Transitional Media Corporations - Essay Example

Transitional Media Corporations Introduction In the point of view of most Third World countries, the core point of argument in the transnational media corporations (TMC) debate considers the detrimental impact that international communication has upon world’s cultural diversity, particularly upon the cultures of Third World or less developed countries (LDCs). Structural school theorists and policy-focused representatives from LDCs share a common belief concerning the development of world’s culture (Thussu 2006). Both factions argue that Western countries have power over flows of global information and news, permitting them to weaken world’s culture. New World Information and Communication Order (NWIO) activists at UNESCO and structural theorists revisit this argument over and over when naming the believed destructive impact that the existing global communication system has on world’s culture (Aris & Bughin 2009). The structural argument states that Western media function as a medium of Western culture, Western customs, and Western values. In conjunction with entertainment and news, Western media transmit to Third World countries depictions of a more affluent life and more adventurous ways of life (Herman & McChesney 1997). To the point that LDCs are reliant on the West for the broadcasting of their global news and entertainment, they supposedly become embedded in the cultural representation of the West. Images of Western culture are believed to generate economic, political, and social changes in world’s culture via the demonstration effect. Western media supposedly kindle aspirations on the part of the LDCs to imitate the culture of Western countries (Thussu 1998). This is a culture rooted mostly on consumer-oriented and capitalist economies. As aspirations for a more westernised culture heighten, so do the desires for Western products and services. Consequently, this purportedly results in elevated importation of goods from Western countries and heightened reliance by Third World countries on their Northern trading partners (Chalaby 2009). As stated by Anthony Smith, “the flow of media exports [by the West] acts as a kind of ideological prerequisite for the flow of other material exports” (as cited in Meyer 1988, 64). McPhail (1987) furthers that electronic colonialism is aroused by a broad array of Western goods, such as “[c]omic books to satellites, computers to lasers, along with more traditional fare such as radio programs, theatre, movies, and wire services to television shows” (p. 18). To evaluate the argument that connects influences of Western mass media to the development of world’s culture, the premise of electronic colonialism or ‘cultural imperialism’ should be defined, concretised, and verified empirically. The Relationship between Transnational Media Corporations and Local Cultures However, these assumptions about the negative effects of transnational media corporations on world’s culture have not gone unquestioned by media scholars. For instance, it has been argued that those assumptions which raised the expansion of a homogenised global culture mostly put emphasis on the production, dissemination, and content of international media, basically disregarding their reception (Chalaby 2009). Researchers and scholars who have studied the local reception of international media images, frequently through ethnographic analyses of media utilisation, usually reach conclusions concerning the influence of the media over audiences somewhat in conflict with those arguments advocated by cultural and media imperialists (Redstone 2001). Moreover, a large number of media scholars claim that we have to evaluate media consumption within the perspective of the continuous attempts to people to understand their lives and the particular gender, class, and other identities they dwell in. For instance, writing on the appeal of international mass media, John Thompson asserts that their distribution facilitates “the accentuation of symbolic distancing from the spatial-temporal contexts of everyday life” (Held & McGrew 2003, 256) on the local consumers’ part. As he emphasises in this regard, the distribution of these representations or images allows people “to take some distance from the conditions of their day-to-day lives-not literally but symbolically, imaginatively, vicariously” (Held & McGrew 2003, 256). He claims, through this mechanism “individuals are able to gain some conception, however partial, of ways of life and life conditions which differ significantly from their own” (Held & McGrew 2003, 256). Hence, he stresses, depictions of other cultures afford a resource for people to reflect critically on their own ways of life. David Morley, a British media scholar, adopts this argument in portraying the appeal that American popular culture had for the working class of Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Morley claims that “for those consumers, these products represented positive symbols of massive improvements in the material quality of their lives. For them ‘America’ was a very positive symbol functioning largely by opposition to what they perceived as the dead hand of traditional English culture, as defined by the cultural elite” (Skovmand 1992, 78). Anthropologist Ulf Hannerz (1996) espouses the same argument in his discourse on the appeal of American popular culture for the inhabitants of a municipality in South Africa, in the 1950s and 1960s: “To the people of the township, a cosmopolitan esthetic thus became a form of local resistance. Accepting New York could be a way of rejecting Pretoria, to refuse the cultural entailments of any sort of ‘separate development’” (Hannerz 1996, 169). It is in this debate that we can possibly best make sense of much recent policy of the European Community which, in reaction to the apparent menace of ‘cocacolonisation’, has been focused on cultivating and promoting a sense of European identity, where in unity is the objective and culture and/or information is the way to realise it (Collins 2002); or, as stated by Jean Monnet, “if we were beginning the European Community all over again, we should begin with culture” (Collins 2002, 25). Schlesinger claims that ‘collective identity and its constitution is a problem, not something that may be presumed to exist as a prior condition of political agency’ (Morley & Robins 1995, 44). From this point of view, culture must be viewed as a place of continuous debate and we cannot perceive the ‘success’ of a national culture as some sort of ‘once in a lifetime’ mission which, having been ‘accomplished’ could similarly be ‘undone’. Instead it is, essentially, a perpetual and constantly problematic mechanism. Likewise, Donald has claimed that we could gainfully concentrate on the instruments of discourse, institutions and technologies which generated what is widely referred to as “the national culture’... the nation is an effect of these cultural technologies, not their origin. A nation does not express itself through its culture: it is cultural apparatuses that produce ‘the nation’. What is produced is not an identity or a single consciousness... but (hierarchically organised) values, disposition and differences. This cultural and social heterogeneity is given certain fixity by the articulating principle of ‘the nation’” (Berger & Huntington 2002, 33). The notion ‘national’ describes the unity of a culture by setting it apart from other cultures, by defining its frontiers; an imaginary unity, apparently, for the ‘us’ within is itself constantly distinguished. The Threat of Transnational Media Corporations to World’s Cultural Diversity The European Union has become ever more aware of the prospective function of the emerging transnational media corporations in preparing the material foundations of potential pan-European spectators and markets, and in portraying a sense of what it embodies, nowadays, to be a ‘European’ (Collins 2002). Its guiding principle ever more acknowledges that culture is at the core of the European and other cultural project across the globe. The EU has established transnational media corporations as primary tools in the formation of a sense of cultural identity. But is there really no threat to the world’s cultural diversity? The concept of the new media order answers this quite elusive question. The assumption of Herbert Schiller of the new media order varies significantly from that explained by other scholars. Schiller claims that ‘the actual sources of what is being called globalisation are not to be found in a newly achieved harmony of interests in the international arena’ (Morley & Robins 1995, 13). He perceives a ‘transnational corporate cultural domination’ (Schiller 1991, 20) or a world where in ‘private giant economic enterprises pursue—sometimes competitively, sometimes co-operatively—historical capitalist objectives of profit making and capital accumulation, in continuously changing market and geopolitical conditions’ (Schiller 1991, pp, 20-1). What is stressed at this point is the historical connection, and uniformity, in corporate objectives. What is identified and recognised is that the setting of this thrust for competitive and economic status in the 1990s has been considerable changed (Morley & Robins 1995). The contest for resources and power is presently being carried out at the global level. What the world’s cultures are witnessing is the formation of the media order through the capitalist instruments of a fairly few global actors, such as the Walt Disney Company, Matsushita, Sony, and Time Warner (McPhail 2006). For audiences, the new media order has turned out to be obvious through the creation of new corporate programmes, such as Cartoon Network, CNN, BSkyB, and MTV. What the world’s cultures are witnessing is the formation of a new media environment typified by new forms of payment, new delivery processes, and new services (Chalaby 2009). Instead of the diverse programming channels of the conventional newscasters, the world has nowadays the rise of common channels, such as movies, music, news, and sport. However there is much more to it than merely incorporation within the media arena. What world’s cultures are beginning to witness is a much more deep-seated transformation process, where in information and entertainment industries are merging with the telecommunications companies (Aris & Bughin 2009). An indication of things to arrive was the forecasted, but a complete failure, merger of the telecommunications corporation Bell with the biggest cable company in the US, TCI, in 1993 (Thussu 2006). The new organisation would have been the world’s biggest media conglomerate. The chairman of Bell Atlantic characterised it as “a perfect information age marriage” (Morley & Robins 1995, 14) and a “model for communications in the next century” (ibid, 14). The latest ‘multi-media’ monster would have supplied not just traditional cable programmes, but also other interactive services such as home shopping and banking, computer games, and telecommunications services (Morley & Robins 1995). The objective is hitherto to create information and communications ‘super-highways’ that are intended to stir world’s cultures beyond the age of mass media and into a personal preference and customised media (Held & McGrew 2003). However it will be personal preference and customised media, apparently, on account of what is current and on sale. Transnational media corporations are establishing power over production, over diffusion and over transmission mechanisms (Collins 2002). The dissemination of products and images is more widespread and more rigorous than in the previous decades (Berger & Huntington 2002). What should also be highlighted is how much US cultural supremacy stays an essential component of this new order, despite the fact that at present American-style production is also the basic cost of non-US objectives as well (Berger & Huntington 2002). A recently discerned by a reporter in the Financial Times, “soon hardly anywhere on earth will be entirely safe from at least the potential of tuning in to cheerful American voices revealing the latest news or introducing the oldest films” (Morley & Robins 1995, 15). To transmit transnational cultures to others countries media-culture-economy approach should be applied. Primarily, the major purpose of economic aspect is to showcase ‘Culture of Addiction’ (Papacharissi 2010) and then to market the addiction to consumers all over the world. One excellent case of social media is Facebook: it is innovative; it makes people cheerful and opens prospects for participation, people all can thrive, gain satisfaction and meaning, etc. It is worldwide and a vast number of consumers are captivated by it (Papacharissi 2010). How it came about? They created transnational needs: involvement and communication effect are the major addiction and created needs. Facebook ‘gives strong feeling of being successful for consumer and makes him happy. He does not need to get out from the comfortable home (his place) to be succeeding. He needs only to log in on Facebook and to participate. What we need more?’ (Papacharissi 2010, 134). Facebook is even more universal than in ‘traditional media’. Social media provides synchronisation, aim of worldwide consumers, develops needs and affords involvement for both seller and consumer (Herman & McChesney 1997). Nevertheless there are vast numbers of responses to it, but for most countries it is successful. Hence, “the movement is toward grabbing attention and creating a desire for things that people never knew was needed. It also is about using the media to homogenize culture” (Papacharissi 2010, 135). Cultural agendas exploiting media and human technologies have powerful ability to sell. What capitalist manipulations and tactics are attempting to create is a transnational media market and space. Saatchi & Saatchi, in the 1980s, were assuming a ‘world cultural convergence’ (Morley & Robins 1995, 15), and claiming that ‘convergences in demography, behaviour and shared cultural elements are creating a more favourable climate for acceptance of a single product and positioning across a wide range of geography’ (ibid, 15). Cable programmes such as Nickelodeon, or movies such as E.T. of Star Trek were viewed to “have crossed many national boundaries to achieve world awareness for their plots, characters, etc.” (Winram 1984, 21). Another scholar, Theodore Levitt, contributed in the development of Saatchi viewpoint while also emphasising the growing homogenisation and regularisation of markets, as well as cultures, all over the world (Morley & Robins 1995). He claimed, “The global corporation looks to the nations of the world not for how they are different but for how they are alike... it seeks constantly in every way to standardise everything into a common global mode” (Levitt 1983, 28). Apparently, if it is advantageous to do so, transnational media corporations will respond to the needs and demands of specific market segments. However, in this manner, ‘they will search for opportunities to sell to similar segments throughout the globe to achieve the scale economies that keep their costs competitive” (Levitt 1983, 26). The technique is to “treat these market segments as global, not local, markets” (Winram 1984, 19). Cable and satellite channels are advancing in marketing homogenised product globally (Turnstall & Machin 1999). For instance, CNN, presently on more than ten satellites presenting ‘global village’ news across the globe, appear to have almost unravelled the solution to global marketing (Turnstall & Machin 1999). The strengthening ‘super-highways’ seem driven to ram homogenisation processes further. However they are also prone to increase intricacy, ‘customised’ services to ‘niche’ and ‘specialised’ markets (Hannerz 1996, 105). These techniques, it must be highlighted, “are not denials or contradictions of global homogenisation, but rather its confirmation... globalisation does not mean the end of segments. It means, instead, their expansion to worldwide proportions” (Levitt 1983, pp. 30-1). Therefore, the issue that should be taken into account at this point is how this logic threaten world’s cultures as it experiences and deals with the real world, the realm of established or predetermined cultures and economies. CNN, pioneered by the American mogul Ted Turner in 1980, has attained its exceptional success through the global transmission of a lone, English-language broadcasting (Auletta 2004). Yet, increasingly the television programme is facing the allegation that it is extremely American in its commercial representation. The global presence of CNN is seen as a manifestation of the cultural supremacy of the US and its threat to the diversity of world’s cultures, and this apparently creates dilemmas as to its integrity as an international news service provider (Auletta 2004). At the CNN head office, this also becomes a profound problem over market position and strategy (Held & McGrew 2003). The current news service of CNN has been triumphant in gaining access to the world’s cultures, elites, and businesses, but it has failed to deeply penetrate mass markets, where national associations and relations are more established (Auletta 2004). In order to get to such audiences ‘CNN would have to dramatically change its vision of a single, English-speaking global network’, and ‘to effect that change Turner would need to seek partners and would need to localise’ (Auletta 1993, 30). The experience of Star TV presents another excellent case of the essential adjustment between local and global factors (Morley & Robins 1995). As component of their policy for global domination, transnational media corporations have segmented the globe into massive geo-economic sections. A company based in Hong Kong, Star, which initiated transmission in 1991, has successfully created the Asia region (Morley & Robins 1995). The channel mixes pan-Asian promotions and programmes with a specific quantity of material aimed at ‘spot markets’, like Taiwan or India (Morley & Robins 1995). It also aimed to synchronise Asian programming, such as Asian movies and music, with Western stations, such as Prime Sports, BBC, MTV, numerous of which are very popular and recognised as mechanisms of ‘modernisation’ and ‘globalisation’ (Morley & Robins 1995). Steven Ross (1990), in his ‘Worldview address’, believed that transnational media corporations should ‘be sensitive to the cultural environment and needs of every locale in which we operate’ (p. 3). Fearful to prevent allegations of cultural hegemony and standardisation, international corporations are interested to build local fame, trustworthiness, and credentials. Local Resistance is Possible At some point in the 1980s, the world witnessed major attempts by the European Community, in support of European media industries, to create a ‘European audiovisual area’ (Herman & McChesney 1997). Within this setting, we can recognise some of the challenges and strains emerging from the process of globalisation. The apparent goal of the European Community has been to create the European counterparts of Time Warner and Sony (Chalaby 2009). It has aspired to instigate the painful shift from the traditional public service period, where in broadcasters gave a varied and unbiased array of programmes for public audiences, to a new system where in the necessity is to capitalise on the competitive status of media corporations dedicated to fulfilling the demands of consumers in international markets (Chalaby 2009). It is the rationale of market integration and concentration, working towards the formation of a minority of media monsters (Garitaonandia 1993). It is also the rationale of globalisation, working towards the bigger homogenisation and standardisation of production, and separating media cultures from the specificities of setting and place (McPhail 2006). And so far there is also one more, and opposing, active force, resisting the necessities of globalisation. As a resistance to the globalisation of media, and as a reparation for the loss of cultural identity and standardisation that is connected to transnational corporations, the world have witnessed a resurgent concern with regionalism, calling for the form of contextualised emotional belonging and significance that seem to have been weakened by the occupation of globalisation (Sreberny-Mohammadi et al. 1997). This recent regionalism places importance on the variety and divergence of cultural identities, and aspires to uphold and preserve the diversity of cultural legacies, local and regional (Thussu 2006). Communications technologies have been viewed as a primary resource in the quest for this goal, and in the 1980s the world witnessed a mounting interest in endorsing media businesses and operations within the nations and regions of the world (Thussu 2006). In majority of instances, ideologies of local public awareness have been organised against the objectives of transnational media corporations. In garnering advocacy from the European Community, the contention has been made that ‘in the particular case of regional TV programming in the European vernacular languages, the criteria should not be based on audience ratings and percentages of the language-speaking population, nor on strict, economic cost-effectiveness’ (Garitaonandia 1993, 291). Since the latter part of the 1980s, a particular degree of support has been drawn out from the European Community, specifically through its media project, which affords assistance and loans for small businesses across Europe (Garitaonandia 1993). Within the EC there has been growing awareness towards cultural diversities and dedication to the conservation of European cultural identity. At this point we have a case of local-global core. Nevertheless, ‘local’ here implies something fairly different from what it implies in the commercial vocabulary. In this perspective, it links to the unique aspirations and identities of local and national communities. In these period of globalisation, there are people who aspire to‘re-territorialise’ the mass media, specifically to re-create a connected between geography and media (Thussu 1998). They are resolved that the media should help in preserving the uniqueness and the strength of regional and national cultures, in resistance to the threatening growth of homogenisation and standardisation (Redstone 2001). ‘Local’ in this case embodies a resistance to the stratagems of global commercial ambitions. Even though transnational media corporations are trying to set up operations in countries all over the world, several countries, particularly LDCs, attempt to protect their local culture and media industries. Several countries, such as South Korea, Mexico, Spain, Denmark, and Norway, have instituted government funding to sustain their own local movie industries (Collins 2002). The UK government recommended a voluntary tax on the profits from local film theatres, which showcase mostly Hollywood films. These revenues from film theatres could then be utilised to fund the British film industry (Collins 2002). Nevertheless, the recommendation was not ratified by Parliament (Chalaby 2009). Culture representatives from different countries have been talking about how they can defend their own cultural heritage and uniqueness in an ever more American-dominated worldwide media setting (McPhail 2006). Several countries, like Singapore, modify and expurgate for transmission media content produced in America (Aris & Bughin 2009). For example, language usage in the Singapore rendition of the Sopranos is considerably distinct from the American rendition because ‘bad expressions’ have been removed from the sound track (Aris & Bughin 2009). Thereby, countries can set up blockades that make it harder for transnational media corporations to air their American-determined content. If the globalisation processes incite resistance and fear, these tend, mostly, to become connected to the apparent intimidation of ‘Americanisation’ and American culture (Morley & Robins 1995). For quite a long time, the mass culture of America has been viewed as a force that is threatening and weakening world’s culture and tradition. While the United States was appealing to, in behalf of free movement of ideas and free trade, for the abolition of quota constraints, European objectives were determined to uphold them in order, as they perceive it, to safeguard the cultural credibility and particularity of European culture (Collins 2002). The European perspective is viewed as a contest for freedom of expression: “We want the Americans to let us survive. Ours is a struggle for the diversity of European culture, so that our children will be able to hear French and German and Italian spoken in films” (Morley & Robins 1995, 20). Yet again, the stress is on diversity and specificity, despite of what appears to threaten their foundation. Conclusion In and across the current presence of transnational media corporations, there is an intricate relationship between cultural and economic processes. Public service broadcasting worked as the centre, not just for local culture, but also for democratic existence. Issues of nationality and questions of culture were designed together. What is currently taking place in public service structures presently creates exceptionally real issues about the future of the diversity of world’s culture. There are major challenges in the manner of building processes for successful debate and media hype all over a transnational space. Issues of culture and of nationality have turned out to be detached, and the exceptionally real present threat is that, within the diversity of world’s culture, the rewards of cultural recognition will be created to overcome the political and commercial interests of transnational media corporations. And, evidently, this threat to the diversity of world’s culture is not just a point of concern for Western societies but also to the world’s contemporary media order. References Aris, A. & Bughin, J., 2009. Managing Media Companies. New York: John Wiley. Auletta, K., 1993. Raiding the global village. The New Yorker, pp. 25-30. Auletta, K., 2004. Media Man: Ted Turner’s Improbable Empire. New York: W.W. Norton. Bartlett, C.A. & Ghoshal, S., 1998. Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution. Harvard Business School Press. 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