Media Globalization
Approaches to Theorizing
International Communication
Formation of Theories
• Theories offer ways of approaching the subject of
International communication.
▫ At the end of the First World War the main focus
remained on the effects of communication by the
Imperial powers.
▫ The formation of “public opinion” by Walter
Lippmann (1922).
▫ The propagation of wartime “propaganda” by Harold
Lasswell (1927).
Formation of Theories
• Two broad but often interrelated approaches to
theorizing international communication can be
seen. These are;
▫ Political Economy approach.
▫ Cultural Studies approach.
Formation of Theories
• Political Economy
Approach.
• Propagated by Karl Marx, focuses
on and questions the underlying
structures of economic and
political power running the
system.
• It is a critical research which
examines the patterns of
ownership and production in the
media & communication
industry.
• The content of media systems is
analyzed within the context of
social and economic power
relations based on national and
transnational interests.
According to Karl Marx;
“The class which has the means of
material production has control at
the same time over the means of
mental production so that, the ideas
of those who lack the means of
mental production are subject to it…
Therefore, the ruling class regulates
the production and distribution of
the ideas of their age: Thus their
ideas are the ruling ideas of that
epoch”.
Formation of Theories
• Cultural Studies Approach.
• Focuses on the role of communication & media in creating
and maintaining shared values and meanings.
• Growing research in this field has enabled this approach to
become increasingly influential.
• Started in Britain in the 1970’s with the study of popular
culture and their role in the reproduction of social
hegemony & inequality.
• It focused on how media texts work to create meaning and
how culturally situated individuals work to gather meaning
from texts.
• Cultural study scholars assert that people create their own
meaning from the texts they receive from the media.
Theories of International
Communication
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Free flow of Information
Modernization theory
Dependency theory
Structural Imperialism
Hegemony
The Public Sphere
Cultural Studies
Free flow of Information
• The “free flow” doctrine was essentially a part of the liberal,
free market discourse.
• Championed the rights of media proprietors to sell wherever
and whatever they wished - Propagated media proprietors
rights.
• The concept of “free flow” served both economic and political
players - Perpetuation of Capitalism.
• For Western governments “free flow” helped to ensure the
continuing and unreciprocated influence of western media on
global markets.
• It also strengthened the West in its ideological battle against
the Soviet Union.
• It provided a vehicle for the US government to inject its views
on international audiences.
Modernization theory
• Western nations assumed that International
communication was the key to the process of
modernization and development in the Third World.
• Could be used to spread the message of modernity by the
transfer of economic and political models of the West.
• It was based on the idea that mass media could help
transform ‘traditional societies’.
Modernization theorists
• Its most enthusiastic
proponent was Daniel Lerner,
The Passing of Traditional
Society (1958).
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• Another key modernization
theorist was Wilbur Schramm,
Mass Media and National
Development (1964).
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In his work, The Passing of Traditional
Society, characterized media as a mobility
multiplier, which enables people to
experience events in far-off places forcing
them to reassess their traditional way of life.
The Western path of ‘development’ was
presented as the most effective way to shake
off traditional ‘backwardness’.
Schramm saw media as a “bridge to a wider
world”.
A vehicle for transferring new ideas and
models from the North to the South, and
within the South from urban to rural areas.
The timing of Schramm’s book was
significant as the 1960’s had been
proclaimed by the UN as the “Decade of
Development”.
Modernization theorists
• Leading theorist Everett Rogers
belonged to the ‘development as
modernization’ school.
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Saw a key role for mass media in international
communication and development.
The top-down approach to communication, a
one-way flow from government or development
agencies to the Southern peasantry at the
bottom, was seen as a panacea for development.
• Mass media were assumed to be a neutral force.
• Since the media has and continues to have close proximity to the
ruling elite, they tend to reflect their view of development.
• Under the Cold War context, the modernization theory emerged at a
time when it was politically expedient for the West to use the notion
of modernization in order to influence the newly independent
countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
A Critique of Modernization theory
• The assumption of modernization theorist that modern and
traditional lifestyles were mutually exclusive and their dismissive
view of cultures of the “indigenous native”.
• Failed to comprehend that the dichotomy of modern versus
traditional was not inevitable.
• Traditional cultures can also deploy modern communication
methods to put their case across.
• Scholars in the South critiqued that modernization programs were
exacerbating the already deep social and economic inequalities in
the developing countries and making them dependant on Western
models.
• As a result of the debate, mainly propagated by Latin American
scholars, the West acknowledged that the theory needed
reformulation.
Dependency theory
• Concept emerged in Latin
America; 1960’s and 1970’s as
a consequence of the political
situation in the continent, with
increasing support by the US
for right-wing authoritarian
governments.
• The realization amongst the
educated elite that the
development approach to
international communication
had failed to deliver.
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Arguments:
Development for these countries was
shaped in a way to strengthen the
dominance of the developed nations
and to maintain the “peripheral
nations” in a position of dependence.
Make conditions suitable for
dependent development.
The cultural aspects of dependency
theory, invested in the production,
distribution and consumption of
media and cultural products.
The dependency theorists aimed to
show a link between discourses of
‘modernization’ and the promotion of
vested interests of international media
organizations and their governments
in the West.
Dependency theory & the birth of
Imperialism
• Gunder Frank, 1969.
▫ “TNC’s based in the North exercise
control over developing countries by
using the terms of global trade –
dominating markets, resources,
production and labor. Development
of these countries was shaped in a
way to strengthen the dominance of
the developed nations and to
maintain the ‘peripheral’ nation in a
position of dependence – to make
conditions suitable for ‘dependent
development’”.
• Herbert Schiller
▫ “Dependence on US
communication technology and
investment coupled with the new
demand for media products
necessitated large-scale imports of
US media products, notably films
and television programs. This
inexorably promotes an ‘American
way of Life’ which Western
advertisers take advantage of by
mediating a consumer lifestyle”
Cultural Imperialism
• The idea of cultural
imperialism was most clearly
defined by the work of Herbert
Schiller,
‘Mass Communication and
Empire’ (1969 – 1995).
• Working within the neoMarxist tradition, Schiller
analyzed the global power
structures in the international
communication industry and
the links between
transnational businesses and
dominant states.
• The argument stated that in the
pursuit of commercial interests USbased transnational corporations,
often in league with Western
military and political interests were
undermining the cultural autonomy
of Southern countries.
• Creating a dependency on both the
hardware and software of
communication and media in the
developing countries.
• Schiller found historical
continuities in its quest for
systemic power and control of
global communication.
Media Imperialism
• Another prominent aspect of
dependency was identified by
Oliver Boyd-Barrett in the
1970’s as
Media Imperialism.
• An examination of media
inequalities between nations
and analyzing the hegemonic
power of mainly USdominated media systems on
the world.
• Media Imperialism
The process whereby the ownership,
structure, distribution or content of
the media in any country are singly
or together subject to substantial
external pressures from the media
interests of any other country or
countries, without proportionate
reciprocation of influence by the
country so affected (1977).
Structural Imperialism
By Galtung (1971);
• The world consists of
developed ‘centre’ states and
underdeveloped ‘periphery’
states.
• Each centre and periphery
state possesses a highly
developed core and a less
developed periphery.
• There is a harmony between
the core of the centre nations
and the centre in the periphery
nations.
• Imperialism dependent upon the
exchange between five arenas of
interest.
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Economic
Political
Military
Communication
Cultural
• The basic mechanism of structural
imperialism revolves around two
forms of interaction.
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Vertical
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Vertical interaction principle
maintains that relationships are
asymmetrical.
Feudal
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Feudal interaction principle states
that there is interaction along the
spokes, from the periphery to the
centre hub, but not along the rim,
from one periphery nation to another.
Structural Imperialism
• Galtung’s theory is particularly relevant in understanding global
news flows from the centre and the core to the periphery via
international news agencies.
• Thus the cores version of news will be reflected in the news in the
peripheral regions.
• This has been called the ‘agenda-setting function’ of the
international media.
• However, globalization of new information and communication
technologies and the resultant wiring up of the globe, and the
emphasis on cultural hybridization rather than cultural
imperialism has made dependency theories less fashionable.
• However structural inequalities in international communication
continue to render them relevant.
Mid-term Assignment
• Discuss an international event that is currently unfolding
in the news. How do the theories in your book explain this
phenomenon? Are there any aspects of the phenomenon
that disagree with the theories presented? Explain?
Hegemony
• Gramsci’s conception of hegemony is rooted in
the notion that the dominant social group in
society has the capacity to exercise intellectual
and moral direction over society at large and to
build a new system of social alliances to build its
aims.
The Public Sphere
• Developed by Habermas this concept conveyed that by the eighteenth century, a
‘bourgeois public sphere’ had emerged in an expanding capitalist society.
• These entrepreneurs were becoming powerful enough to achieve autonomy from
State and Church and increasingly demanding wider and more effective political
representation to facilitate expansion of their businesses.
• A greater freedom of the press was fought for and achieved with parliamentary
reform.
• However, as capitalist expanded and attained dominance, the call for reform of the
state was replaced by an effort to take it over to further business interests.
• Though the idealized version of the public sphere has been criticized, it provides a
useful concept in understanding the democratic potential for communication.
• Especially today, with globalization of the media there has evolved a ‘global public
sphere’ where issues of international significance can be articulated through the mass
media.
Cultural Studies Perspective
• The cultural studies perspective was led in the 1970’s by Stuart Hall.
• It also became known as the Birmingham School.
• Did pioneering work in exploring the textual analysis of media, especially
television and ethnographic research.
• Hall’s model of ‘encoding-decoding’ media discourse was especially
influential.
• This model emphasized how media texts are given preferred readings by
producers and how they may be interpreted in different ways thus creating
impartiality in content.
• This impartiality makes audiences accept the dominant meaning conveyed
in the discourse.
• Evident especially while depicting foreign, mainly Eastern cultures,
Western media tends to keep them subordinate to Western culture.