Contraflow in Global Media

- Seeing the Big World on a

Small Screen

Lecture # 35
 Introduction
• The globalization of Western media has been a major influence in shaping media
cultures internationally.
• While there are forces for convergence and homogenization, the spread of the US
model of professional, commercial television has also brought beneficial changes
to some national and regional media industries, leading to a revival of cultural
nationalism.
• The availability of digital technology and satellite networks has enabled the
development of regional broadcasting, as with the pan-Arabic Middle East
Broadcasting Centre (MBC) and the Mandarin language Phoenix channel, which
caters to a Chinese diaspora.
• This has also enabled an increasing flow of content from the global South to the
North, for example, the Brazilian television giant TV Globo, which exports its
telenovelas to more than 100 countries, while the Indian film industry is an
example of a non-Western production centre making its presence felt in a global
cultural context.
 Seeing the big world on a small screen
• With the developments of the 1990s, television has come to dominate the media
scene in virtually every part of the world and such icons of global television as CNN
and MTV have become ubiquitous.
• The role of television in the construction of social and cultural identities is now
much more complex than in the era of a single national broadcaster and a shared
public space, which characterized television in most countries in the post-war years.
• Though national broadcasters continue to be important in most countries, still
receiving the highest audience shares, the availability of a myriad television channels
has complicated the national discourse.
• In the multi-channel era, a viewer can have simultaneous access to a variety of local,
regional, national, and international channels, thus being able to engage in different
levels of mediated discourses.
• In Russia, for example, since the end of the Cold War, global television has helped
promote Western consumerist culture.
• The secret of the success of the new privatized Russian television, says a
recent UNESCO report, 'is amix of American and Latin American soap
operas, games inspired by channels in the West, talk shows and
occasionally sensational news bulletins‘.
• At the other end of the world, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
provides loans and technical support to the island nations of the Pacific
region to ensure that they can download their TV signals and retransmit
Australian programming and Australian products.
• Global television has created a new phenomenon of 'media events' – the
live broadcasting of 'historic' events around the world - Olympic Games,
Tiananmen Square violence, the Gulf War, natural or human disasters.
• The global coverage of the 1995 televised trial of US sportsman O. J.
Simpson, television's treatment of the death of Princess of Diana in 1997,
'Monicagate' in 1998 and the millennium celebrations in 1999, can be added
to the list of such shared global media experiences.
• Transnational corporations, governments and militant groups have
harnessed the power of television to put across their case.
• In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez has used the medium to have his own
three-hour face-to-face TV show, with live phone-ins from the audience,
which attracted more than 11 million viewers in a country of just 23 million.
• In Malaysia, the Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, Asia's longest-serving
leader, commissioned a 33-part soap opera based loosely on his life, called
Unfinished Struggle.
• When rebel gunmen stormed the parliament and killed Armenian Prime
Minister Vazagen Sarkissian in October 1999 as he was addressing the
parliament on TV, they did not shoot the television crew, aware that their
pictures and messages were being broadcast live in the country and through
national broadcasters and thanks to modern digital technology, beamed
across the newsrooms through global TV channels.
• The Kurds have established their own satellite channel MED-TV, which broadcasts
in three main Kurdish dialects - Kirmanci, Sorani and Zazaki - and in Turkish and
Arabic to Kurds living in Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria and those of
Kurdish diaspora in Europe.
• The station which operated from London from 1995 took its name MED from
Medes, the ancient people from whom the Kurds are descended, now the world's
'largest stateless nation‘.
• The Turkish government alleges that MED-TV is a mouthpiece for the PKK, the
Turkish Workers Party, which has been waging a guerrilla war for the past two
decades in eastern Turkey.
• As Reeves and Nass observe: 'Media can evoke emotional responses, demand
attention, threaten us, influence memories, and change ideas of what is natural.
Media are full participants in our social and natural world‘.
• Television images of emotionally charged funerals of soldiers, broadcast on Indian
news channels during the 1999 border conflict with Pakistan, labelled as 'India's
first conflict in the information age,‘ created 'a direct impact on policy makers, the
armed forces, the families of the dead - and the public opinion‘.
• The globalization of such a powerful visual medium has tended to
increase Western cultural influence but other models do exist, argues
UNESCO World Culture Report, based on 'a different cultural institutional
and historical backgrounds and such alternatives are likely to multiply in
the era of globalisation, in spite of appearances, which may paradoxically
witness greater diversity than uniformity‘.
• As Chapter 5 noted, the US-led Western media conglomerates have used
an array of strategies, including regionalization and localization of their
content to extend their reach beyond the elites in the world and to create
the 'global popular'.
• The proliferation of satellite and cable television channels, made
possible with digital technology and growing availability of
communication satellites, has undoubtedly made the global cultural
landscape much more complex.
• While their well-publicized commercial agenda has been criticized, the
globalization of Western or Western-inspired television also has benefits.
• It has contributed, for example, to the creation of jobs in media and
cultural industries. (e.g. call centres, transcriptions etc.)
• As localization becomes part of the business strategy of media
transnationals, it is likely more jobs will be created in these industries in
many developing countries to make programmes taking on board cultural
specificity.
• By the end of the 1990s in India, there were 70 channels, more than 20
national, others regional, some joint ventures with international
operators.
• This expansion demanded new programme content - from news to game
and- chat shows, from soap operas to documentaries, which has been
provided by a burgeoning television industry.
• It has also been argued that the extension of Western media, and with it
'modernity', across the globe has a liberatory potential that can contribute to
strengthening liberal democratic culture and promoting gender equality and
freedom from the 'national strait-jacket‘.
• There is little doubt that digital technologies have made it possible to beam a
range of specialized channels across the world, some in local or national
languages, which are giving more choice to consumers and opening up their
window on the world.
• This is particularly the case in many developing countries, where the media,
especially broadcasting, had been under state control and where often
unrepresentative and sometimes unelected governments could use the
airwaves to control their populations, severely restricting plurality of opinions
and possibilities of open discussion.
• The Western style of professional television journalism, essentially based on
independence from government control, has influenced programme making in
many countries.
• Examples of the adoption of this kind of journalism are the current-affairs
programmes such as Aap Ki Adalat (Your Court) on Zee TV in India, and critical
investigative programmes such as Jiaodian Fangtan (Focal Report) on China's
CCTV, which in the words of one Chinese scholar, has 'proved that television
can play a role in being the people's and not just the Party's mouthpiece' .
• In Turkey, the privatization of television has challenged the monopoly of the
state-run national broadcaster Turkish Radio and Television Authority (TRT),
and brought 'openness and plurality' to the airwaves.
• There is also more evidence of liberalism in the press. After the advent of
'multi-partyism' in Africa, there has been a rapid increase in the number of
privately-run small newspapers and magazines.
• In Indonesia, for example, more than 730 press publication licences were
issued in 1998-99, compared with a total of 289 during President Suharto's
32-year one-party rule.
• In other areas of the media too, examples can be given of how globalization
has improved the quality of media products.
• Expansion of Western publishing houses in the global South has had some
positive impact.
• For example, after NAFTA, US publishing giants such as McGraw-Hill and
Prentice Hall entered the Mexican publishing market, opening up new
avenues for Mexican writers as they become popular in the USA, with many
more being translated into English.
• The English translation of the Mexican author Laura Esquivel's novel Coma
agua para chocolate, sold more than a million copies in the USA as well as
200000 copies in the Spanish market in the USA, leading to what one Mexican
scholar called, surely as a hyperbole, the 'Latinization of the United States‘.
 Global culture's discontents
• Some examples of discontent:
• The Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah of Iran in 1979 was not spurred
by modernization as much as by opposition to what Iranian intellectuals called
'westoxication', the adoption and flaunting of superficial consumerist attributes
of fads and commodities, originating in the USA.
• Countries such as China, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and Iran have tried to restrict
the reception of Western satellite television by introducing licensing regimes.
• Iran banned Western television on the grounds that it was culturally
inappropriate in an Islamic nation, primarily because of the sexual content and
orientation of Western television programmes, films and advertising.
• In India, worries have been expressed about the representation of women in
the media, especially advertising - 'The commodification of women’.
• At some places, McWorld culture is being commodified to the extent that it
impacts on religious sensibilities of various communities.
• In Asia, Western culture, based on individualism and mediated primarily
through television, is seen as undermining traditional Asian values, revolving
round the family and the community.
• Disney's animation film The Hunchback of Notre Dame drew criticism from
many in France for its trivialization of Victor Hugo's famous novel, while its
Hercules offended many Greeks.
• The release in China of Disney's 1998 feature Mulan was delayed by the
government which was unhappy with the portrayal of aspects of Chinese
culture in the film.
• Hindu groups in the USA took exception to the portrayal of Hindu deity Krishna
in an episode of a popular New Zealand-made and globally syndicated
television serial Xena: Warrior Princess.
• Some positive examples of effects of westernization of media:
• In 1996, Iran released Sara, who wears Islamic dress - its answer to the
glamorous US doll Barbie, which has iconic status among young girls across
the world.
• The Bosnian Muslims have also introduced their own doll called Amina and,
• in 1999, Arab nations introduced an Arab doll, Leila.
• In Malaysia, for example, the reaction to Western popular music has been in
the form of the growing popularity of the Islamist music groups such as Huda -
an all-female group whose music, promoting family values, has been very
successful.
Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) –
Contraflow Example
• Partly as a reaction to the availability of Western television in the region, pan-
Arabic channels such as Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC) have
emerged on the Arab broadcasting scene.
• The primary objective of these channels is to broadcast Arabiclanguage
programmes to Arab nationals living in Europe and North America - an
estimated five million Arabs live in Europe and another two million in North
America.
• This well-established and wealthy diaspora has created new foreign markets
for Arab broadcasters.
• Intra-Arab communication was first established by the international Arabic
newspapers, written with datelines across the Arab world, edited in London
and printed in major world capitals, using satellite communications.
• The newspapers such as a/-Sharq al-Awsat (started in London in 1978), al-
Hayat (originally a Beirut newspaper which was resurrected in London in
1988 but only became famous in 1990 with Saudi funds) and al-Quds al-
Arabi, (unlike the other two, this is a radical newspaper and supports the
PLO) cover issues of importance to Arab readers and are available on the day
of publication in most Arab capitals.
• In 1998, al-Hayat was being printed in eight cities, including Riyadh, London,
Frankfurt and New York, with a combined circulation of 168 000 copies.
• Prior to the availability of satellite television, regional broadcasting was
largely about exchange of government propaganda between Arab state-
regulated broadcasters through such organizations as the Arab States
Broadcasting Union (ASBU).
• In the 1990s with the rise of a privatized Arab satellite broadcast television, a
new type of pan-Arabic television emerged, challenging state monopolies
that had characterized broadcasting in the Arab world.
Phoenix Chinese Channel
• Major media corporations have endeavoured to enter China market, language barrier
and the tight control of airwaves by the Chinese government, have made it difficult for
transnational media players to operate in China.
• News Corporation's launch in 1996 of Phoenix Chinese Channel, the round-the-clock,
Mandarin language channel was an attempt to get round these barriers by localizing
the media product.
• Though partly owned by Murdoch, the channel has most of its programming in
Mandarin and the top management, including Executive Chairman and CEO, are
Chinese.
• More than other media tycoons, Murdoch has realized that it is local programming that
sells best.
• Therefore his priority is to make original programming in Chinese for the Chinese
mainland and for the Chinese diaspora - estimated to be more than 30 million - mainly
concentrated in south-east Asia but also present in sizeable numbers in North America.
Counter Arguments / Concepts
• Contra-flows - countries once thought as major “clients” of media imperialism
such as Mexico, Canada, Brazil have successfully exported their programmes and
personnel into the “Centre”.
• Mexico (Televisa Group), Brazil (TV Globo), Canada (CanWest) now export TV
programmes and music to the countries all over the world.
• Regionalism- there is now greater exchange of news, TV programmes, print
media, music between regions, e.g. DSTV (South Africa), Nollywood (Nigeria),
Bollywood (India), Lollywood (Pakistan), Star TV (Hong Kong), Al Jazeera (Qatar),
EuroNews (EU). Exchange of cultural products has also increased in Scandinavia.
Counter Arguments / Concepts
• Localisation - local programmes remain popular and attract large audiences.
People prefer to watch their own locally made programmes.
• Glocalisation / Hybridity- term popularised by British sociologist Roland
Robertson in the 1990s and later developed by Zygmunt Bauman. This is
characterised by the global-local interaction, by cultural fusion as a result of
adaptation of Western media genres to suit local cultures and languages. For
example, US generic models (e.g. soaps, sitcoms, action movies) have invited
domestic imitation based on the country´s cultural and social realities.
Counter arguments contd...
Alternative media
community media: from the margins to the cutting edge
• Address the digital divide: access, voice for the voiceless
• Platform/spaces for civic engagement and expression
• Internal flows of communication (devcom: endogenous
community, local culture, indigenous knowledge etc)

Internet as alternative media enabling reversal of flows (see

youtube.com, myspace and other people-centric channels,
suggestions?)
Determinants of reversal of global flows

• Post-Fordist mode of production

• New technology (satellite, internet)
• Changing patterns in geo-politics
• Deregulation of the media
• Growth of “diasporic communities” in the West see India´s Zee Tv watched by second generation
British Asians, Chinese TV channel Phoenix and the pan-Arabic entertainment network MBC are
examples of media representing what may be labeled as geo-cultural flows aimed at largely a
diasporic pop.(Thussu, 2007, 14)
Entertainment & Media Market (USD 1.3 trillion)

US$ 450 billion

US$ 523 billion

US$ 32 billion
US$ 23 billion

US$ 229 billion

Media Flows

•Global
•Transnational
•Geo-Cultural
Global Media: Dominant Flows

Text
Transnational Media: Contra-Flows

Shilpa Shetty
Geo-Cultural: Contra-Flows
 Impact of Media Flows

• Dominant flows (US mainly) continue to shape the global media

order.
• Contra-Flows are important but remain small in comparison.
• Impact of this order is complex as reception of these cultural
products is never uniform
Impact of Media Flows
• Some argue this is leading to a cultural dependency
of the South on the North
• This dependency amounts to cultural imperialism.
• Audiences in this research on the political economy
of the global media were ignored or assumed to be
victims
• Another assumption: core-periphery focus
• Assumption: audiences cannot innovate or improvise
on the core.
Glocalization
• Re-appropriation/indeginization of Western
cultural products: CNBC Asia; STAR TV Japan;
STAR PLUS/NEWS India; Viacom’s Showtime
Arabic; MTV Latin America; CNN En Espanol;
Time Asia; Fortune China, National Geographic,
etc.
• Is this localizing Americana promoting a
Westernized elite market and liberal
democracy?
South-South Media Flows

• Aided by media technology and people

mobility (35m Chinese and 20m Indians in
diaspora);
• Emerging geo-cultural/linguistic spaces:
circulation and adaptation of media products
inside and across regions (telenovelas in
Russia, India and the Middle East)
• Bollywood as an example of contra-flow
worth billions of dollars.
Hybridity as Hegemony?
• Imbalance between dominant and subaltern
media flows is still real
• Bollywood accounted for 0.2% of the $200b
global film industry in 2004.
• Out of the top 5 entertainment companies, 4
are US-based: Time Warner, Walt Disney,
Viacom, and News Corp.
• Print: WSJ, Business Week, Fortune, Reader’s
Digest, Cosmo, and Na. Geo. Time and
newsweek.
Hybridity as Hegemony?

• Contra against whom exactly?

• Telesur (Al-Bolivar), Al-Jazeera, French Int’l
News Channel, etc.
• Contra doesn’t necessarily mean anti-
hegemonic- Soft Power is still power and
glocalization processes, while important,
reinforce a dominant media order.