Monday, September 11, 2006
The Rise of Global Media
I know this is long, but it was hard for me to summarize a 30 page article in fewer than 400 words.
This article describes the origins of media, its evolution into global media and its impact on global capitalism. Global media not only plays a central economic role, by connecting the world, creating an infrastructure for nonmedia firms, but it also provides a global informational and ideological environment that supports an economic foundation for a profit-driven social order. Herman and McChesney outline the evolution of global media, beginning with its early origins, to the creation of a truly integrated global media market.
Media began entirely as a local entity, although that outward drive of new capitalism starting in the fifteenth century, caused the movement of people, goods, as wells as precious resources to set in motion an international market system. History has shown that media systems reflect the overall political economy at the time; therefore initially the press was regulated and heavily censored by the government and political parties and later controlled by business, consequently operating under commercial beliefs. With the coming of the telegraph and underwater cables, the growth of international expansion was inevitable, yet global media found severe resistance. The film industry was the first true media industry to serve a global market, yet it was mostly controlled by Hollywood, so its spread was hindered in Britain and France who hoped to protect its domestic industry. Radio broadcasting was different, it used its range of coverage for intense international politics, which limited the American capitalist businesses to use broadcasting for profits. Also, foreign countries felt the reach of radio was far too important to be used for commercial purpose and instead it fought for public service systems. Yet, after the end of World War II the U.S. was stronger than ever, while Great Britain and France suffered wartime damages and Germany and Japan were left completely devastated. As a result, the U.S. began its strong campaign for the “free flow of information” which grew stronger with the support of transnational corporations as well as the development of satellite communication. The main opposition against the campaign was from the Movement of the Non-Aligned Nations (NAM) who criticized the western monopoly of global news services, the inequality in information resources, and also the strong western culture influence that were rooted in entertainment programming. The NAM faction moved for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), but it failed to contain meaningful reform proposals and was seen more as a begging operation to restrain western profits. The United States and Great Britain redrew from the UNESCO which supported NWICO which then caused UNESCO decline showing the weakness of the power of the Third World community. Consequently global media, controlled by the strongest nations, took the commercial form the U.S. fought for from the beginning.
Herman and McChesney summarize the new global corporate ideology that morphed from the history of global media identifying four major components. Its core idea is that the market distributes resources and also provides for the organizing of economic life. Secondly, the importance of less government involvement except when business needs regulations in concern with competitiveness. A third component is the belief that the main objective concerning economic policy is a sustainable economic growth. The global corporate ideology concludes with the significance of the belief in a need of privatization, allowing the market to control the future of the global economy.
Discussion Questions
1. Perhaps the only fault of this ideal corporate ideology is its lack of attention to the inequality of income in society, do you think this will change through government of social influence?
2. Will public services in the United States attain their statue of importance once held outside the U.S. before deregulations and privatization?
3. The third component stresses the importance of competitiveness, yet with recent mergers and what history has shown, there are only a few major transnational media companies, is this enough to encourage competitiveness or does the government need to intervene with regulations?
4. Herman and McChesney end with a quote to summarize the future of global media, ‘by all accounts the 1990s promise a rate and speed of change that will make previous decades uneventful by comparison.’ This has somewhat proven to be true; what possible foreseen problems do you think could occur once this speed of change begins to slow?
This article describes the origins of media, its evolution into global media and its impact on global capitalism. Global media not only plays a central economic role, by connecting the world, creating an infrastructure for nonmedia firms, but it also provides a global informational and ideological environment that supports an economic foundation for a profit-driven social order. Herman and McChesney outline the evolution of global media, beginning with its early origins, to the creation of a truly integrated global media market.
Media began entirely as a local entity, although that outward drive of new capitalism starting in the fifteenth century, caused the movement of people, goods, as wells as precious resources to set in motion an international market system. History has shown that media systems reflect the overall political economy at the time; therefore initially the press was regulated and heavily censored by the government and political parties and later controlled by business, consequently operating under commercial beliefs. With the coming of the telegraph and underwater cables, the growth of international expansion was inevitable, yet global media found severe resistance. The film industry was the first true media industry to serve a global market, yet it was mostly controlled by Hollywood, so its spread was hindered in Britain and France who hoped to protect its domestic industry. Radio broadcasting was different, it used its range of coverage for intense international politics, which limited the American capitalist businesses to use broadcasting for profits. Also, foreign countries felt the reach of radio was far too important to be used for commercial purpose and instead it fought for public service systems. Yet, after the end of World War II the U.S. was stronger than ever, while Great Britain and France suffered wartime damages and Germany and Japan were left completely devastated. As a result, the U.S. began its strong campaign for the “free flow of information” which grew stronger with the support of transnational corporations as well as the development of satellite communication. The main opposition against the campaign was from the Movement of the Non-Aligned Nations (NAM) who criticized the western monopoly of global news services, the inequality in information resources, and also the strong western culture influence that were rooted in entertainment programming. The NAM faction moved for a New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO), but it failed to contain meaningful reform proposals and was seen more as a begging operation to restrain western profits. The United States and Great Britain redrew from the UNESCO which supported NWICO which then caused UNESCO decline showing the weakness of the power of the Third World community. Consequently global media, controlled by the strongest nations, took the commercial form the U.S. fought for from the beginning.
Herman and McChesney summarize the new global corporate ideology that morphed from the history of global media identifying four major components. Its core idea is that the market distributes resources and also provides for the organizing of economic life. Secondly, the importance of less government involvement except when business needs regulations in concern with competitiveness. A third component is the belief that the main objective concerning economic policy is a sustainable economic growth. The global corporate ideology concludes with the significance of the belief in a need of privatization, allowing the market to control the future of the global economy.
Discussion Questions
1. Perhaps the only fault of this ideal corporate ideology is its lack of attention to the inequality of income in society, do you think this will change through government of social influence?
2. Will public services in the United States attain their statue of importance once held outside the U.S. before deregulations and privatization?
3. The third component stresses the importance of competitiveness, yet with recent mergers and what history has shown, there are only a few major transnational media companies, is this enough to encourage competitiveness or does the government need to intervene with regulations?
4. Herman and McChesney end with a quote to summarize the future of global media, ‘by all accounts the 1990s promise a rate and speed of change that will make previous decades uneventful by comparison.’ This has somewhat proven to be true; what possible foreseen problems do you think could occur once this speed of change begins to slow?
