Media and International Politics
Preliminary Remarks
We are told that this generation is far more complicated in terms of people’s lifestyle and behavior compared to the 60’s and 70’s generation. Indeed, there is a great gap between our generation and the generation of our parents. In fact, we are no longer adheres to their beliefs, myths, fables, and tradition. We have our own beliefs, myths, and tradition in which in turn our parents can hardly understand.
This reality seems so naive to them, yet, it is very clear. The emergence of technology and complex phenomena happened to be the primary factor in which we, the new generation, become detached from the previous generation and tradition. Moreover, we are not only detached to them but gradually become more and more independent in terms of how to define our life.
By and large, media become one of the many instruments in which influences our way of life. We look at media in different perspectives and in different ways. We become witnesses of the transformation and evolution of media. From standing as a paragon of peace, freedom and equality, to deterioration and ratification of reality, media seem to stand on its own, independent to the branching institutions. However, media become naive in some ways because it somehow caught unguarded with the lure of globalization. Here, we come to analyze how the trend of globalization comes to influence the media sphere.
The New Trend: Globalization
This construct renders a vast meanings and definition derived from various scholars of various disciplines. The vast definitions of globalization make us puzzled and logically inferred that absolute is non-existent insofar as a definitive meaning of globalization cannot be comprehended and capsulated.
In the book, Articulating the Global and the Local: Globalization and Cultural Studies, Ann Svetkovich and Douglas Kellner defined globalization as “a code word that stands for a tremendous diversity of issues and problems and that serves as a front for a variety of theoretical and political positions (1997).” This in a way served as a substitute term for modernization and continues as a legitimating ideology for the westernization of the world, cultural differences, and struggles.
Svetkovich and Kellner (1997), think that this phenomenon gradually replacing concepts such as imperialism, thus displacing focus on domination of developing countries by overdeveloped ones or on national and local economies by transnational corporations. In this discourse globalization functions and concepts are important in understanding the phenomenon which in nature a theoretical construct which varies according to the assumptions and perspectives in question. In this context, the authors would like to treat globalization as a term used to describe the ways global economic, political, cultural forces are rapidly penetrating the world in the creation of the “new world market, new transnational political organizations, and a new global culture.” Furthermore, globalization involves a dissemination of new technologies that have tremendous influence and impact on polity, economics, culture, society and in our daily life. New technologies such as communication instruments become the primal tool in creating a world, though, has frontiers, tremors to collapsed borders, inflicting and creating global cultural village wherein everyone defined his culture as universal and homogenuis. The diversity of culture, on the other hand, is neither protected nor preserved, rather the fundamental project of globalization is to collapse all barriers in order to form one single unit of culture—a new global culture.
Hence, globalization brings forth the consciousness of reconstruction, deconstruction and rehabilitation of what was present in civilizations long ago.
The Old and New Media
When we speak of old media, we immediately think of the three fundamental mediums namely: print, radio and television. These instruments that comprise the traditional concept of media are still present and powerful. Yet, it can be thought that each instrument occupies a certain level of power measured in terms of its effect to the producers or receivers. While print became the first medium invented, radio and television was the offshoot of reasonable guesses by its inventors, the three has its own inherent power to influence its audience.
On the other hand, theoretically speaking, when we thought of media models and theories we are immediately thinking about the linearity of communication popularized by Schramm and later on refuted, remodeled, revised, and modified by other media theorists and scholars. The historical pedigree of media is not exclusive only to those who theorizes communication and exploits the mediums, but became open to other critiques in different fields of academic pursuits. For instance, one of the most popular in terms of understanding the political economy of media was Karl Marx which thought that the ideological role of media always in favor to the capitalist ideologies since they have the power to manipulate and exploit using their capital in order to enable them to diffuse and proliferate their ‘believed’ ideologies to the public.
Moreover, media serve to be instrumental in the propagation of national identity and unity among the people within a community. The best to describe these qualities of the media is directly found on the journalistic doctrine in which media assumed a principal role being a fourth estate in a democratic society. Media help stabilize states’ three democratic branches: judiciary, legislative and executive, more so, to protect the democratic ideals of the society. This is very much related to Joseph Man Chan’s article Media, Democracy and Globalization: A Comparative Perspective, in which he believed that, the “the roles of media in a society are very much defined by its mode of media control which varies mainly with its power structure. In general, when power is concentrated, media tend to serve as an extension of the state and support the status quo.” The existing journalistic archetype is adherent and administrative in nature. Yet, when power is more spread, media can maintain greater relative autonomy and serve as a forum for a wider sector of the public.
The role of media practitioners is to carry out the cardinal values of their journalistic archetype which is to observe an objective, impartial, and true reporting of information to the public. This is true in the field of the old media, but I am not telling an absolute truth about the practice or the use of media instruments. What I am saying is that, these principles is somehow been practiced in the old times, yet, not all necessarily observed such practice. Hence, due to the emerging trend set by technology and globalization, media became the foremost sphere which is being victimized and attacked. Globalization and technological innovation become primary factors in which emergence of new media put forth dramatically in order to serve a specific purpose.
New media is described to be a phenomenon of ‘convergence’. This concept refers to “all forms of communications written text, statistical data, still and moving images, music and the human voice that now can be coded, stored and relayed in digital form, and made accessible and convertible through the end-used technology of the computer and/or television screen” (Golding and Murdoch, 1996). Moreover, Slaatta (1998) conjures that “changes in media and communications technology are simultaneously changes in the structuration of the social and cultural spaces for social interaction and integration.” Indeed, the structural and cultural formation of one’s behavior reflects the effects of the new media. The emergence of internet, ipod’s, mp4’s, sophisticated mobile phones, and other new gadgets presents an alarming mood for us. To examine the effects of these new media technologies in a wider perspective, we can say that these are purposively made and proliferated for economic gain. The economic value of these is transcendental. In this sense, the value becomes transcendental because it contributes to the constant violence among individuals and disparities of principles among nations.
Moreover, new media provide us a wider time and compressed space in which we can easily participate in a wider arena of socialization and political activities. It indeed brings a new paradigm to the civil society in terms of its role in opening a more accessible public spheres. Yet, these are still controlled and manipulated by the capitalist institutions. And as Slaatta argued, “the new media and information technology give an imperative towards scrutinizing the changes in the political economy of the international media industry.”
Media Globalization
Arjun Appadurai popularized the idea of scape that fundamentally described the central concept of sometimes ambiguously interpreted term globalization. In this context, we are introduced to terms like ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, finanscapes, and idioscapes. These terms illustrate the ideological, empirical, and structural dimensions of globalization in which variably affect the complex system of the society. What seems a basic knowledge and assumption about globalization in a theoretical debate, framing our thought on Marxism, is the idea of cultural homogenization. Moreover, in the discourse of Sinclair (2004), postmodern theorists see the trend as being much more in tension with its opposite, heterogenization—that is the proliferation of cultural fusion or ‘hybridity’ which occurs as global influences become absorbed and adapted in a host of local settings. Other globalization theorists would simply define the phenomenon as “the compression of the world”, “the intensification of consciousness of the world as a whole”, “annihilation of space by time”, and ‘time-space compression.” However, these theorists have different highly qualified definition on globalization it could be nice to find the neutral between their dissimilarities. These theorists, though, aware of being in disagreement regarding such matter, “all identified the control of space and time as a defining abstract principle behind globalization” (Sinclair, 2004).
Given these descriptive and theoretical definition of globalization offered by different theorists, it can be argued that the presence of media globalization continuously penetrates the cultural virginity of some societies that tried to keep their socio-cultural identity distinct, yet, with the emergence of new media flourishing in every corner of the globe, social theories dictate that it is inevitable to maintain the cultural virginity due to new media emergence. It reflects on the idea that globalization primarily caters to the homogenization of culture, by trying to use effective means like media.
David Held argues that “the growth of global communications above all of television, video and film, gives people new ways of seeing and participating in global development which opens up the possibility of new mechanisms of identification at a global or even a local level” (Held, 1995:124)
Slaatta’s melancholic description of new media reflects the trending effect of globalization by stating that: “The coming of the internet and the convergence technology, the traditional link between the cultural and the political space for social organization within the nation-state, and the organizational logic of the media and communication industry, is once more disconnected. This time is potentially into an almost anarchic disorder. The television screen, in its commodified, household form is presently turned into a veritable battle field or perhaps a battle screen where a formidable race is taking place between competing formats of software, operative systems, processors, sockets, hardware, cables and networks (1998: 6).
One concrete example that manifests a global media is found in Beverley Yu’s article Critical Analysis of Readings: Global Television which she cited the analysis made by Sowards in her article MTV Asia: Localizing the Global Media which contends that MTV Asia “repackages and disguises Western narratives of class, culture, values and consumerism which in effect helps construct a globalized, consumerist culture for middle-class Asians based on their consent and participation of MTV’s cultural hegemony.
The new media is characterized by the convergence phenomenon in which Slaatta (1998) articulates that due to convergence, “the present structure of the media industry will become increasingly blurred, as the boundaries between media technologies and their respective audience markets will collapse.” This phenomenon becomes a concrete picture of what media globalization is. Moreover, to look further into the significance of media globalization, we should take a simple act of analyzing certain offshoot of media globalization by bringing into the light the issue on media trends.
Critique on Media Globalization
Is media globalization helpful or does it misleads us to think that it is beneficial to our development?
The question posits differently answers coming from different theoretical and empirical perspectives. The advancement of media due to globalization in one hand is beneficial and helpful. On the other hand, it becomes alarming and misleading us. To speak of media globalization as beneficial and helpful is to speak of the globalized democratic system. Today, democracy becomes the global political system. Although, there are remnants of communism and socialism, majority of countries nowadays is democratized. The role of media in democratization is essential. Say for example, the well-known People Power Revolution in the Philippines that toppled down the dictatorial leadership of their former President Marcos was became successful not only because of the collective power of the masses but also because through the media in which people are gathered together to bring down the dictator to its presidency.
On the other hand, the ideological of media may have a negative and alarming state. Global media corporations are blinded by the pursuit of economic gain, oftentimes at the expense of quality and the interest of the public. This is always the critique under the Marxist doctrine. The media globalization misleads us to think of its primary purpose. The ideology in which it propagates can be a “false” ideology due to what the global media demonstrates is its noble task of bringing countries out of political oppression and authoritarian ruling system. Yet, the political economy of media still adheres to the idea that the main purpose of globalizing media is the political interest of those powerful countries like the United States to gain control over other regions and nation-states.
Further, media globalization brings significant effects like a compromise of journalistic integrity in favor of a commercially profitable global product and cultural identity in the case of MTV. Globalization implicitly promotes certain ideologies to foreign cultures by means of a mass medium and hence creating a state of hegemony.
Conclusion
The emergence of globalization is undoubtedly shatters our way of life. The cultural and anthropological relevance of the phenomenon came into existence through our recognition of the effects of media. In one way, through media we knew something about globalization like the emergence of scapes popularized by Appadurai. Moreover, we should treat this phenomenon in a balance platform in order to see both edges of it. In one hand, media globalization significantly brings easy access to the events of the world and promotes democratization. On the other had, media globalization may only be a trap of the main purpose of powerful international media outfits. Media globalization supports on the noble act of helping the world to cope with problems related to freedom, equality, and peace, may only be a pretense to the real socio-political interest which is to gain control of other countries.
The issue on media globalization is complex. It needs to be examined well and trying to make a more objective and empirical analysis. Although, media theorists and sociologist may already provide ample discussions and theories in order to bring media globalization in the litmus-test, it can again be argued that constant update and assessment should be put forth.
References
Adesoji, A. (2006). Globalization of the media and the challenges of democratization in Nigeria. http://www.nobleworld.biz/images/Adesoji.pdf
Chan, J. (n. d.) Media, Democracy and Globalization: A Comparative Perspective. http://www.waccglobal.org/index.php/wacc/content/pdf/680
Golding, P. & Murdoch, G. (1996). Culture, Communications and Political Economy, in Curran, J. & Gurevitch, M (1996) Mass Media and Society. London: Arnold
Held, D (1995). Democracy and the Global Order. Cambridge: Polity Press
Sinclair, J. (2004). Globalization, Supranational Institutions, and Media. http://www.sagepub.co.uk/mcquail5/downloads/Handbookchaps/ch3%20Downing%20HB.pdf
Slaatta, T. (1998). Media and Politics: Research Strategies in a Crossdisciplinary Field. http://www.nordicom.gu.se/common/publ_pdf/30_slaatta.pdf
Yu, B. (n. d). Critical Analysis of Readings: Global Television. http://beverleyyu.com/Documents/criticalanalysis.pdf
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