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Reconsidering the Concept of Media Imperialism

Reconsidering the Concept of Media Imperialism. (Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University & Baptist University of Hong Kong). Summary (1). Several different theories related to the rubric of media imperialism emerged in the 1960s-1970s

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Reconsidering the Concept of Media Imperialism

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  1. Reconsidering the Concept of Media Imperialism (Oliver Boyd-Barrett, Bowling Green State University & Baptist University of Hong Kong)

  2. Summary (1) • Several different theories related to the rubric of media imperialism emerged in the 1960s-1970s • Although these theories related quite well to the evidence available at the time, they were later deemed by many critics to be out-of-date or overly simplistic • Some of these criticisms missed the point. And even with respect to the role of the US in the 21st century, the death of US media imperialism has been exaggerated

  3. Summary (2) • Relevant post-1970s theorization provides multiple conceptual advances: cultural imperialism, hegemony, globalization, glocalization, post-colonial theory, “scapes”, “networks,” soft power”, “perception management,” etc. • The phenomena of imperialism (e.g. “free trade / neoliberal imperialism”;” “humanitarian” imperialism and the “colonization of consciousness”) and their relationship to communications, has been obscured, historically and contemporaneously. • Now need to redefine the debate in a more open-ended way: focusing on direct, indirect, and dialectical relationships between media and imperialism, including media and resistance, today and yesterday. What are the principal research questions?

  4. Schiller (1969) Mass Communication & American Empire Electronics and economics serving an American century Marriage of economics & electronics substitutes for coercion to achieve empire and “empires of free trade” Entertainment distracts the populace from costs of empire US control of information confuses, misinforms subject peoples; encourages allegiance And everywhere US media inform about and instruct practices of consumption, with high premium on impulse and immediacy These patterns are described as “freedom”

  5. Schiller (2) • His view of media content was elitist, but he introduced to the literature a distinctive focus on industrial structure, business models and regulatory systems • He provided a critique of limited diversity and opportunities forgone, and tied it to an interest in the military-industrial complex and imperialism • Argued that media contribute to the structural transformation of society • Sole focus was on the US and on the present

  6. Schiller (3) • Attended to consolidation of corporate power in broadcasting and sidelining of educational/public interest • Inquired into spectrum allocation and prioritization of military needs in context of a permanent war society • With respect to satellite he argued that communications technology, centered on COMSAT and INTELSAT following the marriage of military research and private enterprise, was at the core of US global policing • Noted central role of profit in the system as a whole including the heavy dependence of electronics on government/military buyers

  7. Schiller (4) • Not the content that counts as the business model behind the content • International spread of US media essential to profits of the communications industry profits, to US industry in general, through the importance of media as an advertising medium. • Satellite was essential to the spread of US media • Satellite and advertising interests helped undermine public service broadcasting traditions in other countries, promoting privatization and commercialization, spreading western content, ideas and values, consumerism • Note the post-colonial context

  8. Schiller (5) • “The United States communications presence overseas extends far beyond the facilities owned, the exports, and the licensing agreements secured by major American broadcasting companies and electronics equipment manufacturers, considerable as these are. Equally, if not more important, is the spread of the American system, the commercial model of communications, to the international arena” (p.93).

  9. Tunstall(1977) • Tunstall’s The Media Are American (1977) supported Schiller’s thesis but operated on different political premises • Later, 2007 work, called The Media Were American (2007) • Tunstall chronicled rise of US domination of many national markets, in developed and developing worlds, and particularly concerned to factor in the continuing influence of older empires, including the British and the French. • He also paid attention to emerging or established alternative, usually regional, centers of media power • Primary driving factor of US media expansion was the relative wealth of US consumer markets, This enabled US media to recover production costs in the US and sell at strong advantage overseas, rivaling other international competitors and domestic producers.

  10. Boyd-Barrett • Proposed media-centric view of media imperialism focusing on unequal relations of media power between media systems of different nations. Approach influenced by • Studies of the international news agencies (at that time led by AFP, AP, Reuters and UPI) • Drew on analysis of Hollywood box office domination in many countries of the world • Analysis of television showed high percentage of US and western TV products in many countries of the world, and dominating role in the trade of international television products • His experience of British domination of the Irish media market • His study of the influence of imperial powers on media development in their colonies and domains of influence • His theory was multi-factoral incl. not only ownership, structure, distribution and content, as well as values of practice.

  11. Have things changed so much? International news agencies • International news agency market still dominated by AFP and AFPTV, AP and APTV, Bloomberg, Thomson-Reuters and Reuters TV. • (As before) there is a wide (perhaps wider) variety of other institutions that gather & distribute news globally • Mostly western (CNN, BBC, DW, News Corp’s Dow Jones, France 24); • Most linked to their respective governments (BBC, CNC of China, RT and TASS of Russia, DW of Germany, Al Jazeera (Qatari), Telesur (Venezuela), and Xinhua.

  12. Have things changed? Hollywood • Industry dominated in revenue terms by six principal studios of Hollywood and the multinational conglomerates that own them (News Corporation’s Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom’s Paramount, Sony’s Sony Pictures, GE and Comcast’s NBC/Universal, Walt Disney, Time Warner’s Warner Bros), • Even as other centers of global production such as Mumbai (Bollywood) in India, and Lagos (Nollywood) make more movies and even reach larger audiences. • Almost 40% of revenue for global movie production and distribution (worth $86.7 billion in 2012) is generated from North American audiences, followed by Europe with 23.5% (IbisWorld, 2012).

  13. Hollywood ctd • MPAA studios and studio subsidiaries accounted for a modest number, 141, of films released in US in 2011, most film-makers must work with these giants for assistance in finance and/or distribution. • Of top 25 films in terms of 2011 box office, 24 came from the big six studios. • US/Canada accounted for approximately one third ($10.2 billion) of the global box office ($32.6 billion) • Most of this spent onUS product primarily, many billions ahead of the next largest national markets, Japan ($2.3 billion), China ($2 billion) and France ($2 billion), and a few decimal points behind the whole of Europe, Middle East and Africa ($10.8 billion) and ahead of the whole of the Asia/Pacific region ($9 billion) (MPAA, 2012).

  14. Have things changed? Television • Of total revenues represented by the global television market (from advertising, subscription and public funding), North America had the largest share in 2009, accounting for 39% of almost 270 billion EUR, followed by Europe (31%), Asia Pacific (21%), Latin America (8%), Africa and the Middle East (2%)(International Television Expert Group, 2010).

  15. Have things changed? Recording • Global music recording dominated by 3 players (Sony BMG, Time Warner’s Warner Music Group, and Vivendi’s Universal Music Group – a fourth player, EMI, is now owned by UMG). • These account for approx 88% of global sales, 2011 • UMG 30%;SONY 29%;Warner 19%;Indies 10%; EMI 9% • US is top national market, at $4.37 bnin 2011, ahead of Japan ($4.09 bn) and Germany ($1.47 bn)(International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, 2012).

  16. Have things changed? Computing • Significant growth of respective industries in India and particularly China • Global computing hardware dominated by US-based corporations such as AMD, Apple, Cisco, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, and Oracle – which now owns Sun Microsystems and Java • US-based corporations remain exceptionally strong in software and Internet (including Amazon, eBay – which owns PayPal - Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Twitter) • Many of these nurtured by concentration of talent and venture capital in San Jose’s Silicon valley, California (Boyd-Barrett, 2005). • Top Internet Service Providers (ISPs) globally are US corporations Comcast Cable (7.15%), Road Runner (4.58%), AT+T (2.5%) and Verizon FiOS (2.15%). • Global desktop browser markets are dominated by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (55% of the market in 2012), Mozilla’s Firefox – affiliated with Time Warner’s Netscape (21%), Google’s Chrome (17%) and Apple’s Safari (5%) (Netmarketshare 2012).

  17. Computing ctd. • Microsoft: 90%+control of the global desktop operating system market for PCs (91.5% in 2012), followed by Mac (7.3%) and Linux (1.25%)(Netmarketshare 2012). • In the mobile/tablet market, dominant OS supplier is Apple’s iOS with 61% of the market, followed by Google’s Android (28%) and Oracle’s Java ME (7%). • Google global share 84+% of desktop search engine market, followed by Yahoo (8%) &Microsoft’s Bing (5%). • Google’s lead is even stronger in the mobile/tablet search engine market at 91%, followed by Yahoo (6%) and Bing (2%).

  18. Worldwide Mobile Phone Sales

  19. Computing (mobile) • Mobile subs 2011: 5981m worldwide with 1092 in China, 907 in India, 322 in USA, 206 in Indonesia, 197 in Brazil, 142 in Russia, 129 in Japan • 3G/4G mobile subs 2011: 1594 world with 256 in US, 212 in China, 104 in Japan, 71 in India, 66 in Brazil, 48 in Indonesia, 27 in Russia • Worldwide phone manufacturers (market share) dominated, 2013, by Samsung (24%), Nokia (15%) and Apple (9%). • By country South Korea (Samsung and LGE) has 28%, Finland (Nokia) 15% and China (Huawei, ZTE, TCL, Lenovo,Yulong) 11.6% • Smartphone manufacturer market share (2012): Samsung (30%), Apple (19%), Nokia (5%) • By Operating System, global market dominated, 2012, by Android (Google) at 72%, Apple (14%), (Canadian) RIM at 4.5%, (Nokia’s) Symbian (3%) (Sources: Mobithinking.com; Gartner; netmarketshare.com)

  20. Global Mobile Operators • (In US$ millions, 2010)(Subs) • 1 China Mobile (China) 594.2m China Mobile $71,571.6m • 2 Vodafone Group (UK) 338.9m Verizon (US) $63,407.0m • 3 America Movil (Mexico) 224.4m Vodafone Group $60,779.7m • 4 Telefonica (Spain) 216.9m AT&T $58,500.0m • 5 BhartiAirtel (India) 199.2mTelefonica $52,729.1m • 6 China Unicom (China) 169.3m NTT DOCOMO (Japan) $48,462.5m • 7 AT&T (US) 148.8m Deutsche Telekom $45,694.5m • 8 SingTel (Singapore) 133.9m America Movil $29,940.4m • 9 France Telecom (France) 129.5mFrance Telecom $29,718.0m • 10Reliance Communications (India)125.7mSprintN $28,597.0m • Source: Portio Research (2011) via: mobiThinking

  21. Have things changed? Social networks • In terms of number of active users, Facebook still dominates the global social networking landscape, with Google Plus, YouTube, Twitter and Chinese internet giant Tencent'sQzone, filling out the other top positions according to market research firm Trendstream's Global Web Index. • Facebook currently has more than a 700 million active users (and about 1.1 billion user accounts), accounting for 51% of global social networking use, followed by Google Plus with 25% and YouTube with 21%. The number of Twitter users has reached 288 million. • Trendstream expects Twitter's user base to grow fastest based on accelerating growth over the past year. • http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130130000115&cid=1202 Jan 30, 2013

  22. Social Networks, ctd

  23. Have things changed? Advertising(Zenithoptimedia) • Top Ad Markets in current US$ millions, 2011&2014 USA 0154129 0173950 Japan 0049949 0052964 China 0032299 0043940 Germany 0025571 0026828 UK 0019204 0021088 Brazil 0016819 0022216 France 0013788 0014216 Australia 0012767 0013770 Canada 0010974 0012394 S Korea 0010232 Russia 0012394

  24. Advertising ctd: Share of World Market • (AdAge.com) -- United States accounts for 5% of the world's population, 20% of global GDP and 34% of total worldwide advertising, making the U.S. by far the largest ad market • China accounts for 20% of the world's population, 13% of global GDP and -- for now -- just 5% of total worldwide advertising.

  25. Advertising ctd • Ad Spend by Region US$million, current prices 2011/2014 • North America 165104 186344 • W Europe 108688 112642 • Asia/Pacific 132172 157155 • C&E Europe 026151 031089 • LatAm 035344 045600 • MidEast/Nafr 004155 004412 • Rest 011592 014812 • Total 483206 552054

  26. Advertising ctd: By region, 2010

  27. Advertising ctd • % Share by Medium 2011/2014 • Newspapers 20.2 16.8 • Magazines 09.4 07.9 • TV 40.2 40.3 • Radio 07.1 06.7 • Cinema 00.5 00.5 • Outdoor 06.6 06.3 • Internet 16.0 21.4

  28. Advertising: who are the advertisers?

  29. Advertising ctd: Who are the advertisers? Top 100 global advertisers invest 61% of measured-media budgets outside U.S. in 2009 (Ad Age's Global Marketers:astudy covering 96 countries, territories and regions Among 46 U.S.-based marketers in Global 100, 12 firms do more than half of ad spending abroad, largely tracking with where they generate revenue and expect to find growth Among the 54 non-U.S. companies on the Global 100 list, six marketers -- including four pharma firms -- do more than half of their advertising in the U.S. market

  30. Top 30 Global Marketers 2011 (Allbrands data) • Proctor and Gamble Kraft PSA Peugeot/Cit • Unilever Fiat Time Warner • L’ Oreal Mars Glaxco • General Motors J&Johnson Honda • Nestle Ford Disney • Coca-Cola Comcast Yum (KFCetc) • Toyota PepsiCo Ferrero (It) • Volkswagen Sony Danone (Fr) • McDonalds Pfizer Deutsche Telekom • Reckitt Benckiser(H) Nissan Bierrsdorf/Tchibo (G:Nivea)

  31. Big5 Ad/Marketing/PR Holdings 2012 • Dentsu (Japan) $14bn (50% NA) • WPP (UK) $16bn (33% NA) • Publicis (Fr) $9bn (34% NA) • Havas (Fr) $2bn • Interpublic (US) $7bn (57% NA)

  32. Have things changed? IPR • IBISWorld’sestimates that the 2010 U.S. domestic intellectual property licensing and franchising market alone was valued at US$27.5 billion with 20.3% of that total (or US$5.58 billion) attributed to patent and trademark licensing royalty income. • October 22, 2005 Economist stated “In America alone, technology licensing revenue accounts for an estimated $45 billion annually; worldwide, the figure is around $100 billion and growing fast.” • IMF data suggest that the US patent market generated transactions worth $500 million in 2006 and IP-related damage awards and settlements were $3.4 billion in the US alone • Ocean Tomo (2010) estimates that in 2009, nearly 81% of the value of the companies comprising the S&P 500® stock index comes from intangible assets – the largest component of which is IP. • Millienwrites that in 2005 alone, IBM was awarded 2,941 U.S. patents, and in 2007 earned about $1 billion annually from its portfolio.

  33. Licensing and franchising • Overall value of U.S. intellectual property in 2005 was $5.5 trillion, more than the nominal gross domestic product of any other country, • Intellectual property trade accounted for 60% of US exports (totaling $900 bnin 2007) in a country whose GDP was $14 tn. • Compares to total value of global trade in information and communication technology (ICT) of $4 tnin 2008 (Slater, 2011). • Internet economy alone amounted to 4.1% of GDP across the G-20 nations ($2.3 tn) in 2010. • Slater (2011) records intensive IT-using industries account for 25% of GDP and 25% of economic growth, whereas IT-producing industries (semiconductors, computers, communications, software) account for 3% of GDP and 25% of economic growth. • In 2007, the U.S. spent 2.67% of total GDP on R&D, or US$374.11 bn.

  34. All media • Total US revenue for publishing, film and sound recording, telecommunications and Internet industries in 2009 over $1 trillion. • Telecommunications accounted for almost half ($494 billion); publishing accounted for a quarter ($264 billion), Internet service, web services and data processing for less than a tenth ($103 billion), broadcasting for about the same ($99 billion) and motion pictures and sound recording a little less ($91 billion), with the remainder accounted for by the categories of Internet publishing and broadcasting ($20 billion) and “other” ($7 billion). (U.S. Census Bureau, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2012, p.710). • Xinhua: Total output value of China's media industry doubled in the past five years to hit 580.8 billion yuan (89.2 bnU.S. dollars) in 2010.Fastest growing sectors in 2010 were online advertising, the film industry and radio broadcast advertising. • http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2011-04/22/c_13841792.htm

  35. All media • The National Science Board (2012): global value-added by ICT industries (semiconductors, communications equipment, computers, communications, computer programming and data processing) more than doubled from $1.2 trillion in 1995 to $2.8 trillion in 2010 • ICT industry accounts for 6 percent of global GDP. Of the total, the US alone accounted for 26%. Asia as a whole, including Japan, China and the “Asia 8” accounted for 33%, and Europe 22%. • United States has highest ICT share of fixed capital investment (26%) of large OECD economies, with the United Kingdom a close second. • United States is leader in ICT business infrastructure among the larger developed economies (table 6-2), with an index score substantially higher than those of France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea. • All within broader context of “knowledge and technology-intensive” industries (KTI) whose global value added totaled $18.2 trillion in 2010, representing 30% of estimated world gross domestic product (GDP).

  36. The Issue of Reception Regardless of whether audiences agree with, negotiate or reject the dominant or hegemonic meanings of texts…. Whatever restricts access of producers to technologies of communication and to audiences, reduces the range and diversity of representations available, or the ease with which audiences may access them is a legitimate matter of democratic and human concern Large media conglomerates, many substantially dependent on global brand advertisers, operating both online and offline, through every aspect of the communications process, including the gatekeeping of content flows through networks of cable, satellite, telephony, internet restrict access and diversity. They are the new colonizers of consciousness

  37. Reception (2) • Hall, Morely and other cultural theorists of the 1980s were writing in advance of the emergence of strong “framing” and “indexing” theories. These suggest audiences are vulnerable to the systematic foci, emphases and exclusions of mainstream media, as agenda setting theory would also suggest • Schiller (19690: exaggerated fear of “Wall-to-Wall Dallas” and cultural homogenization, • Yet there hasbeen significant homogenization – the homogenization of neoliberalism – and Dallas was symptomatic of the ways in which new communication technologies would be harnessed to promote the ideologies of extreme capitalism, and of free trade imperialism, or neoliberalism-by-pretext (“humanitarian intervention,” democracy, getting-rid-of-”tyrants”)

  38. Back to Imperialism Practical contemporary issue of neo-liberal / “free trade” / “extreme capitalistic” imperialism operating territorially and digitally, significantly dependent on perception management to gain consent for the neo-liberal order Promoted by adoption of Friedmanesque economics by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Scuttled post-WW2 balance achieved between capital and labor, returned us to the 19th century, and elevated the hegemony of Pax Americana One starting point is to identify the range of relationships between communications media and imperialism

  39. 7 Relationship of Media to Neoliberalism (1-3) • Media, information and communications industries interrelate with processes of globalization in a variety of important ways: • (1) they provide the enabling physical infrastructure for global communications (e.g. overland and undersea cables, satellites and satellite delivery systems, and wireless stations for wired and wireless communication, including internet and telephony); • (2) media and communication hardware and software industries are themselves significant domains for international capital accumulation, generally in the form of large multi-media conglomerates operating internationally, and as such are full-blooded corporate members of what is sometimes described as a neoliberal world economic order; • (3) they provide vehicles for the advertising of goods and services produced by member states and corporations of this order, most of whom are signatories to the World Trade Organization;

  40. 7 Relationships of Media to Neoliberal Imperialism (4&5) • (4) through their content and the representations of lifestyles in their content, they trigger a "demonstration" effect that stimulates continuing demand for goods and services and that is generally positive for consumerism; • (5) many of these media also service the global financial and commercial order through the provision of an informational infrastructure, one that is increasingly essential to the operation of modern capitalism, that comprises sophisticated, interactive instruments for the interrogation of massive financial, commercial and corporate data-bases; in some instances such media also provide electronic market places for trading activity;

  41. 7 Relationships of Media to Neoliberalism (6&7) • (6) media also police the ideological boundaries of tolerable expression at national and international levels – promoting content that increasingly serves the interests of neoliberalism (mainly having to do with the progressive abolition of national restrictions on trade in goods and services), marginalizing, suppressing or excluding content that does not and ( • (7) these industries provide critical support to the development of the “surveillance society” or, in other words, to the centralized collection of more and more detailed, instantly accessible intelligence (to those few who control or pay for it), to a degree unparalleled in human history in a manner that is also increasingly and literally “weaponized,” in the form of drone and other forms of robotic warfare.

  42. Scholarly Foundations • The problem is imperialism. Media are implicated with imperialism in many different ways, directly, indirectly, dialectically, and media are equally implicated in processes of resistance to imperialism • The range of connections is represented by such different scholars as Harold Innis and Marshall McLuhan, Herman and Chomsky, DayaThussu • Mainstream media uniformly support hegemonic power to which they are subject. Through almost all the 50+ US interventions, invasions and destabilizations since World War 2, mainstream US media have supported US aggression, hypocrisy and evasion.

  43. The Case of Hollywood • Liaisons between Pentagon, FBI and CIA • Entertainment as effective perception management • Think Quiet American (Mankiewwicz 1958)(Noyce 2002) • Think Alfred Hitchcock: esp.Topaz, Torn Curtain • Also need to understand Hollywood as an ideological forum (think Executive Action, JFK or Syriana as well as Zero Dark Thirty) • Often most troubling when seemingly most “real” – think Good Shepherd, Charlie Wilson’s War or Green Zone and other “Iraqi War Films” such as In the Valley of Elah • Differentiate between support for the agents, the institutions and for US foreign policy

  44. The Case of Iran • Accusing Iran of aggression, without evidence • Assuming White House and anonymous official sources tell the truth • “As though” journalism: pretending that the reader has not been paying attention • Beefing up western propaganda against Iran • Disinformation and confusion • Dubious sources linked to dubious journalists: that may be covertly linked to the military-industrial establishment or appear consistently to be behind stories that appear to work propagandistically • Preparing the public for war, and blaming it on Iran • Present Iran as negatively as possible, sometimes lying • Presumption of the worst • Pretense of certainty in contexts of uncertainty or improbability

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