6 Contra flow in Global Media

1. AL AKHAWAYN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES COMMUNICATIONS STUDIES 6 Contra flow in Global Media Lecture by Dr. Mohammed Ibahrine based on Thussu’s International Communication

2. Structure of the Lecture • 1. Seeing the big world on a small screen • 2. Global culture’s discontents • 3. Global counter flow of television • 3.1 Cultures of Diaspora • 3.1.1 Case: Middle East Broadcasting Centre • 3.1.2 Case: Phoenix Chinese Channel

3. Structure of the Lecture • 3. Media exports from the South to the North • 3.1 Case 1: TV Globo • 3.2 Case 2: The other Hollywood: the Indian film industry

4. 1. Seeing the big world on a small screen • Television has come to dominate the media scene in virtually every part of the world • Icons of global television such as CNN and MTV have become ubiquitous • Global television has helped promote American consumerist culture

5. 1. Seeing the big world on a small screen • Governments • Transnational corporations • Terrorists • have harnessed the power of television to put across their case

6. 1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen • The globalization of such a powerful visual medium has tended to increase Western cultural influence but other models exist

7. 1. Seeing the big world on a small screen • US-led media conglomerates have used an array of strategies, including • Regionalization • localization of their content to extend their reach beyond the elites in the world and to create the • global popular

8. 1. Seeing the big world on a small screen • Global television has created a new phenomenon of “media events” the live broadcasting to historic events around the world • Olympic Games • The Gulf War • Natural or human disasters

9. 1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen • Western-inspired television has benefits • It has contributed to the creation of jobs in media and cultural industries • It has contributed to strengthening liberal democracy • It has improved media quality products (professional journalism, Mohammad Ayish, 2000)

10. 1. Seeing the big world on a smell screen • The expansion of Western publishing houses in the global South has some positive impacts: • Mexican writer become popular in the USA, with many more being translated into English • Can this lead to what a Mexican scholar called “Latinization of the United States”

11. “Latinization of the United States” • Can this lead to what a Mexican scholar called “Latinization of the United States” • Huntington, S. (2004). Who Are We?: The Challenges to America's National Identity. Publisher: Simon and Schuster

12. 2. Global Culture Discontent • The expansion of Western cultural presence in he developing world has negative impacts: • In the Islamic world: Iran “Westoxination” is the adoption and flaunting of superficial consumerist attributes of fads and commodities, originating in the USA • Iran banned Western television on the grounds that it was culturally inappropriate in an Islamic nation

13. 2. Global Culture Discontent • Why has Western liberalism its most robust resistance in the Islamic world • Political discourses (ideologies, Weltanschaungen) • Anti-Western • Islamo-phobia • Symbolism of interactions with Western cultural artifacts

14. JIHAD VS. McWORLD • “Just beyond the horizon of current events lie two possible political futures -- both bleak, neither democratic. The first is a retribalization of large swaths of humankind by war and bloodshed: a threatened Lebanonization of national states in which culture is pitted against culture, people against people, tribe against tribe -- a Jihad in the name of a hundred narrowly conceived faiths against every kind of interdependence, every kind of artificial social cooperation and civic mutuality. McWorld tied together by technology, ecology, communications, and commerce” (http://www.benjaminrbarber.com/)

15. 2. Global Culture Discontent • In the McWorld, culture is being commodified to the extent that it impacts on religious sensibilities of various communities • American individualism, mediated primarily through television, is seen as undermining traditional values • As a reaction to perceived Westernisation of their cultures • As a reaction to the alleged misrepresentation of non-Western cultures in the global media

16. 2. Global Culture Discontent • The result is a cultural revival • The world is experiencing the “revenge of the sacred” • The cultural revival is reflected in the use and production of media content • India: The Hindu epic Ramayan 1998 • China: Beijing opera 1998

17. 2. Global Culture Discontent • Although Western domination (television forms and formats) of the global media and communication remains overwhelming, the cultural interactions between Western media products and non-Western societies are deeply complex • People prefer entertainment in their own language, catering to their cultural priorities

18. 2. Global Culture Discontent • Obvious unfamiliarity • Limited and often distorted understanding of • History • Traditions • Languages • Cultures • of many developing countries leads to such undifferentiated view of the “majority world”

19. 3. Global Counterflow of television • A more nuanced understanding of the complex process of international cultural flow will show that the traffic is not just one way • From South to North • Southern media organizations are becoming visible across the globe and • Feeding into the emergent “diasporic public sphere”

20. Discourses of Globalization • Arjun Appadurai specifies five “spaces”: • Ethnospacess • Technospaces • Finanspaces • Mediaspaces • Ideospaces

21. Discourses of Globalization • Ethnospacess: denotes the flow of people • Tourists • Immigrants • Refuges • Students • Professionals From one part to another

22. Discourses of Globalization • Arjun Appadurai specifies five “spaces”: • Ethnospacess • Technospaces • Finanspaces • Mediaspaces • Ideospaces

23. Discourses of Globalization • Ethnospacess: denotes the flow of people • Tourists, • Immigrants • Refuges • Students • Professional From one part to another

24. Discourses of Globalization • Technospaces: • includes the transfer of technology across national borders

25. Discourses of Globalization • Finanspaces: • deals with international flow of investment

26. Discourses of Globalization • Mediaspaces: • refers to global media, especially its electronic version both its hardware and the images that it produces

27. Discourses of Globalization • Ideospaces: suggests ideological contours of culture

28. 3.1 Cultures of Diasporas • The Southern presence in the metropolitan centers of the world has caused the “loss of the natural relation of culture to geographical and social territories” • Diasporas are living “between cultures”/dual identity • Identity of imagery “homeland” # identity of host country

29. 3.1 Cultures of Diasporas • = Cultural hybridity -> • The cultural mixing can lead to a hybridization of cultures (Martin Barbero) • Think of the “diasporic public sphere” and the role of international communication (read handout, Arab communities in Europe)

30. Discussion • Counter flow of cultural products in no way show that the Western media domination has diminished • Their output is relatively small • Restricted to the diasporas communities

31. Key Terms • Please do supply a definition of one of the following key terms: • Nationalism/Regionalism/Internationalism • Colonialism/Empire • Capital/Capitalism • Regime (not politics) • Communication/Propaganda • Technology • State • Convergence • Globalization