisers now call “alternative
facts.” Though people must remain critical of mainstream media and traditional journalism that
may also operate based on vested interest. We must also insist that some sources are more
credible than others. A newspaper story that is written by a professional journalist and vetted by
professional editors is still likely to be more credible than a viral video produced by someone in
his/her bedroom even if both will have their biases. People must be able to tell the difference.