Implications of a

Liberalized Global
Communication Regime
Lecture # 30
Introduction
• The global shift from state regulation to market-driven policies are evident
everywhere.
• The WTO claims that the expansion of capital through the transnational
corporations has contributed to the transfer of skills and capital to the global
South but that it may have also contributed to widening the gap between rich
and poor is not mentioned.
• International communication is increasingly being shaped by trade and market
standards and less by political considerations, what Cees Hamelink has called 'a
noticeable shift from a political to an economic discourse'.
• The move to open up world trade by reducing tariff barriers has been unevenly
applied, as India's former representative to GATT, Bhagirath Lai Das points out.
• After the Uruguay Agreement came into force, several developing countries made
huge reductions in their tariffs: India reduced its average tariff on industrial
products from 71 per cent to 32 per cent; Brazil from 41 per cent to 27 per cent
and Venezuela from 50 per cent to 31 percent.
• In contrast, the average tariff on industrial products in the North has
been reduced from 6.3 per cent to 3.8 per cent.
• In addition, giving priority to the service sectors - financial services,
insurance, maritime transport, telecommunication - has benefited the
North, while the areas where the South might have had an advantage
were not given much consideration.
• One key such resource is labour.
• As Das points out, while there are specific provisions for free movement
of capital associated with GATS, there is no provision for the movement
of labour in a 'borderless world'.
• If anything, immigration laws in the European Union and the USA are
being made more stringent.
• The major trading blocs have insisted that in a globalized world economy,
with growing internationalization of production and consumption, it is
important to harmonize domestic laws and regulatory structures affecting
trade and investment, and remove any advantage or protection for domestic
industries.
• A global market can only be created, runs the argument, through
deregulation and letting the market set the rules of international trade.
• Opposition to the process of deregulation and privatization has been
undermined by changes in international policy at an institutional level.
• International organizations, as Schiller notes, 'have either been bypassed,
restructured, weakened or neutered‘.
• For example, in 1992, the status of the UN Centre for Transnational
Corporations (UNCTC) was fundamentally changed, making it work toward
strengthening global market forces as part of the transnational corporation
and management division within the UN.
• The UN is positioning itself closer to the operation of international business.
• As part of his 'quiet revolution' to renew the United Nations for the twenty-
first century, the UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan is building a stronger
relationship with the business community.
• In February 1998 by Kofi Annan and the International Chamber of Commerce
stressed the UN's role in setting the regulatory framework for the global
marketplace in order to facilitate cross-border trade and investment.
• Among the business leaders present were executives from Alcatel Alsthom,
Anglo Gold, BAT Industries, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, McDonald's
Worldwide, Rio Tinto, Unilever and US West.
• Increasingly, UN agencies are co-operating with businesses on projects, with
mutual benefits.
• For example, the Italian fashion giant Benetton helped to design the campaign
promoting the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
 Who benefits from liberalization and
privatization?
• The biggest beneficiaries of the processes of liberalization, deregulation
and privatization and the resultant WTO agreements have been the TNCs
which dominate global trade.
• As the primary 'movers and shapers' of the global economy, the TNCs
have been defined as having three basic characteristics:
• co-ordination and control of various stages of individual production chains
within and between different countries;
• potential ability to take advantage of geographical differences in the distribution
of factors of production (e.g. natural resources, capital, labour) and in state
policies (e.g. taxes, trade barriers, subsidies, etc.);
• potential geographical flexibility - an ability to switch its resources and
operations between locations at an international, or even a global scale.
• So powerful are the TNCs that the annual sales of the top corporations
exceed the GDP of many countries - for example, the 1997 annual sales of
General Motors surpassed the GDP of Thailand, while Shell Group earned
more in global sales than the GDP of Greece, and Mitsui sales were
higher than the GDP of Saudi Arabia - one of the world's richest countries
(UNDP, 1999).
• According to the 1999 World Investment Report from the United Nations
Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in 1998, the world's
largest 100 TNCs, measured in terms of foreign assets, accounted for $4
trillion in total sales and held a stock of total assets in excess of $4.2
trillion.
• With the exception of two corporations - Petroleos of Venezuela and
Daewoo of South Korea - the other 98 were Western or Japanese firms.
• The TNCs are rapidly boosting their foreign activities through a variety of
non-equity firms (e.g. management contracts, franchising), as well as
building technology networks with local enterprises.
• The free-market ideology and the new international trading regime that it
produced have encouraged the free flow of capital across a borderless
world.
• Concerns about transborder data flows and their impact on national
sovereignty have been replaced by the race to embrace the global
electronic marketplace.
• According to UNCTAD, in 1998, foreign direct investment flows increased
by 39 per cent over the previous year to $644 billion, mainly as a result of
more cross-border mergers.
• In 1998, mergers and acquisitions reached an all-time record, with more
than 12500 deals totalling over $1.6 trillion, profoundly affecting
companies dealing in financial services and telecommunications (Fortune,
1999a).
• That US-based businesses have benefited most by global deregulation is
clear from examining the Fortune 500, the annual list published by the US
business magazine Fortune of the world's top 500 corporations.
• Of the seven companies with profits above $6 billion, six were
American, and US corporations were among the top revenue-generating
corporations in 24 out of 43 industries represented in the 1999 survey.
The USA led with 185 companies (37 per cent of all companies)
followed by Europe with 170 companies (Germany - 42, France - 39,
Britain - 38) and Japan with 100.
• Of the remaining 45 corporations, Canada had 12, Australia 7 and Russia
1.
• The global South was represented with just 26 companies of which
South Korea had 9, China 6, Brazil 4, Taiwan 2, India, Venezuela,
Malaysia and Mexico had one each.
• Liberalization of global trade has created unprecedented prosperity for
some countries, the benefits are confined to a select few countries and
the corporations based there.
• The 200 richest people in the world more than doubled their net worth in
the four years to 1998, to $1 trillion (UNDP, 1999).
• Of the top 10 richest people in the world seven were American, with Bill
Gates leading the pack with a wealth of $90 billion (Forbes, 1999).
• But market-based progress is also causing much misery in the world.
• The 1999 Human Development Report of the United Nations
Development Programme notes that the income gap between the richest
fifth of the world's people and the poorest fifth, measured by average
national income per head, increased from 30 to one in 1960 to 74 to one
in 1997.
• Worse still, despite claims to have created jobs and prosperity, market
based solutions and cuts to the public sector are having a devastating
affect on employment, especially in the global South.
• According to the International Labour Organization in 1998 one billion
workers - or one third of the world's labour force - were either
unemployed (150 million) or underemployed (e.g. part-time and wanting
to work longer, or earning less than a living wage), while in contrast, US
unemployment was at its lowest level since the early 1970s (ILO, 1998).
Global Media and Vulnerable Social Groups:
Children and Women
Indirect impacts on children (Katz 2004; Hart 2008)
Shift to a market economy leading to:
• Increase in wage-based employment
• Increased workload for women
ÞChildren and young people having additional burden of
responsibilities
ÞKey role of the income-earning woman in improving children’s
health: allocating resources towards food

03/12/09 12
 Children left out of the global economy
(Cornia 2001)
• Unequal distribution of the gains in child well-being,
mainly affecting:
- Children in large parts of the Global South
- Children in remote areas and in urban poor families in
relatively successful countries
- Orphans/other children in AIDS-affected economies
- Refugee children and children affected by war
• Widening gaps in child well-being between the
advantaged and the disadvantaged

03/12/09 13
Children and cultural globalisation
• New socio-technical systems of communication
• Information, values and images that most children
routinely engage with, esp. through television
• Childhood culture is becoming more homogenised as the
same products, for example toys, games and clothes,
become available everywhere
• However, many children in the world still do not have
television in their homes, and books are rarities.

03/12/09 14
Children and
global commercial culture
• Children as participants in a commercial market,
involved in a culture of consumption (Lindstrom)
Global ‘Brands’ (a few examples)
Accessories, Toys and Food and drinks Celebrities
media content
LEGO / Barbie Coca-Cola / Pepsi Britney Spears
Disney Starbucks Hannah Montana
Wii/Game Boy/Playstation McDonalds Rihanna

• An average child in the United States, Australia and

the UK sees between 20-40,000 commercials a year
• Strong personal power and influence over parental
purchasing choices
03/12/09 15
Children’s global consumer culture: myth or
reality?
• Great levels of inequality and uneven distribution of globalisation
ÞCreation of global children’s desires
ÞBut no standardised access to global consumer culture:
• Children’s global consumer culture still only a ‘project’: not available
to all children, esp. in large parts of the Global South (Langer 2003)
• But increasing penetration – see Mcintyre (Langer 2003)

03/12/09 16
3. A hybrid children’s culture
• Global and local components: “glocalisation”
• While the objects of children’s desires are global, they
are consumed locally
Pokémon : Dominating children’s consumption worldwide
from 1996 to 2000
®Success based on adaptation to local traditions and
idioms = localising process
®But differences in access to (localised) Pokémon
Teletubbies (Buckingham 2007)

03/12/09 17
 Let’s start with television!
Television can influence our children in many
ways.
These ways can be both positive and negative.
 Our children these days watch on average 25
hours per week or 3 ½ hours a day (2).
This much television can affect children’s
ideas about body image and gender identity.
Reading comprehension and child obesity are
affected.
 Are we adding to the outrageous statistics of
child obesity if we allow this to happen?
 What can we do to prevent this?
Effects of Television
Positive
Negative

• Watching a carefully Today’s children create

constructed educational an image of what they
TV show that is age think their bodies
appropriate helps school should look like from
age children in pre- what is on television.
reading skills.(2) This contributes to teen
girls being dissatisfied
with their looks.
 Television
some good points about television and violence.
Extensive viewing of television violence causes greater
aggressiveness.
Sometimes, watching a single violent program can increase
aggressiveness.
Children who view shows in which violence is very realistic,
frequently repeated or unpunished, are more likely to
imitate what they see.
Children with emotional, behavioral, learning or impulse
control problems may be more easily influenced by TV
violence.
The impact of TV violence may be immediately evident in
the child's behavior or may surface years later.
Young people can even be affected when the family
atmosphere shows no tendency toward violence.
 Music is next
 So let’s move on to music. How is music affecting our
children?
 Music is a way to inform the masses.
 Music has evolved from relaxing to more of a
negative nature.
 We use music to influence our dress, dancing, and
talk.
 Technology was evolved, it’s very rare to not see
children with their MP3 players, Ipods, or cell
phones.
 Music is a part of their everyday life.
 What is the message they are getting and is it what
we really want them to be listening to?
 Music
Positive effects
• Music introduces all different kinds of
cultures to our children.
• Music gives children a way to express
their emotions and feelings.
• Music helps children cope with daily
stresses and helps them deal with
stresses from peers.
• Music teaches them about history that
involved music.
• It gives children a calmness that lets
them dream and have hopes.
Negative effects
According to the American Academy of
Child and Adolescent Psychiatry the
troublesome lyrics of some teen
music:
 Advocate and glamorize the abuse of
drugs or alcohol
 Present suicide as a "solution"
 Display graphic violence
 Dwell on the occult with Satanism and
human sacrifice
 Describe harmful sexual practices, incest,
and a devaluing of women (2)
 How Video games affect our kids
 Video games are just another form of media
that affects our children today.
 It started out that video games were cute
cartoon characters.
 With the technology evolving they have turned
into very graphic games.
 This is what draws the children in. Every year it
seems that they come out with a system that
has even better graphics then the one before it.
 The games also have become more hostile and
disrespectful then ever.
Video games
Positives
 Video game playing introduces children to
computer technology.
 Games can give practice in following
directions.
 Some games provide practice in problem
solving and logic.
 Games can provide practice in use of fine
motor and spatial skills.
 Games can provide occasions for parent
and child to play together.
 Players are introduced to information
technology.
 Some games have therapeutic applications
with patients.
 Games are entertaining and fun (2)
Negatives
 Over-dependence on video games could
foster social isolation, as they are often
played alone.
 Practicing violent acts may contribute more
to aggressive behavior than passive
television watching. Studies do find a
relationship between violent television
watching and behavior.
 Women are often portrayed as weaker
characters that are helpless or sexually
provocative.
 Game environments are often based on
plots of violence, aggression and gender
bias.
 Many games only offer an arena of weapons,
killings, kicking, stabbing and shooting(2).
The Influence of Media on Children
• Dramatically influences children at all ages.

• Children are physically passive, yet mentally alert when watching TV.

• Repetition – the violence becomes so familiar that it becomes normal.

• Reduced boundaries between adult and child knowledge.

• Both quantity and quality matter.

25
 Media and Women
Body Image is Shaped by Many Factors

• Judgments or comments from others

• Sexual and racial harassment
• Stigmatization
• Prevailing social values
• Physical changes in the body during puberty, menopause & pregnancy
• Socialization
• How the individual feels about him/herself
• Violence – verbal, physical or sexual abuse
• Actual conditions of the body – illness or disabilities

• Eating Disorders are used to overcome traumas such as sexual abuse,

heterosexism, poverty, racism and class injuries.
 Social Influences/Causes
1. Females are valued for their attractiveness
• Whatever their race, class or ethnicity, most women
growing up in North America learn to dislike their
appearance and place a high premium on the cultural
ideals of beauty.

2. Parental influences produce gender stereotypes

• Parents describe infant daughters as beautiful, soft,
and cute and rate their sons as stronger and hardier.
• Research shows strong correlation between parental
dieting efforts and encouraging a child to diet.
 Social Influences/Causes
3. Fat is stigmatized
• Western society promotes widespread hatred and fear of fat.
• Studies show that children as young as 4 - 5 yrs. Old have
developed extremely negative stereotypes about fat.
• Fat people have lower rates of acceptance to college, reduced
likelihood of being hired for jobs and lower rates of pay

4. Media Image
• By high school, children have watched 15,000 hours of TV & spent
11,000 hours in school.
• They have seen 350,000 advertisements, half of which are selling
food. Over half of these commercials stress the importance of
being thin and beautiful.
• A study of three women's magazines reported that the percentage
of thin female models rose from 3% in the 1950's to 46% in the
1980's.
 Social Influences/Causes
5. Medical Profession
• In spite of the evidence to the contrary, many health professionals
and most people believe that body fat causes medical problems,
and interpret "overweight" as a physical and psychological
disease. In reality, many large women, pregnant or not, are quite
healthy.
6. Negative Self-Image and Low Self-Esteem
• The wide gap between the ideal of beauty for women and the
reality that each woman must contend with leads many to think
they have failed.
• Feelings of failure lead to body image problems and periodic
dieting and weight preoccupation that, in turn, lead to greater
feelings of failure.
• Twice as many young women as men do not feel good about
themselves and young women's sense of self-esteem and self-
confidence diminish as they grow older.
 Poor Body Image Affects All Women
• A study of young Native American women (Chippewa) found that 74% were trying
to lose weight (Rosen et al., 1988).

• In a recent study conducted through Essence Magazine, researchers found that

black women engage in weight reduction behaviors as frequently or more
frequently than white women.

• A study on the influence of sexual orientation on body dissatisfaction showed that

both lesbian and heterosexual women had comparable levels of body
dissatisfaction.

 A 10-year study of eating disorders in more than 2,000 girls (grades 4 through 12)
found amongst 7th graders, more Hispanic girls reported frequent weight loss
attempts over the previous year than did black or white girls.
 Stereotypes

• Women’s place is at home

• Women need to depend upon men

• Women do not make independent decision

• Women view themselves and are viewed as

sex objects.
 Women are Shown…

• Women are shown as less authoritative, active,

powerful, rational, decisive, and more concerned
with youth and with their attractiveness.

• Women are depicted as less intelligent than men

and tend to have subservient occupations.
 Beauty Myth

• Models present a new “ melting pot” of

beauty ( all colors, all creeds, all ethnicity
-and all still young, thin, and flawless).

• Advertising portray women as white with

white standards of beauty derived from
myths of whiteness.
 Cultivating Images of Thinness

In advertising, women receive more

messages about slimness and staying in
shape than men do, because thinness is
associated with good health and
attractiveness. In fact, images of thinness
are a cause of the eating disorders of
bulimia and anorexia.
 Ads and Articles in 48 Women’s Vs.
48 Men’s Magazines

1200

1000

800

Female: Green 600

Male: Blue
400

200

0
Diet Foods Body Ads Foods Ads Food Alocholic
Alcoholic
articles Bev
Bev
 Factoids

• 32% of female TV network characters are

underweight; 3% overweight

• 5% of females in U.S. are underweight; 25%

overweight

• 90% of people with eating disorders are women

According to Health magazine, Apr 2002
 Factoids

• Depression & low self-esteem pervasive problem

for American women

• Lower income women more likely to have low

self-esteem
• Younger women more depressed than older
• 43% of women ages 18-44 report severe
depression in a given week
National Survey of Women’s Health
 Factoids

• 80% of American women dissatisfied with body

• 42% 1st-3rd grade girls want to be thinner
• 81% 10 year olds are afraid of being fat
• 5-10 million girls and women struggling with
eating disorders

According to National Eating Disorders Association

 Factoids
• MTV is the favorite TV show for girls age 11-19
• 90% of the top 100 music videos shown on MTV were
directed by men
• Individuals who immigrate to the U.S. under the age of
17 are more predisposed to develop an eating disorder.
• Only 15 min of exposure to beauty advertisements
cause girls to perceive that beauty is even more
important to their popularity with boys.
 Factoids

• Adolescents Trying to Lose Weight

• 32.7% Asian-American
• 31.9% African-American
• 36.1% Hispanic/Latino-Americans
• 34.9% White-Americans