How Global Culture Expands or Limits People's Access to Media - Article Example

Key features of globalisation and the extent to which a global culture expands or limits people's access to media Although a long-time phenomenon, globalisation in its many aspects remains a largely blurred concept. Evidence to this effect is that even the core definition of the term “globalisation” is still subject to heated academic and professional debates due to lack of adequate data about certain nuances of globalisation and different interpretations thereof. In the broadest definition available, globalisation means interconnectivity of world politics, economy, technology and culture. In 2001, the European Parliament referred to globalisation as “a process of simultaneous application of new technologies, which overcome time and space as well as the broader expansion of free trade principles in a truly world market” (Europa.eu). This is also the definition that most analysts use. By common agreement, interaction and communication are the core processes fuelling globalisation because even the economic processes, which anger anti-globalist activists, are driven by modern communication technologies. Thus, media, as the conduit of interaction and communication, are a significant factor in the entire globalisation process. They are the primary driving force behind one facet of globalisation – cultural globalisation, and the formation of a global culture. This paper aims to prove that globalisation is an ongoing process and as such its positive or negative implications are too early to assess categorically, but one may well do so provisionally. While it helps spread technologies, knowledge and goods and spearheads their exchange between nations and cultures, it is also fraught with harming local cultures and deepening the divide between poor and rich nations and regions, a phenomenon known as the “digital divide”. Apparently, citizens living in the Northern Hemisphere, and Western-style capitalist societies as a whole, enjoy some indisputable advantages of globalisation such as almost free and real-time communication, ability to exchange ideas and goods within days or even hours. At the same time, however, these core tools of globalisation have become governments’ powerful weapons in their attempt to isolate and capsulate their citizens. By circulating contents that conveniently interpret events and facts in line with their own strategic goals, they subjugate ubiquitous access to media to their own objectives. In that, unlimited access to media can have as two-pronged an impact as limited or no access whatsoever. On the other hand, globalisation gives people new ways to surmount difficulties in communication. Previously, access to media stopped short of global reach because information materials had to physically cross state borders or deny first censorship. Now by their very nature new user-friendly digital devices, which global conglomerates market the world over at affordable rates, solve these problems. Hence, technological advances accelerated the formation of the so-called global cultures, which draws under a certain common denominator physically detached communities. Global culture, as the main embodiment of two key features of globalisation – deterritorialisation and homogenisation, has its positive and negative impacts as well. While some researchers express fears that a simplified homogenous global culture will efface local ones, others argue that globalisation is a two-way process in which even the most distant and sparse culture can influence others in a global interconnected world. English and Internet, as the new tools to proffer two-way exchange on the global market, have made it possible. The rise of the English language as a new Lingua Romana, viewed by some theorists as a media tool of homogenisation, helps provide a unified and simplified way to share ideas and to communicate on a global scale. Internet, a product of the digital revolution, offers a level playing field for powerful media conglomerates and local media alike and this is evident to every unbiased observer. Global Culture and Media One can hardly proceed to a discussion about ways in which global culture affects access to media without clear-cut definitions about global culture and globalisation. “Global culture” appears to be just as difficult to define as globalisation is. This paper assumes that “global culture” refers to a two-way flow of communication in an interconnected world where cultures intensely interact with each other where the more widespread culture does not always prevail over local (tribal) cultures. However, no researcher will deny that there is a process of globalisation in which media play a central role and a new globe-sweeping culture is born. Diana Crane's work seems most helpful with its attempt to synthesise cultural and media globalisation definitions. The researcher has delineated four basic globalisation models: the cultural imperialism thesis; the cultural flows or network model; the reception theory; and a model of national and urban strategies toward cultural globalisation (Crane 2). The cultural imperialism model, although the most widely accepted, has many critics and some researchers think it is outdated even in regard to the terminology it uses. With this model, one could perpetually argue that globalisation is a conspiracy with world’s media conglomerates as actors and with the creation of a new homogenous and Americanised global culture as the ultimate goal. However, even this model is subject to constant change due to evolving globalisation factors as well as socioeconomic factors and their impact on theorists. There are underlying policy mechanisms and socioeconomic conditions which boost this process of interconnectedness, as Kidane Mengisteab writes in “New Dictionary of the History of Ideas”. Hence, this process of interconnecting encourages access to media and enriches media themselves through new channels like blogs and online discussion forums. The interconnectedness itself is a tool serving a natural human aspiration for more information, and globalisation is the perfect environment for such a tool to flourish as people’s aide in connecting to and utilising media. The second model, the cultural flows or network model, states that globalisation could lead to hybridisation of culture. However, it does not deny that this is a two-way process too, where regional and national conglomerates play their role as well. These business entities have their own corporate interests but they are also interested in encouraging access to media as their profits rely on customers who are ready to pay, one way or another, for the content they provide. Under this model, people are ready to pay for accessing information services and can enjoy unlimited access to media so long as they can afford to pay for the paid services as well. The reception theory is based on the premise that communication between audiences and cultural entrepreneurs happens through negotiation and resistance. This model sees global media companies as having little or no respect for their viewers, listeners and/or readers and coming up with the same editorial policy in all regions. Yet this policy resounds differently with customers of different backgrounds and cultures. In other words, this theory presumes that customers can access all media possible yet they are likely to colour the message with their own, local understanding of life and biases. However, interpretation and misinterpretation are relative categories. The more important point is that in a global world cultures and their representatives are able to communicate in new ways via various media and on a global scale. Crane proposes a fourth model, focused on “the strategies used by nations, global cities and cultural organisations to cope with, counter or promote cultural globalisation” (Crane 4). Her approach to the problem results in a conclusion that all these organisations compete and negotiate trying to preserve or spread their unique culture and message to the world. In fact, this process feeds a wish for media access in people because it contributes to the creation of new media sources and encourages miltilingual and multicultural sources of information. No matter which of these four models a researcher will apply, globalisation should be recognised as a force and a process stimulating communication and exchange of ideas, thus encouraging broader access to media and diversification of information sources. Pillars of Globalisation All these four models are developed on the basis of the five cornerstones of the globalisation process. The first one is “deterritorialisation,” a term believing that in a globalising world the geographical location of people and organisations plays a lesser role in a wide range of social activities around the globe. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that “the Internet allows people to communicate instantaneously with each other notwithstanding vast geographical distances separating them.” In this regard, globalisation really helps access media, while globalisation has virtually left other spheres of life untouched. An example is agriculture, which requires a particular place to grow particular crops. Another key process within globalisation is the state of interconnectedness which emerges in the modern world. Interconnectedness is in close relation to deterritorialisation and both complement each other. These two elements are contributing to the third element of globalisation, especially the cultural one, namely the “speed or velocity” (Stanford) of social activity. With speed of social life accelerating people’s need to be connected to media to stay in touch with the latest developments in all spheres of life if they want to remain competitive enough. Some scientists claim that such fast-paced social activity and overwhelming information flow could lead to repletion or even aversion for media access but in fact the human brain has untapped resources to handle information and this barely could be a reason for people to reduce their desire to access various media. In the fourth place, most analysts agree that globalisation is a long-term process (Stanford) and its final consequences are yet to be seen while hard to predict. Moreover, the fifth cornerstone of this process is that it is multi-pronged one (Stanford) which could be observed in multiple spheres of social activity, namely economic, political and cultural. This long-term, multi-pronged process of globalisation in general fosters the flourishing of various media, some of them so innovative, simplified and cheap to use, that opportunities for people to have access to media have never been so widespread in the history of mankind, creating a brand new global culture of communication. Informatisation, Homogenisation and Censorship Media play a central role in the formation of this new global culture based on information via the use of communication technologies and digital devices which “digitalise” the world and boost the process of “informatisation” of even the most remote and estranged cultures and societies on the planet, thus leading to the creation of a homogenous culture and a homogenous media environment. However, the popular metaphor of Marshall McLuhan referring to the “global village” could be acceptable and applicable in the case of the global media coverage of the Olympics Games (Hafez 26) but could hardly be accepted when explaining the attitude of the Taliban fighters toward the US. The media, partly due to the concentration of media power in the hands of few predominantly American companies, achieved global reach which is one of the factors behind the birth and advance of a global culture, and one of the factors driving globalisation itself, but it could also be a restraining force when it comes to multiple media choices not lastly due to its sometimes propagandist and advertorial nature. This media business model could repel and even alienate people and to force them to voluntarily limit their media choices. The fear of cultural depersonalisation could also play a similar role although many modern people declare themselves “citizens of the world” who have no prejudices when accepting various cultural models and habits in their personal life, which is a precondition for them not to self-deny access to particular media due to its disparateness. Some researchers, among them the experts who prepared European Parliament’s report “Globalisation of the Media and Possible Threats to Cultural Diversity,” believe that globalisation is a phenomenon which does not necessarily imply the homogenisation of contents which threatens cultural diversity (Europa.eu) but many governments have imposed restrictions on the broadcasting and distribution of foreign media based on the argument that these media will subvert local culture and its values and virtues. Iran and North Korea are examples of the most extreme enforcement of such a policy, which in the case of North Korea, literally bans all its citizens from access to media out of those controlled by the central government. This is an isolated case but it demonstrates how digital technologies, just like traditional ones, could prevent people from access to media and to limit this access to handful of government officials. Entertainment, Economic Forces and English Language as Lingua Romana Other countries succeed in combining national and international, local and global creating a good global product which still serves a local audience. In the case of Japan’s MTV channel, for instance, the local owner of the brand focused on domestic artists after 2001 and, despite fans’ protest against the old version of the programme, MTV Japan managed to become the second most popular broadcaster in the country by adding the local perspective to a global entertainment product. Entertainment and news production and their distribution around the world are core globalisation processes, a part of the media globalisation process, driven by economic and organisational forces (Crane 2). Economy is always influencing development and progress of nations and societies, and globalisation process is no exception to the rule, defined by classical economists like Adam Smith. Supply and demand is another factor and that’s why India produces more movies than Hollywood although Hollywood productions are more geographically widespread. This media channel, the movies, represents a good example of the numerous choices people have to access this type of media in a borderless world in which demand for such media encourages its production. In the case of India, the country has one more advantage related to its former status of a British colony, namely the fact that the English language is commonly used throughout the country, and this is important when talking about the use of modern technologies and the Internet where the bulk of the valuable content is in English. The English language transformed into a new Lingua Romana, a common language, of the modern times in general and a language of globalisation, in particular. Although this phenomenon has some positive aspects, it is worth taking a look at the world statistics tables to find that English is placed third by number of native speakers, with 510 million people recognising it as a mother tongue, according to www.vistawide.com. Mandarin Chinese (1.05 billion speakers), Hindi (490 million speakers) and Spanish (420 million speakers) are spoken by far more people around the globe and their combined number is around 2 billion or one-third of world’s population. Thus, the status of English as a Lingua Romana plays the controversial role of a unifying and separating and isolating factor, limiting the number of media non-English speakers could utilise. On the other hand, the use of simplified English helps spread technologies and information around the world, a factor which could not be underestimated when calculating the number of media people who are not native English speaker are able to access. Media as Commodity As mentioned above, technology and digital devices sold at reasonable prices open the door to more and more people on the planet to connect to numerous media vectors, increasing their choices of news and information channels. Information, as an explicit part and parcel of globalisation, becomes a growingly valuable commodity. Yet while it is an article of trade, it is also a powerful weapon changing the minds of entire nations, societies and cultures. Relatively easy access to technology in some parts of the world boosts trans-cultural communication creating an “informatised” and digitalised “supra-culture,” which could be likened to “global culture.” T. Randahl Morris writes in his conference paper “A Shared Platform Model of the Media” that there is imperative need to develop new models to address the new evolving environment of accessing, producing and disseminating information (Allacademic.com). Since 1969, the birthday of the Internet (although it became widespread only in the 1990s), the World Wide Web led to rapid and innovative changes in international communicative technology. Yoneji Masuda and other authors are of the opinion that “in the post-industrial, information-based society, knowledge, or the production of information values, will be the driving force of society, rather than industrial technologies” (Kluver 2). Thus, like never before, information becomes a commodity and a high valued commodity. It is a basic law in sociology that the higher the value of a commodity, the higher the number of people willing to obtain it. And access to information (media access) is no exception. This process contributed to the emergence of an entirely new social class of news producers, who are not involved in any traditional industrial manufacturing or in agriculture. On the other hand, a new class of consumers is emerging, who have an endless set of choices to connect to various media. At the same time, these very choices are put to doubt due to the inability to make a proper choice or because the choice is biased by outside factors like advertising. This dark scenario, however, is not likely to happen due to the presence of numerous alternative information sources which guarantee there will be no monopoly on information in a broad sense. Media consumers could easily transform into information producers and providers enhancing the overall process of guaranteed media access. Geography, Digitalisaion and Digital Divide Although informatisation and digitalisation seem to be widespread throughout the globe, there are evident geographical divisions in access to media even in the US. Internet penetration in the US stands at 74.2% in 2009, according to data by www.internetwordstats.com, while only 6.8% and 28.3% of Africa’s and Middle East’s populations have Internet access, respectively, i.e. less than seven people out of 100 in Africa have access to real-time newsfeeds or other digital sources of information. Asia, its population totalling 3.8 billion people out of a total of 6.8 billion people inhabiting the planet, has Internet penetration of 19.4%. Media access appears to be heavily dependent on financial factors and although Asia produces the bulk of the world’s digital devices, Asians are less connected to media than Americans, for instance. These digital devices are cheap to buy and easy to operate, but many critics of globalisation, not anti-globalists, will argue that they are not cheap enough to fulfil the needs of people’s access to media in developing countries. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was quoted by Business Times (Malaysia) as saying that “while the Internet promises to create a level playing field by delivering information to anyone, anywhere and anytime, the Internet itself is out of the reach of many.” The average Bangladeshi has to work more than eight years to buy a computer, Abdullah said, whereas an average American could buy a PC with his monthly salary. Income is a serious obstacle to access to media in a world where digital news tend to overtake traditional print media. This is not a new phenomenon as far as the world history is familiar with the universe-old problem of have and have-nots, the new aspect of this phenomenon is that at present it applies to such goods as information. Researchers use the term “digital divide” to describe this gap between those who have access to technologies, i.e. access to media, and those who do not. This is a truly international problem, its roots being in the same socioeconomic divide as the traditional divisions by race, gender, education and geographic position. Technical and language education is also necessary due to the fact that a huge part of online and digital information flows are in the English language. “This narrow orientation limits the accessibility of web resources for many in a multilingual world as well as for the illiterate and readers with limited skills,” Nancy Becker writes in an article in Computer Sciences and points to the problem that one could be connected to the Internet but still be incapable of doing relevant research or utilising media streams he has access to, which means that this user has limited access to media. This is another side of the coin, the problem of “digital divide” cannot be solved through distribution of inexpensive netbooks, since those who will use them have to be able to utilise them. Distribution of netbooks among the residents of less developed nations could be a visible demonstration of how globalisation works, but it will be of little use to provide people with media access when they have neither the technical, nor the language skills to benefit from such access. The Role of Corporations A recent dispute between Google Inc. and the Chinese authorities over search results censorship and alleged hacking attacks on Google’s servers could result in Google closing its offices in China and suspending its service in the country, leaving more than one billion customers without the opportunity to “google.” This is a perfect example of a corporate behaviour in a global context, which contradicts with previous official statements by Google that “censored search results are better than no search engine at all” (Google official blog). Hence, a global company, driven by its corporate interests, could extend or limit access to information of a huge number of people in a short time period, which perfectly serves the needs of the theoretical model of cultural imperialism, which considers that access to media depends on the wish of those who possess instruments of media production. Another example of relations between corporate interest and access to media is the main topic of the World Media Summit in October 2009 in which news agencies like Reuters, Associated Press, BBC, China’s Xinhua News Agency and Russia’s ITAR-TASS participated. These agencies are commercial enterprises in the first place and the main topic of discussion at the summit was whether they should be paid, or paid more for access to their content on the Internet (Xinhua). While most customers believe that the Internet is a free media, where information should be circulating free of charge, most corporate leaders of information-producing companies defend their companies’ right to be paid for the news they provide. It is a central problem concerning the access to media and information around the world and it is also a complicated and controversial issue. An annual subscription to Wall Street Journal Europe’s online edition costs USD 103.48, a very small amount of money for an average working American whose annual income stands at USD 39,300 in 2005 (US Census Bureau), but it equals the minimum wage in some European countries for the same year. The access to media or its absence is driven by global economic factors, which reflect the cost of the product, but also the purchasing power of the end-customer. Rupert Murdoch could be right that quality news is an expensive product, but he cannot force an Asian worker to pay for such a product, nor the Asian worker have desire to buy it at this price. He will look for alternative information sources, or worse, he will turn to pirate sources providing this same information prepared by Murdoch’s media and stolen and re-distributed by the pirates. In both cases the media access of this customer will be reduced. Surprisingly or not, these aspects of globalisation are a problem not only of less developed African and Asian nations but are also an issue to be addressed in the US and Europe. At a conference called “Democracy and Digital Media,” organised by MIT in 1998, Jock Gill claimed that cryptography is also of utmost importance to the development of new media and information technologies. Every set-top box on television sets in England, he points out, uses an encryption technology which is owned by companies held by Rupert Murdoch, thus everyone who wants to broadcast a programme, no matter what and no matter if it competes with Murdoch’s programmes, must get a permission to use this encryption technology (MIT). Moreover, Murdoch’s companies are able to deny access to this distribution system unless they are paid to provide access, which is a perfect example how a private company, whose goal theoretically is to secure access to as many as possible media channels, is able to reduce or deny access to media to entire nations. From a broader perspective, there are theorists who support even a more pessimistic view and always tend to ask the question whose interest is serving the ongoing process of digitalisation of information and booming communication services around the world. According to Boyd-Barrett, the US is dominating the world economic order so any global reform should address the structure of the existing world economic order, whose outstanding feature is US dominance (Boyd-Barrett). He and his adherents claim that the interplay between media and globalisation is a direct expression of the US strategy for world dominance (Boyd-Barrett), thus limiting the choices of people how and which media channel to access, which sounds as a theory of conspiracy, but these theories enjoy numerous followers. This is another expression of corporate interests, which could expand or limit access to media of nations, regions and cultures. However, the more globalised the world becomes, the more difficult will be for a particular government, corporation or organisation to limit people’s media access, since information is flowing in so many ways and uses so many channels that no Big Brother could embrace all of them. Human Aspects A curious aspect of globalisation in modern developed societies is the self-denial of access to media. Many Western intellectuals asked for imposing limits on the spread of mass culture and its media and as early as in the 1950s French situationist Guy Debord, author of “Society of the Spectacle,” argued that modern mass media had a toxic effect on people (Hines 3). Debord spoke of “a moment of life” which a person should be able to enjoy in public spaces separated as mass-media-free zones, and no media or any commercial messages are allowed in such places (Hines 3). Some intellectuals further extend this idea to call for creation of specific places where one could be free of any disturbing media bearer, music, for instance. The modern man sometimes is so tired of uninterrupted news flow that is ready to accept externally imposed restrictions on media access or to reduce himself his own options to access media. This phenomenon is related also to the interaction between global and the local, as an inherently communication phenomenon, which promises to change not only the context, but also the nature of intercultural communication (Kluver 1). Such an evolving situation could give birth to a brand new global culture with unpredictable consequences in a world which mixes in a paradoxical way numerous news channels, delivering tonnes of information focused on every aspect of life and every culture in the world, while cultures are becoming extinct in the middle of a multi-cultural society fighting for equal rights, including the right to be informed and to have access to media. Globalisation itself cannot provide access to media because this is a complicated two-way process: media consumer should have the desire, the means and the knowledge to access information and not to forget that the right to media access was not granted to many of his predecessors. Moreover, the quantity of media choices does not necessarily mean that they are of good quality and risks remain for the consumer to be “lost in translation” when choosing one or another media channel, while at the same time it is practically impossible in the modern global world to track all media in search of the ultimate “truth,” if such exists. Hence, numerous choices could be a restricting factor in access to media although the lack of choices is not a better option. Conclusions In summary, the pros of globalisation, related to its media access aspect, clearly prevail over cons, which in most cases relate to other aspects (economic, political) of this evolving process. Globalisation could be of great benefit to the process of wide-spread access to media while some aspects of globalisation could also bring unpredictable risks to consumers. Deterritorialisation opens new horizons to people of all races, cultures, genders and nationalities to communicate instantly in new ways, to share ideas and to contribute to media. This process, however, could efface smaller (tribal) cultures. On the other hand, access to information as a whole is limited by the same old socioeconomic reasons as in the pre-globalisation period: ethnic, racial, educational and geographic circumstances. The “digital divide” and the gap between developed and developing countries is probably widening thanks to globalisation, thus limiting media access possibilities in some parts of the world. However, there is a heated debate whether this phenomenon could be attributed to globalisation. Moreover, “globalisation” is a flexible concept and sometimes it is no more than modernisation which happens within societies, nations and cultures around the globe. In this regard, this process has a positive impact on access to media, since modernisation, in its relation to education and related to it increase of well-being, is always good. The wealthier people become, the more access to media and information as a whole they have. Some theorists claim that globalisation started as early as in ancient times, which is subject to discussion, but it is sure it is an ongoing and evolving process and media access is a core, although just a process, within globalisation. The possible consequences of this phenomenon should be assessed carefully, but one possible outcome could be the formation of a global interconnected culture of wide-spread media interaction in formats no one is able to imagine at present. This bread in the bone of human desire to interact, to be informed, and to know is a perfect environment for global media to flourish, which results in a literally unlimited set of media choices and an unprecedented level of access to media. 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