SIS640: The Group Four Blogging Corps

E-E campaigns: Ulteriror motives

2009-12-06T18:38:00.000-08:00

In this last week’s readings I found Mohan Dutta’s, “Theoretical Approaches to Entertainment Education Campaigns: A Subaltern Critique”, the most interesting. He explains how the entertainment education (E-E) programs ideally contribute to the social change in developing countries by directing it in a way. Entertainment education is when educational content is incorporated to entertainment programs through radio, television, records, video and theatre. Dutta mentions that many E-E campaigns have been used for healthcare purposes, to promote family planning, HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and gender equity.

Dutta’s main point is that these programs are not successful because they are not implemented to help the marginalized population of developing countries, in the end they contribute to maintaining the status quo and the power of the elites. For example, agencies like the USAID that has funded many E-E programs, have ulterior motives in doing so and do not have a clear transparent reason to actually help these countries. The way these programs are developed and implemented it only reaches the elite population of underdeveloped countries and not the people that actually have the need. This is why Dutta proposes a subaltern view to E-E programs, for as to let the grassroots population have an active participation and say in the programs that should be implemented and what needs it should fulfill.

Most of the current entertainment education campaigns do not meet the needs and basic necessities needed by the marginalized populations, the agencies who fund the programs just have their own goal in mind. This situation is sad, because they are not helping the development of these countries. The peripheral countries continue to be in the periphery while the core countries continue to exert their control.

Problem definition, definitely a problem

2009-12-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

Professor Hayden definitely "saved the best for last" as this week’s readings were perhaps the most interesting of the entire semester. Dutta’s article, “Theoretical Approaches to E-E Campaigns,” focused on USAID’s E-E campaigns in developing countries and gave us a look at them from the critical lens of the subaltern perspective. While several of his arguments caused me to have an Oprah “Ah-Ha” moment, one point in particular stimulated my interest. Dutta states that the top-down flow of communication during project definition allows Western cultural values to dominate the campaign and fails to incorporate the subaltern perspective. Dutta makes us realize that when conducting an analysis of E-E campaigns, “communicative practices built into discursive space of E-E campaigns celebrate and privilege the dominant power structure,” which effectively marginalizes the subaltern perspective.

Dutta convinces us that we need to define the problem from a value-based perspective. While I agree with Dutta’s argument completely, the lingering question remains; if we do allow the subaltern view to define the problem, will sponsors be willing to fund these projects that may not coincide with their definition of the problem? Funding is always major issue in development and the pessimist in me wonders if agencies will continue to support projects they feel do not address the problems in a way that is pleasing to them. Dutta makes some attempt to address this by stating that the discussion of “agency in the Third World actor should be a starting point for interrogating E-E campaigns, locating such campaigns under the broader strategic goals of funding agencies.” I agree that this would be ideal, but Dutta leaves me wondering what it would take to shift the perspective of agencies to adopt this alternative way of defining the problem.

Entertainment Education and Soft Power

2009-12-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

The last time I tuned into my favorite TV show or watched a movie, the farthest thing from my mind was the type of education I was receiving. I'm also making the assumption that when most Americans settle down on the couch for their favorite night on television; they aren't thinking "boy, what do these TV shows do to "disseminate ideas to bring about behavioral and social change"? As entertainment education is further studied and considered as a medium to spread messages to developing populations, I couldn't help but wonder...are we using TV shows as a new form of soft power?

In the readings about strategic communication, one point became very clear. If the United States wants to increase its credibility, maybe we should focus on our own faults - allowing critique from outside sources, being open to criticisms, and changing our communication style to accept these new ideas. Entertainment Education would certainly allow us to improve these attributes. Our society has become more open to change and diversity and this can be seen in the TV shows that consume our lives. One example is the new ABC sitcom, Modern Family. This popular show is one of the first to display the new version of the the family: "Modern Family is the first primetime sitcom that has embraced American society as a true melting pot. Homosexual and interracial couples, are now practically as common as traditional couples and the show is all about living and coinciding together" Perhaps shows like Modern Family are increasing our soft power so that populations that view the United States’ culture as unfavorable are now seeing through our entertainment style, us in a positive light.
Maybe, if we found a way to export the comedian Jeff Dunham (complete with his terrorist puppet, Achmed), The Daily Show, Modern Family, Family Guy, and a whole multitude of others….we could use soft power in a way never used before.

E-E, the dependency paradigm, and population control: The perfect storm?

2009-12-03T13:24:00.000-08:00

I found this week's group of readings about communication in development very, very interesting. I especially liked Dutta's article, "Theoretical Approaches to Entertainment Education Campaigns: A Subaltern Critique." Considering that I had never heard the term "subaltern," I had a lot to learn, but I quickly came to realize through my reading that national elites and governments should be treating these under-served, silenced communities with a greater degree of sensitivity than they are. The way to improve their treatment, Dutta argues, is not through the current modus operandi of entertainment education (E-E) campaigns.

Dutta's central criticism of E-E ventures today is that they are of a top-down nature: governments and elites, and the developed nations, disseminate their views on less-developed populations and nations under the assumption that what worked for one population will work for another. As he explains, "...E-E campaigns operate in an uneven field with information and communication flowing from the core nations to the periphery nations, often imposing the worldview of the core nations on the actors in the periphery." This statement echoes perfectly Amin and Cardoso's dependency paradigm that we discussed in Professor Levinson's class early this semester. According to the paradigm, exploitative processes (in this case ignoring the opinions of subaltern populations, thus taking advantage of their lack of power) originate in the core and then impact the periphery.

In Dutta's view, E-E programs, under the guise of reducing poverty and bringing about social change, actually aim to use subaltern populations for the core nation's hegemonic, transnational commercial interests: "...E-E becomes the machinery for oppression of the poor in the Third World by pushing transnational capitalism." He cites USAID as his main example in this view. I am not an international development expert by any stretch of the imagination, so I knew next to nothing about their E-E programs and their influence on developing economies and populations. While I would want to read more about its policies before forming a conclusive opinion, I do think that these programs need to shift to a more bottom-up model in order to be more successful and to truly bring about social and economic change.

I do, though, have to take issue with one point of Dutta's. His section on population control as an objective of USAID's E-E campaigns argues that "population control programs embody other ideological biases that underlie their conceptualization" of being a means toward economic growth in developing countries. These ideological biases are against subaltern groups as E-E message receivers, argues Dutta, and focusing on population control as a solution only perpetuates the idea of the subaltern as undesirable, at the bottom of the class system heap. While his arguments in this context are valid, he then seems to dismiss population control entirely as a solution to anything. He doesn't acknowledge its merits in any context. To me this felt somewhat irresponsible. Okay, so in the context of his argument against current E-E campaigns, population control doesn't work. But I think he should have at least provided an example of a context in which population control does work. It's common knowledge that in many developing countries, women are more likely to have large families, which can lead to more poverty (more mouths to feed and as a result less money to do it with) and health problems, even premature death, for the mother. Population control in and of itself is not a bad thing. It can lead to better family planning and maternal health education and help stop the vicious cycle of too many children and not enough food. It's just the context of it in this case that is bad. Dutta just seemed too quick to entirely dismiss it for me.

Old Wine in a New Bottle

2009-12-01T19:49:00.000-08:00

Melkote’s article takes us deep into a serious analysis of development theories – somewhat drowning in academic, intellectual terms. His to-the-point punchline, however, was saved until the conclusion. Here, Melkote concludes that “it is usually futile and may be unethical for communication and human service professionals to help solve minor and/or immediate problems while ignoring the systemic barriers erected by societies that permit or perpetuate inequalities among citizens.” He goes on to say the work of many in the development world can be chalked up as “ineffective” and “superficial” when not taking this into account. Melkote seems to be taking the “give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll eat forever” line a step further by removing the option of even giving the fish.

The question still remains, however, that we don’t agree on how to solve these systemic barriers. (Also, Melkote makes it clear that to even assume we should be the one’s solving others problems is part of the problem itself.) Yikes. So many problems, and no straight-forward solutions. This makes IC seem a lot less scary than ID.

Fisher’s descriptions of Raymond’s concept of the Cathedral and the Bazaar resonated with me. Raymond’s frank assertion that the open-sourced, Bazaar approach is “anarchic, messy, rude, and vastly more powerful than the doomed bullshit that conventionally passes for wisdom.” This is very true – and exactly what makes it so scary. As part of a large volunteer chorus, we are often called upon to help promote our concerts. With the advent of online networks, this has markedly changed the tools with which we can promote our work. When our administrative office sends out a concert image, a special offer, or new information on a performance, a quick stream of choristers add the information to their Facebook pages – with their own thoughts tacked on. This is the risk organizations take: by allowing (and encouraging) promotion by their extended communities, they remove their (often perceived) control of the spin. The net result, however, can be more effective than any slick, controlled message they would distribute on their own. Fisher further confirms this example by noting that charitable and volunteer organizations are smart to use enthusiasts to promote them, as their efforts are based on interests rather than financial reward. This, too, has been evidenced by my chorus. When asked to promote concerts that we haven’t been particularly excited about, our status updates remain blank, our images static. When we are inspired, though, our interest is evident in our promotion.

Finally, Corman’s article on the success and failures of media systems provided some interesting insight. By assuming that communication is the transfer of meanings from person to person, communicators are neglecting the fact that message received is the one that counts – not the one that was sent. In his description of Karen Hughes’ “listening tour” of the Middle East it is clear that she neglected this fact. Perhaps she should have focused a little bit more on the “listening” part of the tour?

Public Diplomacy

2009-11-17T21:08:00.000-08:00

This weeks readings proved to be quite interesting and I particularly enjoyed Joseph Nye’s article entitled, “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power.” There are two points in particular that I found to be quite interesting.

First, I found Nye’s discussion of the “paradox of plenty” to be interesting. “Paradox of plenty” means that “when people are overwhelmed with the volume of information confronting them, it is hard for them to know what to focus on.” He then states that those who can distinguish what is valuable from the massive amount of information will gain power. This reminds me of a previous discussion we had in class about teaching people media literacy. In order to develop informed opinions, people should learn how to critically analyze the information they receive. Similarly, I believe that having “plenty” of information is not necessarily the issue, but rather, educating the public on how to extract what is relevant is.

Secondly, Nye makes the argument that a dimension of public diplomacy should include the “development of lasting relationships.” In particular, he uses the example of exchange programs to highlight his point. As an alumna of the Japanese exchange program to which he refers, I can personally attest to the benefits of these programs. While incorporating these programs into a country’s public diplomacy efforts is important, the key to their success lies in having an alumni association, or some way for participants to keep in touch after they complete the program. Without this type of connection, a government will not be able to harness the goodwill that was experienced during the program into something that is beneficial for them in the long-term. Additionally, I think that more exchange programs should require the participants to educate their home community upon returning. These community education programs should focus on building a greater cross-culture appreciation, which is currently lacking in our nation. While some programs do this, unfortunately, many of them do not. Only when the citizens of the “sending country” are educated about other cultures can the mutual understanding process that is crucial for the success of public diplomacy begin to take place.

Public Diplomacy vs. Placido Domingo

2009-11-17T05:19:00.000-08:00

I had a bit of an identity crisis when taking notes on these readings. In creating my own shorthand for the repeating IC terms in these essays, I turned “public diplomacy” into “PD” – and realized that since I’ve lived in DC, this was an abbreviation I’ve always used for Placido Domingo. When I first moved here it was to work at Washington National Opera; we all had arts backgrounds and we shuffled back and forth between our office in the Watergate and performances in the Kennedy Center. We didn’t talk much about politics and considered Placido Domingo more of a celebrity than any politician we encountered. In changing my field to work in international communication/education, I’ve worried about neglecting this part of my background. Reading Joseph Nye and others talk about the various forms of soft power, however, I was happily reminded that there is room for a meaningful coexistence of these interests. In reading about cultural exchanges, I even remembered that while I worked at the Opera our artists spent weeks performing as part of the “Great American Voices Military Base Tour”. While I didn’t think much of it at the time (besides wondering how entertaining these performances would be for our troops), it is interesting to note this unique collaboration between state and non-state actors – between the Department of Defense and OPERA America with funding from Boeing.

Glassman’s speech provided a number of concrete examples of State Department efforts in public diplomacy. While impressed with the modern use of technology, it was refreshing to hear him clarify that “Public Diplomacy 2.0 is a new approach, not a new technology”. I clearly favor what Nye describes as the “slow media of cultural diplomacy” – found through arts, books, and exchanges and resulting in a “trickle-down effect”, while much of what we learn about relates to the “fast information media”, promising “more immediate and visible bang for bucks.” Technology certainly provides the means, but it doesn’t replace the need for effective communication.

I really got into the Powers and Gilboa article on Al-Jazeera. I was largely unfamiliar with Al-Jazeera until I befriended a number of Yemenese students in a language class. During every class break, they would gather round the shared computers to catch up on the news. They explained the approach of the station to me, which was re-iterated in this article. There was an honesty in the approach of the “opinion and the other opinion” reporting that I could appreciate. While the article highlights many of the criticisms of their methods and their negative outcomes, I was struck by the Al-Jazeera reporter’s quote that he “is adamantly against the notion of neutrality. There is no such thing as a neutral journalist or a neutral media for that matter.” By providing two opposing opinions, this seemingly makes an attempt to balance out two non-neutral opinions and leave the viewer faced with choosing what is correct. (Problems arise, of course, when one “opinion” is not just an opinion – it is a factual representation of something that is happening. Or if there happen to be more than two viable opinions on an issue.)

The article closes by intimating that Al-Jazeera is providing a communications strategy that reflects the new public diplomacy, one that “blurs traditional distinctions between…public and traditional diplomacy, and between cultural diplomacy, marketing and news management.” The authors tip their hats to Nye’s concept of soft power, and close with a mention of our favorite concept: glocalization. (And speaking of Nye, it was great to finally read his Soft Power article after seeing so many references to it.) Finally, Price’s article provided a number of surprises: among them the first academic citation of a Washington Times article that I’ve ever seen, but also a number of welcome Midwest shout-outs, including an extended description of the Dayton Peace Accords and a re-cap of Sen. Carl Levin’s Bosnian efforts.

"The Opinion and the Other Opinion"

2009-11-16T19:16:00.000-08:00

Of all of this week's readings, I found "The Public Diplomacy of Al Jazeera" especially interesting. I freely admit that prior to this course, I knew next to nothing about Al Jazeera, save for the fact that they broadcast messages from bin Laden after 9/11. I feel like we've been building up to a more in-depth discussion of the news network all semester, and this piece by Shawn Powers and Eytan Gilboa brought up many relevant points and got me thinking about the role of news media in the Arab world, especially in comparison to news media in Western society.

I appreciated the authors' brief history of Al Jazeera--its inception in 1996 with (very) generous funding from an emir in Qatar, its debut on the world stage in December 1998 during Operation Desert Fox, and its promotion to lead player in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and the American invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, when it was the only transnational news organization with a bureau in Kabul. They also identify the internal and external focuses of Al Jazeera: internally pushing the envelope by spotlighting on controversial subjects like sex, corruption and politics, and externally focusing on regional and world events from the Arab and Muslim perspectives. Both of these have of course caused various uproars in the Middle East and in the rest of the world, particularly the West. Government leaders in the former (Saudi Arabia for example) have blocked Al Jazeera in some cases because of its dynamic internal content, seeing it as a threat to their authority. In the West, meanwhile, especially in the United States, the network's internal programming is supported, since it's viewed as supporting the ideals of democracy and free speech. But its external programming--the bin Laden broadcasts, and showing the negative human effects of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts--has caused much consternation and outrage.

Powers' and Gilboa's outlining of Al Jazeera's dual focus segues nicely into their next point, which was for me the most important and most vital to comprehending the network: Al Jazeera has a definite political agenda. There are a couple of reasons for this, according to the authors. First, the national media systems in the Middle East leave much to be desired. They are marred by corruption, as they are controlled by government regimes and do not even attempt to present a balanced account of domestic and regional events. Al Jazeera looks to fill this void by providing a counterpoint, and in doing so takes a stand against the corrupt political establishment. It also challenges the notion of the nation-state "as the primary actor in international affairs," which we've discussed at length earlier in the semester. This is somewhat ironic considering that the Qatari government still pours money into Al Jazeera, but I think it proves the network's mission of presenting an independent voice and acting as an advocate for Arabs, no matter the monetary or political cost.

Powers and Gilboa aptly contrast Al Jazeera with its Western counterpart, CNN. They speak of the now-familiar "CNN effect" and address the natural next question: is there also an "Al Jazeera effect?" I think after reading the piece that comparing the two would be ultimately futile because they operate in such different environments. In Al Jazeera's case, as the authors point out, it is not just there to report events objectively but also, in view of the political climate in the Middle East, "...to take over the tasks that are usually fulfilled by political parties." It is not just a news network--to say so would be quite an understatement. Al Jazeera is there also to effect change in the region through its programming and above all to be "an agent for democratic governance." This piece certainly gave me a greater understanding of this media organization and also made me realize the degree to which it's misunderstood in the United States. I'm not saying I'm going to replace my cable news network of choice with Al Jazeera English, but I will no longer dismiss it as irrelevant either.

Soft power, public diplomacy and technology...what next?

2009-11-16T11:39:00.000-08:00

I liked this week’s readings because I found that for the first time actually understand what soft power is and the role it plays in the field of public diplomacy. Joseph Nye defines soft power as “the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion and payment”. He goes on to say, “A country’s soft power rests on its resources of culture, values, and policies”. In essence soft power is the attempt to promote a country’s culture and values to the public in foreign countries, and hopefully create a positive image and understanding, so foreigners will be more willing to help and support that country’s policies.

Joseph Nye in his reading, “Public Diplomacy and Soft Power”, mentions how the United States had a very good handle on the use of soft power during the cold war, but after it, its soft power initiatives began to decline because of the thought for its lack of importance. Many people thought soft power was merely a war tactic, and after the war well we had no use for it, so many cuts were made in programs, such as educational exchanges. The author also points out that the efforts for soft power after 9/11 have not been the best or the most successful.

Public diplomacy helps disseminate soft power efforts through broadcasting, subsidizing cultural exports, and arranging exchanges. Soft power is divulged through many types of mediums, such as: television, internet, radio, and actual face-to-face interaction. The export of television shows and Hollywood movies has a great impact on how foreigners view American culture, but it is a one way flow of information as are too the radio and usually the internet. Although the internet is capable of providing feedback, it can’t really substitute a face-to-face interaction. The mutual understanding of each other’s culture gives way to a stronger relationship and provides know-how on how to promote one’s culture elsewhere considering different values and customs.

In talking about the internet and face-to-face interaction, it is important to mention the Public Diplomacy 2.0 (PD 2.0) approach which James Glassman describes in his speech, “Public Diplomacy 2.0”. He first emphasizes that PD 2.0 is not a new technology; it is an approach to public diplomacy which uses social networking technologies to its advantage and in keeping up with the changing information age. The Internet today is based on interactivity and conversation; it is a democratic virtual world. There are so many sources of information if you don’t trust one go to another source, or read through many sources and then make your own informed decisions. PD 2.0 initiatives include the use of blogs, websites, webchats, social networking sites, virtual worlds, etc. I found an example Glassman gives particularly interesting, that in Columbia a young man started a facebook group called, One Million Voices Against the FARC, which is a terrorist group, and got 400,000 members and the group got 12 million people around the world to participate in an activity where they all took to the streets. I remember in one of my classes someone had pointed out how influential can becoming a member of a facebook group actually be? This example shows exactly how influential it can be and how it can make a difference. Finally, the integration of new technologies into public diplomacy and soft power efforts can be very beneficial, especially in our constantly changing world. Initiatives must keep up with the changes, for them to be effective.

"Democracy Is..." Winners

2009-11-15T08:59:00.001-08:00

In case you were curious about the winners of the "Democracy Is..." video contest mentioned in the James Glassman article, check them out here. Who knew Democracy was like a smoothie?

The United States war on Al Jazeera

2009-11-14T13:37:00.000-08:00

I found The Public Diplomacy of Al Jazeera by Shawn Powers and Eytan Gilboa as well as Public Diplomacy and Soft Power by Joseph Nye especially enlightening this week as we have continued to discuss both concepts frequently in class. What I discovered in these readings just served to enhance what I already knew; The United States does not have it's act together when it comes to approaching public diplomacy, soft power, and the rising political power of Al Jazeera in the Middle East.

Al Jazeera is viewed positively by its target audience - Arabs and Muslims throughout the region of the Middle East, most likely because the network attempts to create a feeling of "Pan Arab" citizenry across borders that has never been achieved. Regardless of pressures by surrounding regimes, who criticize the news outlet for inciting violence, encouraging dissent, and reporting on "taboo" topics; the relatively new media source was recognized as the fifth most popular "brand" in the world. Obviously, Al Jazeera is doing something right to achieve this status. As the network continues to be attacked by governments in the Middle East, this only serves to increase its credibility and popularity. One would think the United States would have learned this lesson in watching its Arab counterparts attempt to shut the network down, to no avail. Led by the Bush Administration as well as various agencies and departments, Al Jazeera was labeled "Osama's mouthpiece", accused of inciting terrorists activities, and inaccurately protraying the war in Iraq. These criticisms have only served to increase the popularity of the network and lessen the amount of influence the US may hope to have in the region through soft power and public diplomacy efforts.

Joseph Nye defines soft power as " the ability to shape the preferences of others" and public diplomacy as the instruments governments use to spread soft power. Soft power is dependent upon three objectives: culture, political values, and foreign policies. The US attempts to "win the hearts and minds" of people in the Middle East through these tactics. What the US fails to notice is that actions speak louder than words when it comes to soft power. Nye discusses how in the new information age, everyone has access to so much information that people are experiencing information overload and need to decide for themselves what is going to receive their attention. No matter how much the US talks and talks or continues to criticize Al Jazzera, this only serves to decrease our own credibility and increase that of the only network many in the Middle East view as a legitimate and independent source of news. With websites, such as www.stopaljazeera.org that label Al Jazeera to be a form of terror television and a new form of hate America media, the US government is doing exactly what its counterparts in the Middle East regimes do - attempt to prohibit an outside, independent source from reporting the news. This branding of the station as anti-American has increased due to the broadcasting of Al Jazeera English.

Al Jazeera's English website describes its goals: "Al Jazeera English is destined to be the English-language channel of reference for Middle Eastern events, balancing the current typical information flow by reporting from the developing world back to the West and from the southern to the northern hemisphere...the channel aims to give voice to untold stories, promote debate, and challenge established perceptions". If the United States wanted to effectively use its soft power and increase its relevancy through public diplomacy, it would smartly use this media source as a chance to counteract the negative reporting against the United States and its foreign policy actions, particularly the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nye believes that in order for public diplomacy to be successful, the US needs to know its target audience. The consumers of Al Jazeera English are the exact audience that we need to be targeting. As Nye further states, "It is sometimes domestically difficult for the government to support presentation of views that are critical of its own policies. Yet such criticism is often the most effective way of establishing credibility...When the government instruments avoid such criticism, they not only diminish their own credibility but also fail to capitalize on an important source of attraction".

While I am in no way defending Al Jazeera's actions (I actually find fault with them for claiming to "set the agenda" as well as their statements that they are not always a neutral source of information), I recognize the power they have as a brand, a news source, and as a political actor. They have managed to do significant damage to the United States goals abroad, but this could have been mediated by the United States own involvement on the network to counteract their charges. Further, CNN and Fox News, as well as other domestic sources that provide our information make use of stories and video released by Al Jazeera. Also, the videos shown (especially those released by Bin Laden) allow government officials to analyze the true dates the videos were released and the location of where they formed. If used effectively, I believe the US could actually use Al Jazeera, specifically Al Jazeera English, to rebuild our soft power in the region and even use them as a potential source in fighting the war on terror.

Sources:
http://www.stopaljazeera.org/
http://english.aljazeera.net/aboutus/2006/11/2008525185555444449.html

September 12, 2001

2009-11-09T22:44:00.000-08:00

This week we have another interesting set of readings that focus on the role of media during conflict and peace. Specifically, the readings detail the role media and technology play in influencing political leaders and setting the foreign policy agenda. Robin Brown’s article, “Spinning the War,” focuses on the presentation of international events, in particular, ‘The War Against Terror.’ In the article, Brown discusses “the difficulty in trying to craft and communicate a message in an increasingly complex and competitive trans national media environment.”

This immediately reminded me of a great exhibit at the Newseum in D.C. called the 9/11 Gallery. The Gallery features front pages from newspapers around the globe on September 12, 2001. In Brown’s article, she describes how in the wake of 11 September 2001, the US could have portrayed the 9/11 attacks as either a “criminal or terrorist action,” or “it could [have used] the language of war.” However, without a definitive approach from the Administration in how to frame the attacks in President Bush’s evening speech on September 11^th, each newspaper had the liberty to frame the events of September 11^th in any manner they liked.

Being a former member of my collegiate newspaper, I’m sure newspapers carefully considered how they would word their headlines for their September 12^th editions. As you can see from the Newseum exhibit, some of the papers chose to key in on specific war language from President Bush’s speech. The use of phrases such as “act of war,” perpetuated the portrayal of the attacks as war as opposed to criminal or terrorist attacks. However, ultimately due to the Bush Administration leaving the portrayal of the attacks open to interpretation, the media was able to frame the war in its early stages.

http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default_archive.asp?fpArchive=091201

“War on Terrorism”, more like Scare the people!

2009-11-09T21:40:00.000-08:00

Through the media politicians, policymakers, organizations, and governments in general shape the perception of the audience in terms of a specific event or situation, usually to their own benefit. In this week’s reading by Robin Brown, he explains the importance of presenting international events and how the flow of information is utilized. To do this, he uses the example of the “War on Terrorism” that took place after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The author mentions that the United States has used three different paradigms in communicating the war on terrorism. These are: the Information Operations (IO) doctrine, which is “any effort to attack or defend the information necessary for the conduct of operations”; public diplomacy, which joins international broadcasting, cultural diplomacy, educational exchanges, and overseas information activities; and lastly, political news management, or otherwise known as the ‘spin’, which tries to persuade the public that one side of the truth is actually the reality of it. Brown then goes on to describe the flaws of each paradigm that leads to each one’s loss of effectiveness and credibility. For example, the influence of the IO doctrine in the situation with the Office of Strategic Influence at the Department of Defense (DoD) and its closure, because of the fear the DoD and the presidential communication staff felt of the possible lack of credibility.

Brown tells us that the framing of the war began just after the attacks of 9/11 when President Bush first used the phrase “winning the war against terrorism”, his choice of words eliminated other possible perceptions and considered the attacks the beginning of a war. A war entails a conflict between two parties and the continuous attacks between them until one wins. For me personally, Bush’s words of the war on terrorism were just a way to scare people into supporting a counterattack. At first it was a pretty abstract enemy, just terrorists in general, until suddenly the enemy had a name Al-Qaeda, and a face, Osama Bin Laden. Now it was more personal. Bin Laden on his part worked his media by framing the war not as a counterattack on terrorism, but that it was a war against Islam, a holy war. In this way he gained Muslim supporters. The US countered by saying, “Islam is peace”. This was a way to protect American Muslims, which were being attacked for no reason other than their religious affiliations and to challenge Al-Qaeda’s expressions.

The “War on Terror” manipulated the population in such a way, that people were truly scared of another attack and this made them support an actual war against the “enemy”, but it also made people obsessed to a point where any Arab looking person was attacked and accused of being a terrorist. Obviously, all this fanaticism has died down and now people are much less supportive of the war in Iraq, it’s pointless to continue being there; this supposed ‘war on terrorism’ ended years ago. And I’ll leave it at that, because I could probably go on and on for pages!

Ich bin ein Berliner

2009-11-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

Having just returned from a year in Germany, I became especially intrigued when Hafez began sprinkling his article on International Reporting with references to German media coverage. (I was curious about his bio and discovered he is a professor in both Germany and the UK, hence his coverage of both systems of media.)

Hafez uses the example of the Olympics to show how media coverage tends to be nationalistic. While in Berlin, my first exposure to German television was watching the 2008 Olympics and we primarily watched coverage from the European channel Eurosport. Eurosport’s coverage focused on all European teams, thus it spent much more time covering a broad range of events and participants. In addition to using these events as an opportunity to learn my German numbers (score-keeping in German took on a whole new charm), it was intriguing to experience this “global” event from a non-American perspective.

Americans can’t be completely to blame for our focus on national events, however. In comparing coverage of international events by US, UK, and Germany outlets, the US was criticized for having the lowest percentage of coverage of international news. (While I do agree that international coverage in the US should be increased, the article failed to acknowledge that in terms of proximity, Germany calling many types of news “international” is in some ways like Michigan reporting on Ohio news.) Given the existence and growing prominence of the EU, much of this international news is incredibly relevant to Germans as well. And one has to start questioning to what extent German coverage of legislative developments in Brussels is really international anymore. The similarities to news reports, for example, in Kansas about federal decisions in Washington, DC are strong and increasing.

The Germans I came to know well were intensely proud of their familiarity with foreign news. Beyond being well-versed in foreign affairs, many Germans travel extensively and gain real exposure to cultures that are different from their own. One hesitates to belabor the point that part of this capacity to learn about other countries – and to travel to them – is the close proximity (and now close political integration) of many different countries, cultures, and languages.

It is important to note that patriotism is not something that is frequently found in Germany – at least not in the way common in the US. Even my peers in their mid-30s were extremely hesitant to exhibit any behavior that indicated a nationalistic attitude. This, perhaps, is key to how they approach the issues of other nations. In a constant effort to not re-live their past, they are committed (strongly, and vocally) to the pursuit of peace – and that requires knowing about what is happening in other places. Rallying around the flag? Trusting a leader unconditionally, especially when it comes to decisions of involvement in wars? Not in today’s Germany. In reading the discussions of Americans’ responses to 9/11 and the media’s call to “support our president unconditionally,” I could anticipate the virulent reaction my German friends would have had if exposed to such pleas.

War of Words in the "War on Terror"

2009-11-09T19:23:00.000-08:00

As a student who is very interested in Middle Eastern Studies as well as terrorism, this week's readings seem especially relevant to not only what we have been discussing in class, but to current events. Each reading seemed to discuss the "framing" of the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (even if Brown and Hanson's articles seemed...very similar) and the importance of language in assessing the debate.

Robin Brown expresses the role the media played in stringing together the words "war on terror". Various forms of the phrase, including "acts of war", "winning the war against terrorism", and "a new kind of war" had already been used by President Bush, and thus it became easy (if not necessary) for the Bush Administration to not only use the phrase, but market the brand to the American public. Hanson describes how the administration decided to use the word "liberation" over "occupation", leading Americans to feel as though the war was good thing and many more people would be able to experience freedom. There have been multiple studies and opinion polls taken regarding this phrase. It is often argued that Republicans use words better than Democrats in invoking certain emotions from the population. Linguistics professor George Lakoff of UC Berkley answers the question: "You've said that progressives should never use the phrase "war on terror" - why?" He summarizes -

" Terror is a general state, and it's internal to a person. Terror is not the person we're fighting, the "terrorist." The word terror activates your fear, and fear activates the strict father model, which is what conservatives want. The "war on terror" is not about stopping you from being afraid, it's about making you afraid. How many terrorists are there - hundreds? Sure. Thousands? Maybe. Tens of thousands? Probably not. The point is, terrorists are actual people, and relatively small numbers of individuals, considering the size of our country and other countries. It's not a nation-state problem. War is a nation-state problem".

While I obviously disagree with his analysis (mostly because terrorism is an act of terrifying a group of people, which is what terrorists do, and major global actors are not confined to the concept of a 'nation state' therefore a war can be waged against non-state actors) it is interesting to note the immediate reversal of words once Obama took office.

"The War on Terror" became "Overseas Contingency Operation" and the Obama administration did whatever it could in whatever speech the President gave to spin the wars in a different light, attempting to characterize them as anything but an actual war against actual terrorists. Interestingly enough, this was noticed heavily in the media and Obama (as well as Robert Gibbs) lapsed and reverted to using 'war on terror' soon afterwards. It is obvious that we are still engaged in a war against terrorists, no matter what terminology or phrase you personally decide to use to describe it. But, I'm sure the war over what words should be used to describe it will be just as long as the actual war itself.

Sources:
http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/08/25_lakoff.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/24/AR2009032402818.html?wprss=rss_politics/administration

Patriotism in the Media: Not Always a Bad Thing

2009-11-09T12:12:00.000-08:00

This week's readings were for me some of the most dynamic and thought-provoking of the semester, especially given their relevance to the conference on cultural diplomacy many of us attended last Thursday. Kai Hafez's piece, "International Reporting," was especially stimulating for me. He argues that the world is still a long way from seeing widespread transnational media sources despite the forces of globalization--the media has yet to "catch up" in his view, as evidenced by his point that the vast majority of most of it is still national or local in nature. CNN and its ilk are the exceptions. I agreed with Hafez's views for most of the article, but I had to take issue with his treatment of US media in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

He states that "following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001, many observers expressed disappointment at what they saw as the strong tendency towards patriotism in US media coverage." First I had to ask, "Who are these observers?" He doesn't name them or state their nationalities or institutions with which they are affiliated, which would have made the statement more credible. Further, September 11, 2001 was a day fraught with sadness, fear, anger, and other very strong emotions, not just for Americans but for many other nations around the world that lost citizens in the attacks and/or that felt solidarity with Americans' grief. A "more cautious...balanced" media response was not what Americans needed that day and in the days immediately following the attacks. They--oh, okay, we, which I feel self-conscious about typing, thanks to Hafez's observation that the use of "we" and "our" dominated in this patriotic-themed media response--we were hurting and wanted to feel united with our fellow citizens. The media, as we've noted earlier this semester, is a key way to do so. I feel that in this case, a patriotic media response, as imperfect as it may be objectively, was not the faux-pas that Hafez suggests.

At age 15 on 9/11, I was still quite young but more than old enough to comprehend the magnitude of the attacks, especially since I was in the DC area at the time. Watching TV that afternoon, evening, and all through the next day (school was cancelled) made me feel less isolated, less numb about the attacks, and when the Big Three newscasters (Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings) suggested that viewers should rally behind the president unconditionally, I believed it. So did my parents and everyone else I knew. We were in a time of great national crisis and grief--giving the president full support is what we should do, regardless of political persuasion, and the media, through its more patriotic coverage, helped us to do so. Hafez seems to suggest that there is something wrong with this, that the American media should have been more diverse in its coverage: "Every stirring, no matter how small, of a social dialogue on fundamental issues of war and peace was nipped in the bud." I didn't appreciate this. Maybe there was a time for those dialogues, but it was not in the immediate months following the attacks. People did not want dialogues about war and peace. They wanted to cry and yell and try to believe that there was some good left in the world despite immediate evidence to the contrary. The patriotic media coverage was how they did it.

To talk about dialogues and disappointment at patriotic media coverage is to me unrealistic, and fails to recognize the unique American context. The United States is known worldwide as a country that demonstrates its patriotism, so I don't understand why he expected a radical departure from that in the media after such a horrific chain of events. Further, Hafez doesn't account for the fact that reporters' own emotions might have come into play in 9/11 coverage more so than in other coverage, given the extraordinary magnitude of the attacks. They were American too. Being totally balanced in their reporting was simply not possible in my view.

Hafez's examination of US media coverage on and after 9/11 illustrates the continued relevance of the nation-state in media and communication. American culture and national values definitely set the tone for the more patriotic 9/11 coverage in the United States. I'd venture that 9/11 media coverage in the UK, for example, was a bit more reserved and measured, but showed solidarity toward America, which reflects Britain's own national culture and values. How is this a bad thing? After reading Hafez's take on it, I felt like I had to apologize. Of course there are times and places for us to apologize when we've done something wrong. Doing so for patriotic media coverage in the wake of the worst attack on American soil in history is not one of them.

Network of Trust

2009-11-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

This week’s readings provide an interesting look at the role new media has played in political movements. I found these readings to be quite fascinating and really enjoyed how the authors gave specific examples of how social media influenced specific activist movements around the world.

In particular, I found Castells argument about the horizontal diffusion of political messaging to be quite interesting. Castells states that the network effect, which involves “ person-to-person, horizontal, mass communication,” resonates more with individuals than top-down messaging. To highlight this point, Castells gives the example of Prime Minister Berlusconi during the 2004 elections. People were “indignant at seeing their personal and political privacy invaded by the prime minister for electoral gain," causing Berlusconi to lose the election by a larger margin than what was originally anticipated. Think about it, if you received an unsolicited message from the government canvassing for your vote or advocating for a specific policy, you too would probably be angry or annoyed. (I know I would be.)

Why are we so resistant to receiving messages from the government, and more willing to be influenced politically by messaging we receive from people in our network? To some extent, I think it is because there is a belief by many people that any messaging coming from the government to something as personal and private as our mobile phones is not only an invasion of privacy, but is loaded with propaganda. When receiving a message from our friends, although we know that they are clearly trying to influence our opinion, we often think that they have our best interest at heart by informing us about a cause or encouraging us to vote for a specific candidate. Their motives for sending the messaging are perceived as being more transparent and honest. In contrast, when receiving a message from the government, we tend to believe that the purpose of their message is solely to influence our opinion in order to carry out a political agenda that best suites their needs. There is no assumption that they are truly concerned about our well-being.

Since new media is proving to be an effective way to mobilize people politically, it is in the government’s best interest to find a way to build trust with its citizens through mobile technology. Who knows, maybe in the not too distant future, the government will pay people in our network to send us messages on their behalf…or maybe they already are...

Mobs, Wars, and Armies: Now Online!

2009-11-03T10:57:00.000-08:00

This week’s readings provided a fascinating addition to our studies of nation-states and global governance. Hanson started out by reminding us of the current role of nation-states, and then she (along with the others) went on to highlight case studies of global activist groups that have essentially created their own system of global governance. Whether it be through promoting awareness of human rights abuses, highlighting misbehavior on the part of a politician, or revealing corporate missteps, this “global third sector” is playing an increasingly important role in solving issues with the help of ICTs.

While there are obvious limitations within these groups (more than one author reminded us of the digital divide – and honestly, who had a cell phone in 1999? Only the cutting-edge types could have been involved in the Battle of Seattle) - it cannot be denied that their presence is encouraging active participation among groups that may have previously only been observers.

Perhaps this is what is so exciting about these tools: voters can now play a role in the election well before election day, consumers can force change from the corporations producing the products they use, and issues that political parties wouldn’t touch are being addressed by other means. Further, these groups are appealing because by reducing hierarchies (or at least the obvious signs of their existence), participants become more aware of their role in the success of a mission. By answering the call to forward an e-mail, show up at a protest, write a letter, or call a congressperson, they are actively participating in the movement. This is markedly different than the “membership” models mentioned in Bennett’s article. (You pay us a membership fee, we will work to save the X from extinction, or remove Y from office.)

Further, these examples have highlighted the energy and youth that is behind many of these projects. Even the language of this type of activism is different. The slickness and youth is reflected by the re-appropriated use of words like “armies”, “mobs”, “wars, “jamming”, “swarming” in explaining how online actors are orchestrating their efforts.

In many ways, though, these actions can be described as reactive, not reflective. Many of the examples given have not necessarily intrinsically changed anything, but rather have solved short-term problems. Perhaps, though, this is what exactly why they work. Understanding that they can’t solve everything, it is appealing for ordinary citizens to be involved in solving something. Further, Bennett quotes Redden in acknowledging that these new ITCs “allow individuals and communication group to reduce the influence gap between themselves and wealthier organizations.” Through relying on information from their trusted networks, citizens feel more actively involved. Bennett also notes that internet networks are contributing to audience building that is “reaching people that frequently extend beyond activist circles.” While they might not become as radical as “members” of the White Overalls, they can feel as though they’ve played a meaningful role in enacting change.

Castells says that this is a sign of the power of each user to become his/her own broadcasting station. Bennett agrees: he notes that “people who have been on the receiving end of one-way mass communication are now increasingly likely to become producers and transmitters.”

All the examples reminded us that physical spaces do still matter. Even if messages were coordinated online, they were usually asking citizens to take action by participating in something occurring in a physical space – be it attending a protest, going to vote, etc. The internet is seen in most of these readings as providing a solid foundation for communication, but not a way of replacing person-to-person contacts. Bennett concludes that “internet use has complemented and facilitated face-to-face coordination and interaction, rather than replacing them.” (Indeed, the case studies given where users ignored the importance of personalization were the least successful.) Overall, these new networks serve an incredible purpose: encouraging participation in new groups, connecting people beyond typical lines of distinction, and enacting change on a global scale.

Hanson re-caps semester topics

2009-11-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

This week’s Elizabeth C. Hanson reading, “Global Communication and the Nation-State”, is a recap of all the topics we have discussed during this semester. Some of the topics Hanson discusses are the nation-state and how its control has been affected by the new ICTs that have emerged and quite possibly have minimized its centrality and power. She also mentions the importance non-state actors have acquired in world politics, such as transnational corporations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) or civil society. She explains the debate of the power shift from being only nation-state to including transnational corporations and considering the expertise and points of view of NGOs. ICTs have helped NGOs expand and grow by facilitating the diffusion of information across boundaries, so they can reach their common goals. Salamon calls civil society, the “global third sector”, which each day has an increasing larger influence and participation in Unites Nations World Conferences.

A very important point that Hanson makes is the challenges ICTs bring in terms of nation-states governing their population, and that autocratic governments have more of a challenge by creating ways to censor and limit the exposure to communication technologies like the Internet. The author gives the example of the Chinese government and all the laws, policies and restrictions they have put into place so they can control the information citizens receive and avoid negative comments of the government. But the Communist Party also uses the Internet to its advantage to develop and expand its reach to global markets.

Hanson states the importance of identity and the role information and communication technologies have had on the changes of cultural globalization and national identity. The phenomenon of immigration to other countries creates a great variety of diasporic communities, which thanks to ICTs, can now keep very close contact with what is happening in their home countries. In terms of cultural globalization, we can also mention once again, the crucial role Hollywood films and television has had since its earliest days. The exportation of media products, especially American programmes and films have a great dominance worldwide. Although, we have already learned that people prefer to watch local more culturally relevant television shows and news, which has given way to the process of “hybridization”. “Hybridization” unites many cultural aspects to make a T.V. show or film more widely accepted and relevant to a larger audience.

In essence, information and communication technologies have bought innovations and challenges with them. They are responsible for many changes in cultural globalization, diasporic communities, the growth of civil society, and the way of governing a nation-state and decentralizing its power and authority. There are positive and negative implications to every new innovation, we just have to learn to deal with them and be flexible enough to face whatever the unexpected results it might have.

Hold on to your hats...I'm about to praise the Democrats

2009-11-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

In reading Castells Mobile Civil Society this week, I was struck most by the phrase "So far, the use of wireless communication has not had any significant effect on political events in the United States". Immediately, my thoughts flew to the Obama campaign's success due in large part to their use of wireless technology (and then I checked the date the article was written - 2007). While I of course was an ardent supporter of the McCain/Palin ticket and am a fierce critic of the Obama administration, I can recognize a well run campaign when I see one, hence my about to be overflowing praise of the Obama campaign.

When a communication strategy is effectively employed, it can lead to very drastic change. As Castells asserted, "We have observed a growing tendency for people, in different contexts, to use wireless communication to voice their discontent with the powers that be". In essence, the Obama campaign was exactly that - people, many of whom had never been involved in politics, expressing their discontent with the Bush administration. These people took to the internet to express their support for Obama, and the Obama campaign successfully developed a campaign strategy the likes of which had never been seen in the United States.

An article on epolitics.com lays out the tools in Obama's communication toolkit. These tools consisted of: website, email, MyBarackObama.com, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, online databases, and cell phones. BarackObama.com led the charge. This site encouraged visitors to set up their own social networks in support of the candidate; the site also distributed videos, talking points, and connected to online bloggers in support of Obama. Email was the main tool used to connect the campaign and enabled supporters to further connect to friends and family, some of which may not have been on popular social networking sites. MyBarackObama.com, an arm of BarackObama.com, was an organizing genius. It allowed volunteers to organize their own events, and the campaign would often supply staff to come in. I witnessed this myself as an undergrad who was finding it difficult to get in touch with the McCain/Palin campaign. While I was trying to communicate with the campaign to get resources and offer our support and volunteer efforts, the local Democrats organized their own events and it seemed that campaign staff just magically appeared when needed.

The tools that led to the large surge in youth voter turnout were the social media tools: Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and cell phones. Epolitics.com says, "the campaign eventually maintained official profiles on some 15 different online social networks (accumulating five million “friends” in total)". Over 1800 clips were posted to Youtube. It was easy for college students to become a fan of the candidate and invite their friends to become fans, further mobilizing the youth vote. It made it easy for students to get involved, since they already were on these sites. The website further analyzes the use of cell phones, summarizing "Campaign staff also relied on cell phones to reach segments of the population less likely to be on a computer regularly, such as young people, minorities and the poor". Text messaging was used to get voters to the polls, as well as release important campaign information. I am sure we all remember the buildup to the Vice Presidential nomination that was to be announced via cell phone. This announcement was to assure that supporters would find out directly from the campaign and not from some other media source. Further, applications were released on the Iphone just for the Obama campaign supporters.

The Obama administration continues to use wireless communication technology to stay in touch with supporters - maintaining their Youtube Channel, Facebook page, and encouraging people to sign up to receive email and text messaging alerts directly from Obama himself. The Obama campaign was in many forms a revolution, and it will be very interesting to see how further campaigns for both the sides of aisle use these technologies...and it will also be interesting to see how Castells updates his article to include an in depth analysis of the Obama campaign.

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, 21st-Century Style: Politics and Mobile Communication

2009-11-02T16:45:00.001-08:00

When I saw that one of this week's readings was from Castells' book Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective, I knew it sounded familiar. I had in fact just read the book in its entirety a few weeks before for my podcast in Professor Levinson's class. That Chapter 7, "The Mobile Civil Society: Social Movements, Political Power, and Communication Networks," was in the lineup for this week made me happy because it was one of my favorite chapters while reading the book. After reading a lot of theoretical examples in earlier chapters, including one on mobile youth culture, I liked the real-world feel of this one.

Castells explores several political and social events that have been affected by the presence of mobile technology, such as when President Estrada of the Philippines was pushed out of office with the help of SMS and the Internet in mobilizing demonstrators, and when the conservative Partido Popular (PP) was defeated in Spain after the Madrid train bombings in 2004. (Would-be voters expressed rage and indignation via their mobile phones that the PP was trying to blame a Basque terrorist group for the bombings--a group the PP had cracked down on regularly--instead of an al-Qaeda-linked, mostly Moroccan group. That rage that the PP was trying to use the attacks for political gain translated into votes, and a win, for the Socialist Party in Spain.) In both of these cases, people were able to relay information to each other quickly through mobile communication networks and ultimately effected change in their national political structures.

Worth noting as well in the Spain example is the fact that people quickly came to distrust the major TV networks, whom they viewed as hesitant to report the true facts about the bombings. They were more likely to get information from SER, the main private radio network, which they then relayed to each other via text message and regular phone calls. Interestingly, the PP tried to spread its Basque terrorist theory via text message, but it didn't work, both because people were already mistrusting the government's stance on the attacks and because it came directly from the party, a very top-down approach that did not work. What did work was the spontaneous protest by citizens with access to mobile technology, who connected horizontally and informally to influence the outcome of the election. Castells states, "Armed with their cell phones, and able to connect to the world wide web, individuals and grassroots activists are able to set up powerful, broad, personalized, instant networks of communication." The indignation expressed by a majority of Spanish citizens through that technology gave the Socialist Party a leg up toward victory.

If Castells provides the real-world examples, Bennett offers us the theoretical nuts and bolts needed to understand how mobile communication affects civil society. Although his essay deals specifically with how the Internet is utilized in the area of social justice, it has implications for society in general and can certainly be applied to Castells' examples. Bennett asks a good question early in his essay: What enables activists to use "new media" to communicate their unique messages across the boundaries of geography and traditional media?

In short, they can do so through networks that are able to "spill outside the control of established organizations." This creates a more open forum--or dare I say public sphere--for discourse and for planning. These activist networks, according to Bennett, are decentralized, often leaderless, and their members are able to communicate with each other quickly and easily. Sound familiar? While reading, I thought immediately of the Spain as well as the Philippines and South Korea examples. In all of these instances, the people created, almost subconsciously, an informal, horizontal network with the purpose of protesting their current political situation. It worked because it was horizontal and decentralized--because the government and the political party were not involved, people were quicker to trust each other and mobilize for their cause. By contrast, the SMS campaign started by the PP in Spain did not work because it came directly from the party, and for obvious reasons people wanted nothing to do with it.

Castells' examples and Bennett's analysis provide a clear snapshot of the evolving role of mobile communication technologies and their impact on civil society. Since those events took place--the Madrid bombings happened in March 2004--mobile communication has become even more advanced, and time will tell how that advancement will affect political mobilization both within nations and worldwide.

Republicans, Democrats, and Special Sauces

2009-10-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

These chapters provided an understandable explanation of the modern use of communication theory that we’ve discussed, gave recent updates on the big debates, and took a relatively unbiased stab at explaining the goals of different groups (including within the US, through an extended discussion of the goals of the major US political parties). Their writings helped give answers to questions we’ve come up with throughout the semester, such as why pricing for cell phones and internet is so different between the US and the EU. Overall, it was a current and realistic review of how, through a political framework, the US is handling major issues such as net neutrality. After spending weeks dissecting global governance, these readings reminded me that many issues are still hashed out nationally: and when it comes to crafting national policy regarding international issues, things get dicey. The readings acknowledge that “since the US system is stacked against ambitious legislation on hotly contested issues, legislative deadlock on telecom issues remains likely.” Moreover, they indicate that given our political system, even our best efforts are merely compromises: “A recurring propensity of US political economy is to create compromises built around encouraging new technologies and entrants.”

Content is an incredible factor, as was highlighted here and in our class discussions. Who owns what, and who should have to pay for what? Attempting to develop legislation regarding internet copyright law requires policy makers to both predict and account for all of the rapidly developing platforms through which content is being viewed and distributed. Not an enviable task. In the meantime, it is easy to see how content users can become distanced from the source of their content and resentful of the need to pay for it. As the book reminder us, however: “Nothing is really free.” (As a music major who has also worked in the world of non-profit arts, however, I am familiar with the negative results of consumers who were not interested in paying for content.)

Online advertising and privacy were addressed as well. Just as we unabashedly stroll through the internet viewing content, however, so do others as they view OUR content. These readings also touched on the rising importance of online advertising, much of which is cleverly (and somewhat dangerously) linked to what many view as private user data. It will be interesting to see how successfully the Obama administration can address these and other communication issues.

Nothin' But Net...Neutrality

2009-10-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading, “The Political Economy of the Inflection Point” by Cowhey and Aronson discusses how political economy policy is changing within the U.S. In particular, I found the discussion of net neutrality to be quite interesting.

The authors state that net neutrality is based on two key issues; the first being that flat-rate pricing should guarantee that both high-volume and low-volume users are all being charged the same rate at any specific network speed. The second issue states that networks should not block, nor delay access to websites.

It is no surprise that many proponents of net neutrality include consumer advocates as well as companies such as Google and Yahoo which thrive on consumers having uninhibited access to their websites and applications. Opponents of net neutrality largely include cable and telecommunication companies that claim that they can only achieve innovation, and provide high-quality services to consumers through tiered services.

Net neutrality is essential because a free and open internet allows for democratic discourse on issues of importance. If the internet did not allow the open discussion of ideas, our democratic freedoms would be stifled and we would not be at liberty to easily express our opinions. Think about it, if a companies such as Verizon or Comcast were legally entitled to govern the speed of certain websites, how can we be sure that this control would not be used to serve their own agendas. This is similar to previous class discussions on the role of MNCs in international media distribution, where MNCs fail to provide consumers with truly objective information. Network owners could potentially block competitor’s websites, which would lead to a handful of powerful companies controlling the content to which we are exposed. Just as a functioning public sphere is essential to democracy, the technology that supports the public sphere must be open and free from influence. Therefore, net neutrality is essential to democracy and must be protected.

Network Neutrality...What?

2009-10-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

As I read Peter Cowhey and Jonathon Aronson's excerpts from Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, I could not help but be slightly confused by the jumble of economic terms and concepts that are foreign to me, a student whose expertise are no where near up to par when it comes to economics. The concept I did understand and am interested in is network neutrality. However, even this term can be confusing and I was led to outside sources for a clearer definition.

Of course, for simple definitions I went to where everyone heads to begin research, Wikipeda (I did of course verify the sources!). Net neutrality is simply the effort that the Internet be free of any form of restrictions on content, platforms, or access. According to the Federal Communications Commission, net neutrality is the principle that "consumers are entitled to access the lawful Internet content of their choice, run applications and use services of their choice, subject to the needs of law enforcement, connect their choice of legal devices that do not harm the network, and competition among network providers, application and service providers, and content providers".

There are two sides to every story. Proponents of network neutrality argue that the users will finally be in control, not the companies who work for profits and often attempt to block internet usage. Net neutrality would prevent providers from backing up, slowing down, or dismantling certain services to consumers, regardless of who "controls" the content. Opponents of network neutrality maintain that such laws would prohibit further innovation and improvement of services. Companies will have no desire to increase technology or services if they will not be able to make a profit from charging users different amounts of fees.

Network Neutrality has recently received much coverage due to efforts by the Bush and Obama administration. The Obama administration stands firmly committed to curbing the profits of internet companies who charge different prices for services provided, and often block internet access. The administration advocates a "level playing field" for all firms and consumers to have the same ability to access content at equal prices. Members of his own party remain on the fence, as some believe the legislation would prevent further growth and innovation, joining in with many Republicans with the same view of opposing increased web regulation. Net neutrality will continue to remain a hot topic throughout the year.

Politics and ICT Policy

2009-10-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

This week's readings, chapters from Cowhey and Aronson's book Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The Political Economy of Innovation, offered a unique perspective on the roles of public policy and global market governance in the diffusion of ICTs, especially in developing countries. I appreciated the historical context ventured in the first chapter, "The Next Revolution in Global Information and Communication Markets." The authors state the essentiality of politics and policy in communications infrastructure--as we know from previous readings and discussion, national governments used to play a prominent part in that infrastructure. But thanks to the ascent of a more global, and more civil-based, society, communications infrastructure has been partially transferred to the private sector. However, governments do not want to be forgotten in this trend toward privatization and still have a hand in affecting ICT policy. As the authors state, "Some economists decry most government regulation, but the politicians' romance with intervention is (to borrow a phrase from Cole Porter) here to stay."

The authors provide some possible explanations for politicians' views on that intervention in Chapter 5, "The Political Economy of the Inflection Point." The main reason is that the United States has been, and will continue to be for the foreseeable future, "the pivot of this inflection point," and truly drives the agenda in the global ICT market. In 2000, when the Republicans captured the White House as well as both houses of Congress, they were well aware of this fact and of the rise of broadband services worldwide--and of the American lag in said broadband services. They took steps to pressure the FCC to adopt a leadership that would be more conservative (read: laissez-faire) on ICT economic intervention. Republicans argued that this policy plus others, such as scaling back regulation of the Bells' broadband networks, would promote market growth and investment. Of course, this hands-off approach also matched the GOP's national platform, as part of politicians' efforts to please their constituencies and attract revenue to the ICT market.

When the Democrats took control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections, they pursued their own version of "the long-standing propensity in the US for policies favoring easier market entry." They just went about it in a different way, of course--one that matched their own national brand of more government regulation, in the form of net neutrality. According to the authors, net neutrality imposes price controls on broadband access and services and is "a government program to promote modularity." When AT&T sought to merge with BellSouth in 2006, the Democrats on the FCC made sure net neutrality figured into the negotiations in a big way: they made AT&T promise to maintain it by providing fixed-rate broadband service for 30 consecutive months after the merger. The authors express curiosity at what could happen after the 2008 elections; while ICT policy has not been a huge priority of the Obama administration so far, it will be interesting to see how net neutrality and FCC policy changes affect the landscape of broadband and other technology in the US. Whatever their policies, both sides of the political divide understand that in the world we live in, power on a global scale is to be found in the ICT market, and they all want a piece of the pie.

Transformations...US in the center of it?

2009-10-26T19:35:00.000-07:00

This week in Cowhey and Aronson's book, "Transforming Global Information and Communication Markets: The political economy of innovation", they discuss the transformations to come at the global level, especially in the telecommunications (telecom) industry. They mention that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have not only accelerated information economies in prosperous countries like the United States, Japan, and Europe, but for developing countries as well, such as, India and China. This reminded me of a case I studied in another class, it was called E-Choupal and it described the way an innovative system for selling farmers’ products was implemented in a specific community, and how it helped all the people involved in the project. E-Choupal is an example of the growth effects ICTs have on developing countries.

The authors also make it very clear that they think the US is a great influence on the global policy agenda and they discuss the arguments against this, such as: China is now becoming the leader and that the US’s declination is due to its spending in major ICT market segment.Cowhey and Aronson, dispute these arguments by saying that the US has a large lead in its deployed ICT stock; US has the largest investment base and flows in the critical areas for innovation; US will remain the leader for the foreseeable future in software, networked digital applications, high-value-added commercial content, and high end IT computing systems and solutions; US will continue to be among the top three global markets across the full range of ICT markets; and US is the leading producer of high value-added content. For these reasons the authors think the US will remain in the center of the inflection point at least through 2020.

The authors mention various times how the United States is a pivotal part of at the global level in communications policies, because of the influence they have right now and that they will posses in the near future. Implementing innovative ideas that revolve around Information and Communications Technologies into developing countries can help them prosper and grow their information economy. ICTs come with many changes and that is what these countries need, a change towards the future.

Go ahead, take on FOX!

2009-10-20T10:09:00.000-07:00

Manuel Castells, author of Communication, Power, and Counter-power in the Network Society provided interesting analysis of how the concept of 'power' is relevant to the media. Castells summarizes, "the media have become the social space where power is decided...the fundamental battle being fought in society is the battle over the minds of the people". Where before, one directional communication served the interest of those transmitting the news, now horizontal communication is a force to be reckoned with - mostly by politicians. Politicians cannot control blogs, or even journalist on various TV stations. This is especially evident in some of the pitfalls the Obama White House is facing in recent weeks.

Recently, the Obama administration has ran into a few problems with a media outlet known as Fox News. Unfortunately, Obama and his aides are used to, as his own communication director acknowledges, "controlling the media". While this may work for networks such as NBC, CBS, and ABC it does not work with Fox News. Fox News admits to being very critical of the Obama presidency, but is not anymore critical than their coverage of the Bush presidency (if you remember correctly, Beck and ORiley could not say enough bad things about Bush). I think that Obama and his advisers are so used to "controlling the media" and having many media outlets (such as MSNBC and The New York Times) promote their agenda that they don't quite know how to handle an organization that refuses to play a part in that. Now, say what you want (and I know we are all very opinionated!) but there is no excuse for The New York Times not covering the Van Jones story until after he was forced to resign, when Fox News had been the instigator of spreading the story. Simply put, Obama doesn't know what to do when Fox News and their watchers have the power.

But, they seem to have figured it out. Attacking Fox for being a mouthpiece of the Republican Party is one way to go. The other is of course, refusing to allow administration officials (including Obama who in his most recent media blitz could just not grant an interview to Fox News) to ignore the organization. Now they have successfully brought the struggle into the spotlight, encouraging other media outlets to "ignore" Fox News, criticizing it as not reporting the news, but just opinions. I do not think this was the wisest decision for an administration skidding on thin ice with the American people to make. Side comments like these, from Annita Dunn and Robert Gibbs, only further play into the argument that Fox News is making about the short comings of this administration. As they keep attacking the organization, the cable news station ratings only keep rising. Perhaps, instead of wasting all this time critiquing it, they should appear on it, to set the record straight or correct where Fox has misstepped. Many of the hosts are inviting this, as Beck has installed a telephone line that only the White House has the number too - encouraging them to correct his reporting so that the American people can be more informed.

But go ahead, Obama administration. You have successfully given your power to Fox News, who in turn has given it to the American people. If you want to get the ball back in your own court, maybe you better start playing the media and power game a little bit better.

Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/18/white-house-escalates-war-fox-news-1925819282/?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a16:g2:r1:c0.158369:b28396617:z0

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/19/white-house-official-says-obama-team-controlled-media-coverage-campaign/

The Emergence of Noopolitik

2009-10-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

In the article “The Promise of Noopolitik,” the authors discuss the emergence of noopolitik and its reliance on soft power. They make the case that diplomacy will be carried out increasingly by non-state actors as they are growing in strength and influence. This will lead to an increase in transnational NGOs that will focus on representing the needs of civil society. Non-state actors are more apt to carry out noopolitik because they “often serve as sources of ethical impulses.” They will be able to disseminate information through the nodes in their network and can assist in preventing and resolving conflict.

States that are able to work with this new generation of non-state actors will become strong and powerful regardless of their size. States must realize the importance in coordinating with these actors and must act using a network approach, rather than a state-centered approach. The noosphere, which includes both cyberspace and the infosphere, is essential in this process as it can incorporate ideals, values and norms rather than just information.

During his first few weeks of being in office, President Obama announced that the U.S. international relations strategy would focus more on utilizing development, diplomacy, and defense as tools to engage other nations. This strategy lends credence to noopolitik, especially if the government utilizes non-state actors to assist with the process of development and diplomacy. So, perhaps in the next few years, the U.S. will take on a greater role in championing the use of noopolitik.

Manuel Castells, Creigh Deeds, and Bob McDonnell walk into a bar...

2009-10-19T19:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, not really. But in reading Castells' article, "Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society," especially his discussion of media and politics, I kept coming back to the showdown that is currently playing out on our local TV stations. The state of Virginia will elect a new governor on November 3rd; will it be Democrat Deeds, a state legislator from the rural southwest corner of the state, or Republican McDonnell, a lawyer who grew up in northern Virginia and who now lives in Virginia Beach? At this writing, McDonnell is leading Deeds by 14 points. However, there are still two weeks left before the election, and anyone who's watched a political race unfold lately knows that a lot can change in the final stretch. And the media inarguably ignites the spark that can lead to that change.

As Castells states, "In our society, politics is primarily media politics." We learn from the media, be it print, television or Internet, everything about a candidate, from where they stand on abortion, foreign policy, or healthcare, to how they take their coffee. In this race it has been little different: we are deluged daily with TV ads from both candidates and read about them in the newspaper and online. Castells reminds us that the vast majority of voters do not actually read candidates' platforms--they make their decision based on how they present themselves to citizens, who in this case become media consumers. The media's power lies not in its inherent characteristics, but in how they are used by others: "the media are not the holders of power, but they constitute by and large the space where power is decided."

Why is this? Politicians try to build up an atmosphere of trust through the media--vote for me! I know what I'm doing! Plus, I'm just more likable than the other guy! Personality becomes extremely important in elections--can voters relate to the candidate as a person? They wouldn't be able to decide without campaign ads, televised debates, and editorials in the paper. Without the media, how would anybody get elected?

The media has shaped the course of this upcoming election in Virginia, not always to the benefit of the candidates. In one ad, Deeds is seen on camera changing his position on tax increases, a subject he'd been asked about--and answered differently--just a few minutes before. In McDonnell's case, the Deeds campaign has focused closely on the master's thesis he wrote in 1989, which stated that working women were "detrimental" to the family. These negative tactics are emphasized through media, which again conveys its political sway. Will the negative ads work in this case? Currently, Deeds is considered to be running a more negative campaign than McDonnell, which could be contributing to his lag in the polls: people often respond more favorably to ads that focus on the candidate and his values, rather than those that attack his opposition. As Castells says, "... character, as portrayed in media, becomes essential; ... politicians are the faces of politics."

How this will translate on Election Day remains to be seen. I'll definitely be watching, neutrally, from the other side of the river in Maryland. Our governor's race is next year.

State and Non-state actors collaborating in a Network-centric World

2009-10-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

David Ronfeldt and John Arquilla bring an interesting concept in their reading, “The emergence of noopolitik”. Noopolitik as they describe is an approach to statecraft “that emphasizes the role of informational soft power in expressing ideas, values, norms, and ethics through all manner of media”. It focuses on the collaboration of state and non-state actors working together, neither having more power than the other instead working to create a network-centric world.

The authors mention that in the Noopolitik approach does not concentrate on power, instead it focuses on the sharing of knowledge. They mention the importance NGOs or civil society actors are to the approach, how these types of organizations are already building transnational networks and coalitions, and that governments should learn how to work with them. Ronfeldt and Arquilla tell us that to be able to apply an effective Noopolitik approach we have to create a noosphere and that this sphere would include: “openness, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, humane behavior, respect for human rights, a preference for peaceful conflict resolution, etc”.

This article sounded very similar to a book I finished reading this past weekend for another class, it was called “Megacommunities: How Leaders of Government, Business and Non-Profits can tackle today’s Global Challenges Together” by: Mark Gerencser, Reginald Van Lee, Fernando Napolitano, and Christopher Kelly. The authors of the book describe an cross-sector approach called megacommunity, which is a public sphere in which government, business and civil society work together on issues of mutual importance (e.g. climate change, natural disasters, health care, and conservation issues) to achieve results. Their central focus is that problems as big as climate change or natural disasters, are issues that cannot be resolved by an organization alone. Although it is difficult for the three sectors to work together, in the end the result is a solution that could not have been reached with the collaboration of all the participating organizations.

Both approaches, the megacommunity and noopolitik, are similar in many ways, such as: the collaboration the idea that everyone should have a voice (state and non-state actors) and the importance of networks, creating and maintaining them. The difference is that the noopolitik is a statecraft approach and the megacommunity is an approach to tackle big problems that might be affecting a country, region, or even an issue that has a global effect.

I think we can see how the future will be centered on collaborations, alliances, and networks. Both of these readings focus on just that, government and non-government actors working together to achieve mutual goals, because in the end the decisions made by both affect the population in some way, some more than others. Also the idea that eventually power will not be the main focus that instead the sharing of knowledge will become the focal point is a very interesting statement and I hope to see at work in the nearby future.

Information and Power (and the apocalypse, too)

2009-10-18T09:02:00.000-07:00

There was a element of melodrama behind Ronfeldt, Arquilla, Castells, and Benkler’s arguments this week. From Ronfeldt & Arquilla’s discussion of an apocalypse and their patriotic declaration of all the wonderful ideals America stands for (from openness, freedom, democracy, the rule of law, humane behavior, respect for human rights, to a preference for peaceful conflict resolution) to Benkler’s giddy enthusiasm for all the possibilities the Internet could provide to humanity, I started to get nervous that none of them would come back to reality and discuss the real issues going on with communication. Thankfully, they did.

While Ronfeldt & Arquilla may be years from seeing their dream of a “noosphere” realized, their call for a focus on soft, ideational power is welcome and encouraged. Perhaps recognizing their idealized view, they themselves acknowledged that all realpolitik is not bad and all noopolitik is not good – citing Al Queda’s use of the noopolitik concept in successful communication. Their general assertion, seconded by the other articles, is that information and power are increasingly intertwined, and it’s time to reconcile this relationship.

Likewise, Castells argues that “the media have become the social space where power is decided”. This power struggle is being played out in the changing roles of journalists, their media corporations, and politicians. He observes that while the 24hr news cycle has served to increase the importance of politicians for the media, it is likewise decreasing the autonomy of journalists. In the end, much as information and power are increasingly intertwined, so too are media corporations and governments. Castells offers that mass self-communication is providing a new place for social movements and “rebellious” individuals to “build their autonomy”. (I’d argue that an individual does not need to be considered rebellious to crave autonomy.)

Benkler discusses this mass self-communication in detail, praising it as a new mode of production unrestrained by physical capital requirements. While this isn’t to say that users aren’t ignoring market opportunities, that isn’t the only reason these opportunities are being created. The expenses that normally prohibited entry to certain creative markets are now shared between users. (Large websites that host mini-stores like Etsy.com provides a perfect example). Even as he acknowledges that “any consideration of the democratizing effects of the Internet must measure its effects as compared to the commercial, mass-media based public sphere, not as compared to an idealized utopia of how the internet might be”, Benkler’s praise for the possibilities of the internet does deserve some challenging. In highlighting the “very fluidity and low commitment required of any given cooperative relationship” and how this can increase the “range and diversity of cooperative relations people can enter, and therefore of collaborative projects they can conceive of as open to them”, are we, too, buying into the media’s “hyper” commitment to 24hour production? Just because there are increased opportunities for individuals to engage in cooperative relationships, does that make them valuable? By citing the “low commitment” required, Benkler himself indicates that we are spreading ourselves more thinly across an increased number of modes of communication. (To provide the obvious example, simply because Facebook connects us to people we may easily reach out to, does that make these relationships meaningful?) While I may reserve a slight amount of cynicism with respect to the vast opportunities offered by the Internet, I also concur much of what Benkler lays forth. As all the authors surmise: while we may not like the new ways in which communication is being used, we can’t afford to ignore these evolutions.

Serious Japanization

2009-10-13T08:37:00.000-07:00

This weeks reading on “Taking ‘Japanization’ Seriously,” highlights the rise of Japanese cultural exports and how this may influence Japan’s cultural power in the world. Iwabuchi states that although Japanese technology such as walkmans are widely used in America, these exports are “culturally neutral” technologies and the “country of origin has nothing to do with ‘the way [that they work] and the satisfaction [that a consumer] obtains from usage.” These products are “culturally odorless” and do not produce the image of a “Japanese way of life” by the user.

Iwabuchi further details how Japanese animators incorporate cultural odorlessness by creating their anime characters with non-Japanese features such as big blue eyes or blonde hair. This shows how a Western-dominated cultural hierarchy influences transnational cultural flows in the world. This point particularly resonated with me as I used to teach English in Japan and witnessed this first-hand in my classroom. My elementary and junior high students would show me their latest manga (comic books) and to my surprise, the characters had blonde hair and blue eyes, which looked nothing like their jet Black hair and dark eyes. I would ask my students, why do these characters look European if they are supposed to be Japanese? My students would respond that the characters are drawn to look “kawaii” (cute) and they could not possibly be “kawaii” if they had Asian features. The first time I heard this, I was truly shocked and wasted a lot of time trying to explain to the children that their features were just as beautiful as European features. No matter how hard I tried to teach them an appreciation for their features, they still insisted that European features were cuter. I found this Western-dominated cultural hierarchy particularly ironic and frustrating. Why does something such as manga, which is distinctly Japanese, need to use characters with European features to sell? I do not think Japanese animators and cartoonist do this unconsciously, but rather it is done intentionally in order to sell their products to an international audience.

The other point I found interesting in Iwabuchi’s article was his discussion of the “shift from a Western gaze to a decentered global gaze,” in regards to transnationally circulated images and commodities. These images and commodities become odorless through a transculturation process, which transforms an existing cultural artifact into something new to fit the consuming culture. I witnessed this in Japan during a discussion I had with one of my junior high school students. The conversation went as follows:

Student: Zainabu, have you ever been to Disney World?

Zainabu: Yes. When I was about 8 years old, I went with my family.

Student: (Student looks shocked) Oh so you came to Japan when you were 8 years old?

Zainabu: No. I went to the Disney World in America, not the one in Japan.

Student: (Student looks super shocked) There is a Disney World in America???

The conversation continued for about 20 minutes with me trying to convince the student that (1) there is indeed a Disney World in America, (2) Disney actually originated in America, and (3) Mickey Mouse can speak English. Thinking this was just the ignorance of one student, I interviewed several other students to find out if they knew that Disney was an American company. To my surprise, the majority of my students did not know this and thought Disney was a Japanese invention. In the world of my students, Disney was culturally odorless.

Transculturation ultimately helps conglomerates carry out globalization because if countries are able to transform products to make them appear more indigenous, they are more likely to be accepted by its citizens.

T.V. Shows: Do they influence our lives?

2009-10-13T03:49:00.000-07:00

This week in “Reading Television: Television as text and viewers as decoders”, by Katz and Liebes, I thought they made a very interesting point: that research before, instead of analyzing the effects a certain T.V. shows had on the community in a specific country, they just assumed everyone who saw the same program understood the message the producers were trying to transmit. This is a very naïve assumption. Knowing that people in a same country experience things differently, have different values and morals, and different ethnic backgrounds, how can we assume that people will react and understand the same thing? We cannot assume that people will react and interpret things in the same way, especially if it is a foreign product. For exam[le: American T.V. shows in foreign countries, we can’t expect them to react the same way American viewers react to the programs.

Katz and Liebes take as an example the show “Dallas”. Dallas was a combination of soap operas and prime time television. It was an international phenomenon! Dallas was seen in many countries including: Germany, Denmark, Algeria, and Israel to mention a few. Depending on the culture and values of each country, the viewers had different reasons of either relating to the show or simple watching it for fun. Some did not view the show as close to reality, because the further apart the viewing country is from the country that produced the show, in terms of culture, values, and traditions, the less a person sees it as a reality. Katz and Liebes tell us that domestic productions are subject to more criticism in terms of relating to the reality of the viewing community, because it should somewhat represent the country’s actual reality. On the other hand, foreign productions, although it may not be the true reality of the producing country, the fact that the program is from a foreign country it gives it an excuse to be less like reality.

Dallas had a hidden family drama in its text. Family dramas in general have been researched to see if the values the show presents affects family life of the people who view it. We can take examples like Full House and 7^th Heaven that presented wholesome family values, unity, trust, and that family is the most important thing in life. On the contrary, shows lie Desperate Housewives present a world of betrayal, a dysfunctional family, adultery, and looking out for oneself. How do these T.V. shows affect or to what extent do they form our perception of right and wrong, good or bad? It has been said that exposure to negative situations like deaths, rapes, homicides for example on cop shows make us immune to the grotesque factor of it all. Since we see things like adultery, fights, people killing each other, betrayal, for some people it becomes something normal in life that just happens and it stops being unexpected.

I think T.V. shows influence do our lives, the characters become role models for the viewers. The effects differ in each country, the same show might not have the same reaction or interpretation in foreign countries as it does in the domestic one. The concept of reality is relative in a T.V. show and it depends on the viewer’s perception according to their own values, morals, and culture.

From a Faraway Land, We Bring You...Dallas?

2009-10-12T18:22:00.000-07:00

So what is our role? Iwabuchi’s article paints us as fascinated consumers of exotic international culture, Katz & Liebes argue between identifying us as dazed viewers or active “de-coders”, and Deuze declares a new hybrid role of producer/consumer.

I had strong reactions to each article. Iwabuchi reminded me of my childhood fascination with Japan (and my love of my Walkman - although I didn’t actually know then that the Walkman was one of its products.) Katz & Liebes reinforced the fact that when I (rarely) watch TV, it is to escape. Finally, Deuze made me think about how often I resent the new expectation to serve as a producer of media.

To start with Japan, it was interesting that the bulk of cultural examples given were media products aimed at children. Although anime and other forms of entertainment are enjoyed by a variety of ages, there is a sense that the young, popular culture is that which is most easily imported – not the traditional high arts (Kubuki, etc.). After rendering these popular arts odorless, are they still really Japanese – and can we say that we really are experiencing “Japanization”?

Likewise, are we to believe that watching Dallas “inspire(s) the masses to examine their own interpersonal relations”? I found myself agreeing with the earlier analysis of television viewing that Katz and Liebes were working to debunk, that which acknowledges that most viewers turn to TV merely to escape. A more depressing realization was that after all the promise of the positive power broadcasting and satellite TV provided, what we ended up with was the ability to transmit Dallas around the world. (Let’s be honest about the intentions of satellite broadcasting: we’re not “saving” the third world with soap operas. On the other hand, is “saving” what TV is trying to do anyway?)

However, I did latch on to another conclusion that Katz and Liebes highlighted in their analysis: Dallas allowed viewers to experience strong emotions such as love and hate in a neutral setting. Who hasn’t watched Grey’s Anatomy (you certainly don’t need to know what has been happening this season) just to get in a good cry? Additionally, they noted that “heavy viewers learn the television message ritualistically and hegemonically, not by negotiation.” This brought to mind an earlier article from Dewey that compared the “transmission” and “ritual” view of communication. As Katz and Liebes noted, news and family dramas are the most frequently studied types of programs. Perhaps it is because they seemingly provide such good examples of these two types of communication? Overall, their article seemed to leave us with the somewhat unsatisfying conclusion that TV is a lot of things to a lot of people, and we still aren’t really sure how to analyze its effects.

Finally, Deuze’s article made me wonder if anyone else ever gets the sense that media corporations are asking us to do their job. (Having worked in marketing and PR, I’m appreciative for every patron that forwarded one of my e-mail advertisements or recommended a concert to a friend. Working for a non-profit, every bit of customer support was appreciated.) Amazon falls somewhere in the middle for me: while I personally resist completing a product review after every online purchase, I appreciate others that do, since I place faith (too much?) in their comments. But helping a car company help promote its wares? Somehow I think we haven’t noticed we’ve been duped. Am I complaining about a role others (including the un-paid workers at Bluffton Today) seem all too happy to take on, or is it time to re-evaluate our roles as consumers in this shifting global economy?

The Dallas Phenomenon and Global TV Culture

2009-10-12T15:15:00.000-07:00

Among this week's readings, I thought Elihu Katz and Tamar Liebes' article, "Reading Television: Television as Text and Viewers as Decoders" particularly interesting. I remembered hearing my parents talk about watching Dallas back in the 1980s, especially how the question "Who shot J.R.?" buzzed around America throughout the summer of 1980. What I didn't know until reading this article was that Dallas was not just an American but an international sensation, and also that its format was revolutionary at the time. The authors' exploration of the implications of the show's reach was quite relevant to our discussions of global media culture.

To a majority of the world's population, watching television shows is a purely entertainment-centered action. However, the values and culture taken from TV shows can influence existing cultures in countries and regions around the world. According to the authors, in the case of Dallas this influence comes in the form of "kinship relations" (373) within the Ewing family and between the Ewings and other dynasties, as well as "the permeability of the institution of the family to the norms of business, and vice versa" (374). The show presented a different interpretation of familial relations than most other prime-time shows of the time; perhaps this contributed to its very loyal following, first in the United States and then overseas.

Katz and Liebes stress the need for "audience decoding" (376) both in the States and abroad in order to more completely understand the effects of American TV's exportation. Dallas, as a worldwide smash, offered a perfect avenue to do so. The authors give examples of selected countries' response to the show filtered through the prism of each culture. In Germany, for instance, viewers responded to the show in terms of a "repressed patriarchal structure," a reflection of that country's relatively conservative society. To them, the show was a form of escapism. In Holland, on the other hand, Dallas was not viewed as escapism but rather as an expression of various real-life emotions such as joy, sadness and love. (377) Perhaps the most telling example, though, is that of Algeria. For its citizens, the show represented "a reminder of the reality they [were] fast losing" (378), that of a traditional patriarchal family where various generations live in the same place.

Another view mentioned in the article by Stolz states that "it [Dallas] contributes...to the erosion of traditional cultures by changing the leisure-time agenda" (378), but I don't quite see it that way. Yes, the show took time away from a local program that could have been produced and broadcast in its place. But in their own analysis of various cultural responses, Katz and Liebes show that people are not blindly accepting the American culture of the show but synthesizing it with their own. While some may argue this has problems of its own, I don't think traditional cultures are totally disappearing because of it.

There hasn't really been another show like Dallas since. To be sure there are plenty of nighttime soap operas, most set in a) police stations; b) law practices; or c) hospitals. But none of them have inspired the massive international following of Dallas. Why is this? Grey's Anatomy, for example, is plenty soapy enough, with good-looking cast members and high drama to be had every week. But it's hardly a worldwide phenomenon. Maybe it's because of the advent of Hulu, YouTube and their ilk; people don't have to wait as long to see their favorite shows, so there isn't as much building suspense each week. Or could it be because local content is slowly beginning to challenge the iron grip of U.S. media production? Perhaps it's a combination of both. Whatever the reason, the lack of a 21st-century Dallas-like media production shows how quickly the global media landscape has changed.

Analysis Question #2--Global Governance and Media Conglomerates

2009-10-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

The current world economic situation has called into question the way that global media is governed and how it disseminates content. With the global economy in crisis, the gulf between rich and poor--both nation-states and individuals--seems to have widened. Concurrently, a few international media corporations are continuing to increase their influence across the globe: a majority of the media content, both news and entertainment, the world sees is controlled by a small number of Western-based conglomerates: the News Corporation, TimeWarner, and Disney. Some argue that through glocalization, more regional and local opinions are being expressed through media--but this isn't entirely true. While more local sources of media are indeed emerging, they are still affiliated with, still filtered through, the prism of these large multi-national corporations. In order to more accurately represent local media content, I think nation-states certainly need to revisit the issue of global governance.

The trend over the past few decades in government media regulation has been, well, a significant lack of it. Privatization and liberalization in the industry has definitely contributed to the rise of the conglomerates, as have the skyrocketing development of ICTs and convergence--the combination of different technologies and industries that creates new cultural products and ways of distributing them. The huge networks that these conglomerates create, along with the huge amounts of capital and the economies of scale that come with them, have made it hard for smaller media companies to break into the market, according to Sean Siorchu et. al's "Introduction to National Media Regulation." However, with the current economic situation, the media industry, like many others, has lost money--for example, here in the United States, many newspapers have folded after decades of publication. For nation-states, this economic climate is perhaps an indication that they need to play a larger role in their governance of media. There's little doubt that the large conglomerates will continue their dominance, but for the sake of individual cultures, especially those in developing countries, nation-states need to actively assert their role as global governors.

Although, as Daya Kishan Thussu states in "Mapping Media Flow and Contra-Flow," Southern media content does make its way to the developed North more than it used to (films from the Indian Bollywood, for example), it's not enough. Glocalization is much more common: "...media content and services [are] tailored to specific cultural consumers, not so much as because of any particular regard for national cultures but as a commercial imperative." That phenomenon supports the fact that media as defined by Western ideals is all about profit margins, ad revenue, and of course the spread of democratic thought. The free-market economy imperative of global media means that local and regional interests are not always accurately portrayed or represented, and this is where individual nation-states can really inject their influence on behalf of smaller media companies. Whether they would be successful remains to be seen, but I think they owe it to their citizens to advocate on their behalf and push for stricter government media regulation.

Analysis #2 - Corporations take on Global Governance

2009-10-09T18:32:00.000-07:00

This is a particularly relevant time to talk about the difficulties facing global journalism. While the topic of global governance is a relevant and pressing issue regardless of the economic climate, media outlets are facing increasing challenges in remaining afloat during the current economic crisis. Many blame this pressure on journalism, of course, on the growth and challenges of online media. Coincidentally, today marked the opening of a World Media Summit in Beijing, organized by China’s Xinhau News Agency and attended by major global media players such as News Corporation, the BBC, and Google. (Is it any surprise that Rupert Murdoch was invited to give a keynote speech?)

A key part of this analysis question is being discussed this weekend: how do we handle media ownership and rights of information and communication on a global scale? Interestingly, this Summit is distinguishing itself from previous attempts at defining global governance (through the UN and others) in that it is being hosted and attending by the media corporations themselves. (As we’ve read, many of these corporations have budgets that are bigger than the GDP of many countries, so it seems fitting that they’re staking a claim in the global governance debate.) Not surprisingly, a focus has been on securing payment for use of content, particularly from websites and blogs. Murdoch gave a fiery speech demanding payment for content and expressed interest in returning to older subscription models. He was challenged, however, by a media critic and journalism professor who called for a new model of governance that reacts to the new media climate – both its opportunities and challenges alike. “(Jeff) Jarvis said aggregators, bloggers and people who use Twitter to share news stories give content creators free distribution and that companies should find ways to capitalize on that, instead of trying to police it.” (New York Times article)

While we must address older concerns, I agree with Jarvis that it must be done within a new framework. To encourage both continued and increased diversity of coverage of topics from culture to conflict, journalists need both the support of media organizations and the freedom to convey their varied stories.

I-report, U-Report, We all Report?

2009-10-09T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have noticed a theme throughout class regarding the trend towards consumers becoming producers within media industry. We have discussed blogging, the ability to leave comments on news websites, and the proliferation of independent (or pundit, if you prefer) citizen journalists. The class has always moved to this discussion each week in various ways, and the essay in the IC Reader by Mark Deuze, "Convergence Culture in the Creative Industries" really elaborated what we have been focusing on in class.
Deuze states (as defined by Jenkins) that convergence culture is "both a top-down corporate driven process and a bottom up consumer-driven process". He then summarizes the two different approaches to this new form of convergence culture. First, this new form of media consumption allows us, the consumers, to exercise direct control over what we watch, what we tune out, and what we absorb from the media. As an example, I prefer to watch Fox News over CNN. Also within Fox News, I pay specific attention to certain journalists or hosts over others - but when a commenter is on that I do not agree with or can tolerate listening too, I aptly mute the discussion. In this way, I am exercising complete control over what I consume through the media. The second approach Deuze analyzes is the "collaborative media", in which we each participate in media production and consumption. A prime example of this is blogging - even for this class. We are creating our own media products and we enable our peers to in a sense, be co-producers with us - we allow their comments (or criticisms) and may edit our post to reflect others ideas. This form of collaborative media is prevalent in even today's major news outlets - Fox News and CNN.
IReport.com brands itself as "unedited, unfiltered, news". On this website, citizen journalists can post their own stories. These reports are unedited (the site claims "that means the stories submitted by users are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they post") stories to appear on CNN, they must be fully vetted and fact checked by CNN employees. Last month, 724 and last month over 378, 547 were posted. IReport.com was picked up by CNN. However, CNN exercises final editorial control over the posts by citizen journalists, bringing to light questions about how involved the author is in the final process and if it is really collaborative media. For IReportIReport stories appeared on CNN. As always though, there is fine print to be read. Before submitting an IReport story to CNN, the user must read and agree to the terms of use and in there is a hidden provision: "CNN has the right to edit and/or alter any submission. CNN reserves the right not to use the material you submit at all and/or as little of the material as it chooses...you hereby grant to CNN and its affiliates a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide license to edit, telecast, rerun, reproduce, use, syndicate, license, print, sublicense, distribute and otherwise exhibit the materials you submit, or any portion thereof, as incorporated in any of their programming or the promotion thereof, in any manner and in any medium or forum, whether now known or hereafter devised". In summary, you hand over all rights to your personal work to CNN.
Fox News has a similar form of citizen journalism - UReport. Users can upload pictures and videos for submission to Fox News. UReports terms of use are similar to CNN's "The Site may provide you with the chance to upload or provide messages, photos, videos, clips, ideas, feedback, comments or other content (“Content”). You understand and agree that FOX has the right in its sole discretion, but not the obligation, to monitor, edit, and remove any posted Content, and assumes no liability for any such Content". However, when it comes to posting comments on stories Fox does not assume editorial content, "However, FOX accepts no responsibility whatsoever in connection with or arising from such Messages".
Both IReport and UReport have dramatically increased the impact of citizen journalism. Without these forms of media interaction, video from places such as Iran and other state controlled media outlets may not be seen around the world. The original submission of these writings, pictures, and videos is citizen journalism in its truest form. But before these can be published by CNN or Fox News, the news outlets exercise complete content control - vetting, fact checking, and editing the submissions. Is this then true collaborative media if an outsider has control over the final content? Deuze does an excellent job of summarizing these tensions by explaining, "the same communication technologies that enable interactivity and participation are wielded to foster the entrenchment and growth of a global corporate media system that can be said to be anything but transparent, interactive, or participatory".

Analysis Question #2 - Global Governance

2009-10-09T09:30:00.000-07:00

As McChesney illustrates, the global media “system is dominated by fewer then ten global TNCs, with another four or five dozen firms filling out regional and niche markets.” Should we be concerned that so much power is held by only a few entities? Absolutely. With conglomerates controlling the content of information distributed to the public, we as consumers are not always getting unbiased, unfiltered, objective information. The information that we do receive is subject to the whims of the corporate conglomerates that produce the information in a manner which is beneficial to their bottom line, as well as the bottom lines of their sponsors. McChesney describes the global media system as “one that advances corporate and commercial interests and values, and denigrates or ignores that which cannot be incorporated into its mission.” Nation-states indeed must consider revising the global governance of media systems in order to increase the diversity of information that is produced. The current global governance system does not encourage media companies to produce information that would be considered critical of their parent company. Therefore, how can we rely on them to adequately and objectively inform the public of diverse views.

There needs to be strong national governance over the media systems. This is necessary in order to ensure that the public sphere allows for discourse on public issues without the influence of media conglomerates that have their own agendas. In the reading “Global Governance,” the authors(Siochru, Girard & Mahan) explain that the public sphere provides “diversity in media content” where voices that are disinterested in sectional interest and more concerned with transparent and open communication and debate can express themselves on matters of common concern. A functioning public sphere is essential for democracy, however the current global governance systems does not allow for this. With media conglomerates dominating the information that we consume, we are not exposed to a diversity of ideas, but rather, we are exposed to information that highlights what is in their best interests.

The authors of “Global Governance” explain that plurality encourages “a multiplicity of different types of media, offering people different avenues for media participation and reaching different audiences with a variety of range and depth of content.” However, what good are these various sources if they are all being controlled by one entity. Just because there are many different media outlets does not mean there are a diversity of opinions being expressed through these channels. It just means that a singular opinion is being expressed through multiple channels. In fact, the increase of media offerings is perhaps more dangerous to the public sphere because it gives the guise that diverse opinions are being expressed, when in fact this is not the case.

With more national governance, we will be more likely to receive information that would allow for uninfluenced public discussion without the interference of corporate interests. The public sphere is necessary for democracy, and it will only work properly if the media stops functioning as a tool of corporate interests and is governed on a national level.

Telenovelas Promoting the Census

2009-10-07T10:11:00.000-07:00

There was an interesting article in the Post (sorry, Prof. Hayden) about a new effort by Telenovelas to promote participation in the Census by Latinos. (As Thussu's article alluded to last week, this popular format provides an effective vehicle for transmitting messages.) A character on a popular Telenovela will gain employment as a census worker to both temper fears that participation is not private and to emphasize the importance of this effort in securing funding for groups that may not be accurately counted. The Post questions, "What is Telemundo up to? Does its experimental census subplot have something to do with subliminal advertising, product placement, ratings? The answer is sort of, but not exactly. What it's really about is a mash-up of a familiar tradition in Latin American media behavior with the needs of a sophisticated modern gringo public-service campaign."

The print version is a bit longer and has more detail on this arrangement (which involved no exchange of money and no contract.) Of course, in accessing the online version I thought of last night's class again when I was delayed by two successive ads that covered the entire screen.

You Can't Have One Without the Other

2009-10-06T09:22:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading, “Geo-ethnic storytelling,” particularly resonated with me, and put a lot of my childhood into perspective. Everyday when I was home with my mother, who is an immigrant from Guyana, I would be forced to listen to Guyanese news radio broadcasts. In particular, I have fond memories of my mother blasting “Caribbean Experience,” a Saturday evening radio show that plays Caribbean music and infuses news stories about the Caribbean in order to “bring the island home a little closer.” As my mother cooked Guyanese “pepper pot stew”, “ox-tail soup” and “sorell juice,” she would listen intently to the news stories from her home country and dance up a storm to the rhythms of her native Caribbean music. As a child, I never understood why that radio show was such an integral part of her life and often made her cry, laugh, smile and shout about issues in her home country. Now, it all makes sense.

My mother was simply feeling the effects of geo-ethnic story telling, which the authors describe as “a practice that aims to produce culturally relevant and locally vital information to immigrants in the host society.” The reading focuses on print material, however, geo-ethnic story telling can play out in any form of media. Caribbean Experience is broadcast from Howard University and focuses on reaching the Caribbean Diaspora in the Washington DC area. The article argues that geo-ethnicity has to be ethnically or culturally relevant AND geographically bound to effectively reach the immigrant community.

Both elements are absolutely necessary, and without them, the ethnic media will not have an impact on the desired community. I saw this play out when I would travel with my mother to visit my Granny in New York. Granny faithfully, and almost exclusively, listened to New York-focused Caribbean radio broadcasting. My mother would listen as well, however, she was never really persuaded by these broadcasts to participate in the New York Caribbean community. Of course, she was interested in the broadcasts because it informed her about her homeland, however she was not as engaged in New York Caribbean issues as she was in DC. She perceived the New York broadcasts to be irrelevant to her daily life in DC.

This sentiment also appears to play out within the Caribbean media itself. For example, during the Carnival festival season, neither the New York, nor the DC Caribbean media seem to make a concerted effort to promote Carnival celebrations in other areas of the U.S. Most focus on encouraging their constituency to attend the local version of Carnival, as there are approximately 19 Carnival festivals held throughout the U.S. over a four month period. Although Caribbean people in the U.S. usually travel to other regions to attend Carnival festivals, there does not seem to be any media campaigns to promote the festivals on a macro level. In turn, my mother would never make an effort to attend New York Carnival, even if she was in New York, during festival season. Although she was culturally tied to the Caribbean people in New York, she was not vested geographically and therefore had no desire to attend.

Ethnic media plays a great role in preserving cultural identity and keeping immigrants connected to the homeland. However, in order for this media to be relevant to its target audience, it must not only be culturally relevant, but it must have some significance to the local community. Without both of these crucial elements, ethnic media will not be meaningful to immigrant communities.

Globalization: Exports and Imports of Foreign Media

2009-10-05T20:41:00.000-07:00

This week’s readings had a recurring topic: the global media, who dominates the sphere and the factors of imports or exports of foreign media. McChesney, Thussu, and Tunstall all agree that the United States (US) is the largest exporter of media to the extent that many people call media globalization, the Americanization of media. Although it has been proven that people have a preference for local media, many countries import some US content. I personally think that even if you do see American movies and television programs, it does not mean this will eliminate your local culture. Maybe some phrases and fashion trends might be copied from the TV shows, but the culture in essence will not be affected by it.

In Puerto Rico, being a Commonwealth of the US, most of our media is imported from the US. We only have about 4 local TV channels, all the rest are American. I have also experienced the glocalization Robert McChesney describes in his article, “The Media System Goes Global”. Glocalization refers to the globalizing media with a local focus. For example, international broadcasting stations like ABC, FOX, The CW, CBS they keep the same basic programming but add some local features so it appeals more to the public in a specific country. They do this by showing local commercials, renaming the channels as, for example FOX Puerto Rico, ABC Puerto Rico, and so on. For some reason, this makes the channels seem more unique and gets you thinking, “Wow! This programming is made just for me”, although they are just passing the same schedule as they do in the US.

The US’s biggest export market is the European Union (EU). US media products also reach many other countries in either a direct or indirect manner as Jeremy Tunstall explains in “Media Nationalism”. Direct exports refer to programs, movies, etc. that have no alterations and is presented in the foreign country exactly as in the country of origin. Indirect exports are the ones that include alterations such as: subtitles, dubbed in another language, cutting out scenes because of cultural, religious, or political reasons, and selling a program idea and format to another country so they may produce it. The indirect forms of exporting media make it less obvious where it is coming from.

Hollywood has an extraordinary dominance over the film industry since the beginning of its days. Daya Kishan Thussu tells us that in 2004, US exports of film and TV programs totaled $10,480 million and it continues to grow annually. Hollywood just as other international companies has many joint ventures and partnerships with countries such as Canada, Great Britain, and Australia. This variety makes Hollywood movies appeal to a more diverse audience which maximizes profits and increases exports. Hollywood does have its competitors, like: Bollywood, a film industry from India; Japanese anime and manga, which has grown to be very popular; and Telenovelas, Latin American soap operas shown in most Spanish speaking countries and in the US where there is a large Hispanic population.

The globalization of media has many different faces: imports, exports, dominating countries… It is clear that the US has great control over media globalization and is country with the most exported media. Although new technologies have allowed new competitors to come into the mix with Hollywood, this will probably not affect its growth and quantity of exports.

You Say Global, I Say Glocal

2009-10-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

When we received our syllabus, Prof Hayden made mention of the fact that while our textbook was literally being printed this fall, it would swiftly become out of date. While the theory and history of Thussu and others remain relevant, reading our articles from even as recently as 2007 makes me wonder what has happened since their publication. Have the big three media giants changed? Are the predicted countries continuing to show promise? I looked up current news stories on this week’s topics and discovered that, in short, the predictions of our readings have played out. From India and China continuing to experience incredible growth – even admit infrastructure issues and censorship debates – to Murdoch’s empire continuing to grow – these articles provided an accurate framework for understanding today’s updates.

The Economist had a cover story feature on the telecom industry in emerging markets last week, focusing on a range of topics from mobile phones being used for paying bills in Africa to the challenges and victories of infrastructure in India. Fox announced just last week that it is investing in its first Chinese film. (An interesting development considering Murdoch’s murky past with China, as discussed by McChesney.) Murdoch’s team has been busy in other areas as well, having announced this week that News Corp. is creating its own “internal wire service”. As an example of “glocalization”, this service will not be responsible for original content, but will “rejigger copy from the company’s far-flung news outlets so it is suitable for local audiences”. Other changes are afoot as well. Similarly, Murdoch announced today that it will begin charging for select content within its websites for The Times and The Sunday Times. “We are moving away from the traditional model of volume in favour of developing more direct relationships with our customers based on their interests and passions."

While our readings focused on globalization, what they demonstrated (which was reinforced in these news stories) is that globalization has never achieved an equal flow (thank you, Castells) between nations. As Rai and Cottle point out, while it’s great that India is watching CNN, how many of us have ever seen ZEE TV? At best, we’re experiencing “glocalization”, typically in one direction, and even that has limited reach (and questionable effectiveness).

Further, McChesney’s article proposes that globalization may encourage media, especially films, to move away from displaying controversial messages such as negative portrayals of ethnic groups because their products may be seen and challenged by an international audience. We’re also seeing this work in reverse, however. In an attempt to “glocalize” their products, multinational companies such as L’Oreal and Pond’s are using their extensive advertising budgets to tailor campaigns – and hoping their controversial messages won’t be found out. While in India this summer, I repeatedly saw advertisements that strongly insinuated that love could be found after using skin lightening creams. This article raises the question of the ethical responsibility of multi-national corporations and points out that “multinationals are falling over themselves trying to "think globally and act locally". Here is a case where acting locally has been manipulated into a calculated double standard.”

McDisney

2009-10-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

We all remember the days growing up filled with McDonald’s Happy Meals and Disney Movies. Some of my fondest memories were days where we would be picked up from school by my dad and then meet my mom for dinner near her office. While I’m sure my parents would have preferred to any other type of food fare, they always obliged to our request and shouts of “McDonalds”. And there we would sit with our greasy food, around a not so clean table, discussing the events of the day. The only thing that further contributed to the happiness would of course be a Happy Meal Toy. Then we would go home and gather in the living room to watch the newest Disney video on VHS. Those are the memories that make up childhood for most of us.

Robert McChesney’s “The Media System Goes Global” discusses the rise and impact of global media partnerships, one of these being the 10 year partnership between two of the worlds giants – Disney and McDonalds. When consuming happy meals and playing with happy meal toys as children it never occurred to us to think of the logistics behind such a merger. Although the partnership was not in existence until 1996 and we were past happy meals by then, the story still lends itself to a great case study. As McChesney states, “Disney and McDonald’s [had] a 10 year exclusive partnership to promote each other’s products in 109 nations, a relationship so detailed that the Wall Street Journal termed the two firms McDisney”. This means that between 1996 and 2006, all the Happy Meal toys were promotions of Disney movies and other Disney products. However, this seemingly genius partnership was not to be renewed when it came to a close in 2006.

The last Disney movies to be promoted with Happy Meal toys were Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. Although the 10 year deal probably benefited both companies, there were negative implications. Due to the language of the contract, McDonald’s advertising budget was largely spoken for in terms of happy meals. Confined specifically to Disney promotions, McDonald’s was stuck often promoting a movie that was not successful, such as Treasure Planet. While McDonalds was forced to promote such failures, its competitors such as Burger King could promote other studio’s films, such as DreamWorks widely popular Shrek series (Fast Food Chain has Beef with Disney). Disney also had issues with the partnership. As McDonalds faced increasing complaints about the unhealthy nature of its food, Disney wanted to distance itself from the often criticized fast food giant. The connection between Disney’s movies and McDonald’s happy meals may not have been a big issue if the food in the happy meals kids begged for was healthy (Disney Dumps McDonalds).

Disney is characterized as a part of “The Holy Trinity” by McChesney, its holdings including ABC, ESPN, Miramax, resorts, and much more. Its widely popular movies have developed young teenage stars who appeal to kids around the world. On the surface, such a popular culture firm should have been successful with the most recognized golden arches in the world. However, the negative implications as mentioned earlier led to conflicts of interest, and ultimately the decision by both partners to not renew the agreement for another ten years. The fairy tale of mergers did not end in happily ever after. But, both firms continue separately to encourage children around the globe to find their own happily ever after with their happy meal toys and animated movies.

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/05/disney_mcdonalds.html (Disney Dumps McDonalds)

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jun/14/business/fi-disney14 (Fast Food Chain has Beef with Disney)

The Global Film Industry and one Australian (or American?) Movie

2009-10-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

Today I saw a movie, The Boys are Back, about a father (Clive Owen) who must raise his two sons alone after his wife suddenly dies of cancer. Boys was set in southern Australia, although it featured a mix of Aussie and British actors. As an independent film, it came out in DC this week in limited release. I had thought, naively, that because it was an indie film set and filmed in Australia, the country would see its hospitality returned by having the movie released there first, or at least on the same date as in the US.

But when the movie was starting and I saw the Miramax logo glitter on the screen, I began to question that assumption. A quick search on IMDb when I got home revealed that The Boys are Back will not be released in Australia until November 12th (and, just for good measure, in the UK until January 15th, 2010). Miramax, headed by the Weinstein brothers, is an American film production and distribution company. So it follows that Boys would be released in the US before going to European and other countries, despite the fact that it features no American actors and was not filmed in America. As a moviegoer, I found this rather ironic--albeit not that surprising.

For the record, I really enjoyed the movie; the acting was superb and the cinematography gorgeous. I also found it refreshing to watch a movie not set in the US, that did not feature big-name American actors or an American director (Scott Hicks is a Uganda-born Australian). The irony of the distribution schedule just made me think about mass media globalization and its impact on the film industry--a very relevant application to this week's IC Reader selections, especially Robert McChesney's. In "The Media System Goes Global," McChesney provides lists of the holdings of the "holy trinity" of global media: TimeWarner, The Walt Disney Company, and The News Corporation, which we read about in detail last week. Miramax is owned by Disney, making it part of one of the most powerful media TNCs in the world. As a subsidiary of a major American company, Miramax naturally promotes and pursues American interests, which translates to releasing films in the United States first, even when those films are not set in America and/or have American casts. Perhaps it's telling that The Boys are Back has only a limited release here; Miramax probably reasoned that the film would have more of a niche following than a widespread one. It will be interesting to see how the film does in Australia and secondarily in the UK (since Owen, its lead, is British). I think it will be at least somewhat successful; according to McChesney, 95% of Britain's box-office revenue comes from US films, and Clive Owen is a fairly big-name actor.

But the question lingers for me: Is The Boys are Back American or Australian? Yes, it has an American producer/distributor, but in my opinion nothing else about it was American in nature. From the natural setting to the characters' way of speaking to the laid-back culture portrayed, it was Australian through and through. To me, this is a prime indication of the globalization of media culture in the film industry. What makes a film American versus Australian, or any other nationality for that matter? Is it just the film distributor that deems it so, or should we look more at the film's content, cast/crew, and style?

Jeremy Tunstall makes a good point about this in "Anglo-American, Global, and Euro-American Media versus Media Nationalism": "Today, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland all have film industries that operate in partnership with Hollywood." After reading Tunstall's piece, I would term The Boys are Back as an Australian film with an American distribution partnership. This somewhat satisfied my question about the film's national identity. I still don't think it's quite right for this very Australian movie to be released here first, but it's just another indicator of America's dominance over the worldwide film industry, which seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Societal Regulation

2009-09-29T07:40:00.000-07:00

This week’s readings focus on global governance and the many challenges that privatization, globalization, convergence, conglomerates, and international organizations present to regulating international communications.

In the reading, Global Governance: A Beginner’s Guide, the author starts with a rationale for the importance of media regulation. He explains that the media is the primary source through which people interact and form opinions about others.

I particularly identified with the section that discussed the need for societal regulation in order to “ensure diversity and plurality of the media.” There is no doubt that the media plays a profound role in shaping our social, political and cultural views about others, therefore, the media has a great responsibility to provide its audience with content that is diverse and representative of a variety of view points on various issues.

The author states that the media is “how people learn about their own communities, develop social affinities and form group identities.” This particularly resonated with me as I thought about the CNN special series titled Black in America that aired in 2008 and Black in America 2 that aired in July 2009. The series discussed the most challenging issues facing African-Americans and highlighted leaders in the community making a difference. As an African-American watching the series, I particularly identified with many of the stories and issues that were discussed, as my family, friends, and myself have all encountered similar issues. I also learned a few new things about the struggles of African-Americans in other regions of the country and felt more connected to them because I could understand their struggles. As I discussed the series with my African-American friends, they too felt a greater sense of identity and pride in their heritage as a result of seeing the series. Additionally, I discussed the series with several co-workers from other ethnicities, and we had a candid discussion about issues in the African-American community. This was the first time that our conversation had moved passed superficial workplace small talk and delved into a topic that was a little more controversial. Without that series, my co-workers and I may have never had the opportunity to discuss these topics. My co-workers truly seemed to develop a greater understanding and respect for the issues in my community. The CNN series played an essential role in informing the American society about the plight of African-Americans and opened up a public debate on these issues.

The content that the media produces is critical in enabling people to develop a mutual understanding about topics they may not otherwise contemplate, therefore societal regulations must be in place to ensure that the media content represents a diverse set of views.

Meanings, global governance, and WSIS

2009-09-28T20:38:00.000-07:00

In this week’s texts the theme was global governance, the first thing the author’s tell us is that it doesn’t necessarily mean the government is involved. Although, as Siochrú and Girard mention in their reading, global governance has developed into the responsibility of intergovernmental agencies, this has changed with the increasing amount of private and nongovernmental organizations that have become involved in these structures. One of these global governance structures that Marc Raboy describes in his article is the WSIS.

The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) concentrates on issues in global communication governance. The creation of the WSIS gives civil society a chance to express their points of view on the communication and information societies and debate with the intergovernmental international institutions that usually regulate and make the decisions on important issues. It is the first time a United Nation’s organization gives an opportunity to the civil society of participating in official conferences and meetings. Although the civil society did not have many accomplishments in the WSIS, creating the Civil Society Bureau and producing the Civil Society Declaration were two big general events and simply having a voice and being taken into consideration were important steps for these types of organizations. Also through the Civil Society Bureau they developed a very organized networks and frames of communication to keep in touch and up to date.

One of the things I found interesting in this reading is the organizations cannot come to a consensus of the meanings of some of the new terminologies that are emerging, such as: governance and the right to communicate. People and organizations have very different points of view as to what these terms should mean. For example, governance, the World Bank gives it a very antiquated, hierarchical definition and the United Nations Development Programme thinks of it as a very dynamic process which includes actors that are not necessarily governments or international institutions. Another example is ‘the right to communicate’, which was not included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights because of a lack of compromise about what it entailed exactly. Some thought it included “universal access to all telecommunications” and others thought it to be all the rights that are associated with communication and new ones that will have to be created due to the emergence of new technologies and changes in communication contexts.

As we have seen, different organizations give new terminologies different definitions, depending on their point of view. Governance does not of a single meaning that everyone can agree upon, all that we know is that it includes actors that do not belong to any government.

DC Radio & Regulation

2009-09-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

I’ve often wondered about our media structure, specifically with respect to radio. When I was working in arts marketing, public radio listeners were our target audience. While the US recognizes the value of public broadcasting, it stops short of the British model of the BBC, and places the onus on consumers themselves to guarantee that such media exists. What happens, then? Well, three years ago DC had its last dedicated classical music station – something now unheard of in many cities of its size. When its owner, broadcasting company Bonneville International, first became interested in changing its format, it took a route that these articles allude to: it took away the power of the signal. In the medium of radio, signal reigns supreme. After switching stations to a less powerful signal (subtly deemphasizing the importance of the station), WGMS experienced further set-backs and ultimately ceased operations in 2007. As marketers, we were forced to turn to the only other obvious option for advertising classical music: public radio. The heavy restrictions on advertising, however, limited our reach. In an effort to prevent blatant product promotion, public radio “advertisers” were prevented from any copy approximating “promotion” of their product. At the end of our pitches, we couldn’t so much as say “call to buy tickets”. We could merely leave a phone number and a website and hope for the best. Finally, while the best way to sell music is to sample the music itself, we were restricted from playing even the shortest of excerpts.

Does this make sense? NPR, of course, relies primarily on the support of individual donors, many of whom resent forceful advertising pitches and appreciate the more subtle spots run on public radio stations. Living in Germany provided an excellent view into a much different system of regulation with respect to media. As Thussu’s article mentions, Germany was very slow to join in on the rapid changes to media in the 80s and 90s. In fact, Germany is still markedly different from the US in terms of media: while living there, we were assessed a radio and TV usage fee, regardless of whether or not we ever used our radio and TV – we just had to own one to be required to pay the fee. This provided a reliable revenue stream for public media and prevented their programs from being dictated by advertising dollars. (Notably, Berlin had at least one dedicated classical music station, as does every other major European city, and lots of smaller ones too.)

Who has it right, then? In managing the messages, images, and thoughts of cultures around the world, there are going to be challenges to the definition of what is appropriate “societal regulation”, and furthermore, continued differences with respect to who pays to enforce such regulation.

The very first paragraph of the “Introduction to National Media Regulation” article points out a startling yet obvious fact: that media productions should “be allowed to get on with what they claim to do best – producing what people want, measured by what they will pay for?” Is this the only way to measure value? Are we smart enough to pay for that which is best for us, and if we’re not, have we only ourselves to blame?

Overall, however, these articles highlighted the remarkable synchronization of so many incredibly different nations, and their overwhelming success in maintaining a culture of cooperation with respect to global governance. Additionally, it is impressive to see the increasing role of non-governmental organizations within the global governance framework. Without neglecting the continued struggles of many forgotten nation-states, it is still impressive that many new voices are being heard through these effective and increasingly powerful organizations.

Murdoch's Media Empire

2009-09-28T09:28:00.001-07:00

As an undergrad student, I focused heavily on International Relations - therefore I am very familiar with the attempts at Global Governance from the Congress of Vienna to the failure of the League of Nations; resulting to the creation of the United Nations at the end of World War II. I am less familiar with the new role the media plays in global governance, from reporting on the United Nations meeting this past week in New York to a network stretching across the globe under the domination of one corporation and one media tycoon. Thussu’s “Creating a Global Information Infrastructure” supplied me with the background of the media’s role in global governance, as well as a very interesting case study of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.

As an avid watcher of Fox News, I was blissfully unaware of the domination of the media market by the owner of Fox News. As stated in the article, “Fox News has redefined broadcast journalism in the USA, changing the way television news is presented and framed”. Not only has News Corporation changed media in the United States, it has also changed the impact media has across the world. As telecommunications became increasingly privatized, Murdoch was able to increase his share and really develop a global presence. The case study provided by Thussu drastically increased my understanding of the impact of the market on global governance. Murdoch owns now only the Fox Network, but newspapers such as The Times and The Sun in Britain, The New York Post, Twentieth Century Fox, STAR, and HarperCollins. In some way, each of us in not only this class but across the world are informed through one of the various outlets of Murdoch’s empire. Never before has such a corporation had an extreme impact on media, but the development of global media. In a way, News Corporation is a form of global governance. Australian born, Murdoch was one of the first to recognize the growth of media in developing countries, predominately in India, Latin America, and Asia. It has developed and produced country specific channels in regional languages and has also led to regional television shows such as soap operas, and broadcasts of sports such as soccer and rugby. As Thussu states, “with television operations on four continents, News Corporation’s reach into the world’s living rooms is unequalled. Television, delivered by broadcast, cable and satellite, remains the fastest-growing part of the company”.

Fox News always receives a ‘bad rap’ from mainstream media and other critics. I have noticed not only a hostile view of Fox News in class, but from my peers and other professionals. While I am not defending the conservative slant of Fox News, I actually readily acknowledge that it exists; I am defending their impact on journalism not only in the United States but in the realm of global governance. I feel that this week’s readings have allowed me the forum to express these impacts. Recently, many in the international community have noticed a rift in the United States. Through polling, reporting, and the outreach of everyday citizens, I feel Fox News shapes the United States as having problems of our own too. This alone carries a global message as stories transfer from not just the Fox News Channel, but on Murdoch’s other media outlets. I feel that Fox News allows people who may have not been represented by mainstream media before to have an outlet to express their opinions. I feel that the Fox News Channel and Murdoch’s empire of global media allows a perhaps once silent voice to be expressed in ways that were often ignored.

Rupert Murdoch and News Corp: More than just American Idol

2009-09-28T08:40:00.000-07:00

In this week's readings, Thussu's "Creating a Global Communication Infrastructure" piqued my interest, particularly his case study of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. While I had of course heard of Murdoch previously, I had no idea just how extensive his media empire was.

Murdoch owns more than 110 newspapers in his native Australia alone. He also owns BSkyB (British Sky Broadcasting), to which more than one-third of British households subscribe, as well as the Times and the Sun, two UK newspapers with very different styles (the Times being the more serious of the two, while the Sun is famous for splashy headlines proclaiming the latest celebrity scandal). In the US, The News Corporation is most well-known to us through the Fox Network, without which we would not have such inimitable shows as The Simpsons, The X-Files, and, of course, American Idol. Here in the States, Murdoch's influence is also present in the Fox News Channel, Twentieth Century Fox movies, and the mammoth HarperCollins publishing house. The most surprising discovery for me was News Corp's presence in Asia, especially India and China, with country-specific programming like STAR Plus and Phoenix. To say Murdoch's influence is far-reaching is something of an understatement to say the least.

The News Corporation has proven itself extremely successful, thanks to the business savvy of its head. However, Murdoch has come under fire for what some perceive as conservative bias in his media's news reporting--Fox News here in the US, for example--but that hasn't seemed to affect the reach of his media empire. Fox News, for all the criticism it's attracted for the aforementioned bias, has been the top-rated cable news network for 86 months straight as of February. (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/179815-Cable_News_Ratings_) Whatever Murdoch is doing, it works, bias or no bias.

I think the very reason it works is because of deregulation and liberalization in the media and telecommunications industries--the larger subject of Thussu's piece. These policies, begun largely in the 1980s by the US and the UK, have allowed private companies like News Corp to expand their global influence, and focus their efforts on reaching new markets and deepening their presence in existing ones. The News Corporation is just one example of how this deregulation impacts our daily lives. It also begs the question, what next? Is this deregulation and privatization of media and telecommunications positive or negative in the face of a globalizing economy and changing political climate?

Globalization and the Dependency Theory

2009-09-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Hanson’s discussion in chapter three about the globalization of communication was particularly interesting to me. First, she gave a technical overview of the globalization and how technologies such as fiber-optic cables, satellites, computers and the Internet have crossed borders in order to revolutionize the way nations communicate with each other. Then, she detailed how globalization has encouraged mass media conglomerates to vie for, and attempt to dominate the production and distribution of their products internationally in the “search for profits and market share.” Additionally, she discussed the obstacles that many developing countries face when attempting to diffuse Internet technologies.

This directly ties into last week’s discussion about the dependency theory. Hanson describes how developing countries are struggling to establish telecommunication systems due to financial outlays, substandard national telephone systems, insufficient and unreliable power supply and the lack of technical expertise. In an attempt to aid these developing countries, many international organizations have provided assistance to promote connectivity. However, according to the dependency theory, modernization programs will inevitably keep poor countries poor. Even though these international organizations have good intentions in helping these periphery countries develop, the periphery countries are still being exploited by the core countries and will remained trapped in their periphery status. By no means do I think that core countries should refrain from providing these countries with the assistance that they need in order to expand, I do believe that the core countries must analyze the methods in which they provide assistance and should find ways to empower these nations to take a greater role in helping themselves develop.

An example of this is when Hanson discusses the inception of satellites. She explains that satellites are valuable because they can “transmit information and telephone services to landlocked and remote places” and that “satellites provide potential access to global communication systems that would otherwise be unavailable to developing countries.” In order for the developing (periphery) countries to access this technology, they leased capacity from Intelsat, a wholesale provider of satellite communication services. Intelsat, an international consortium, originally started with nineteen industrialized (core) countries but expanded to “144 by the end of the century.” By leasing this technology from the core countries, periphery countries do indeed gain access to a valuable technology however, they ultimately remain dependent on the core countries. Additionally, the core countries are able to profit financially and gain market share. In order to escape this core-periphery relationship, countries such as India, Brazil and Mexico launched their own satellites.

Globalization of communication technology has truly revolutionized the way in which our world communicates and it will be interesting to observe how it will continue to impact the core-periphery relationships of nations.

Globalization Keeps on Spreading...

2009-09-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

In this week’s readings, John Sinclair states, in “Globalization, Supranational Institutions, and Media” that the basis of globalization is the control of time and space, and that the media is the channel through which this control is achieved. This is why communication plays a central role in the globalization movement. Through the media we can communicate with people across the globe, through: cell phones, internet, radio, television… there are so many new forms of communication every day; it is a constantly changing and evolving area. Through these types of media is that globalization has penetrated many countries, but television has been the most influential in spreading the cultural aspect of globalization. This is how the cultural fusion or hybridity occurs. You can practically view any channel you want, no matter what country transmits it. We can see hybridity of cultures in movies and television shows, there is always some cultural aspects not only from the country of origin but from other countries and cultures as well in these programs or films, which reach a wide variety of viewers.

Sinclair also talks about Doreen Massey’s view of this movement, which I found to be very accurate. She points out that “globalization is a highly relative phenomenon, but the ideological discourse about it talks as if everyone on the planet is both participating in and benefiting from it”. I think this is true, most theorists simply assume that since globalization is being most widely transmitted by the media or some form of communication system, that everyone on earth is part of it. What about the people and countries in the world that don’t have satellite radio, that don’t have televisions with a million channels to watch, that don’t have access to the internet or do not know how to use it? Not everyone has the same opportunities to be involved in the globalization process.

Finally, globalization has its pros and cons, the appearance of global corporations, the weakened nation-states, the increase of cultural fusion, access to new technologies, to mention a few, and to keep up we must constantly change and adapt. The influences of other cultures, communicating with people from different nationalities, learning to use new technologies are all of this is part of this movement. This new phenomenon is using the media to spread its control to every inch of the globe.

India and the Outsourcing Controversy

2009-09-21T09:47:00.000-07:00

In doing this week's readings, I found Elizabeth Hanson's discussion of India in Chapter 5, "Information Revolution, Global Economy, and Wealth" specifically her focus on offshore outsourcing. The importance of outsourcing cannot be ignored, especially in today's struggling economy and in the undeniable shift to economic globalization.

Like many of us, I have had the experience of calling a customer service line and getting computer help from someone sitting in a call center in India. My experience was pleasant: the service rep was polite, knew what my computer issue was, and spoke very good English. Even so, however, I wondered why American companies had to outsource those customer service jobs in the first place. Weren't there enough people who needed jobs here in the United States? This was a few years ago, when the controversy over outsourcing had reached a loud uproar. After the 2004 elections, that uproar seemed to die down a bit, but it resurfaced during the 2008 election cycle. I remember hearing both candidates promise to get more jobs to the U.S. instead of outsourcing to countries like India. While that was a noble intention on their part, I believe, after reading Hanson, that outsourcing is inevitable in today's globalizing economy, and certainly has its positive points. Because of advances in fiber-optic cable, many office tasks and Internet functions can be moved to countries where labor and infrastructure are much more affordable. Companies can also get more work done in a day thanks to time zone differences--Americans can pass on projects to their Indian counterparts to finish when they go home for the day and vice versa. Customer service lines are also open for additional hours--a good thing when your printer decides to start spewing paper everywhere at 11:00 PM, as you're trying to print a paper for class the next morning. (Not that this has happened to me. No. Of course not!) All in all, according to Hanson, costs are cut up to 40 percent between lower salaries and cheaper infrastructure. Especially in this economy, large American companies need to save where and when they can.

A secondary benefit of outsourcing is, of course, the jobs created for Indian IT professionals. The technology field is extremely lucrative in India because of this, and many talented young graduates are able to enter the workforce each year thanks to American outsourcing. I don't, however, believe that providing jobs in India should be the main objective of U.S. companies thinking of outsourcing. But it is an integral part of the new global economy, and providing jobs in a developing country, that will cost less than comparative positions in the U.S., is inarguably beneficial to both the company and those that get the jobs.

I think outsourcing will remain a contentious subject in years to come, especially as India's role in the world economy continues to grow. Hanson's treatment of outsourcing presents both sides of the argument, but ultimately argues (rightly, I think) that it is essential in moving the economy towards greater efficiency and productivity as we go into the second decade of the 21st century.

Globalization, leap-frogs, and Wal-Mart

2009-09-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

This week’s articles provided a thought-provoking look into what led to globalization and how it may both benefit and hurt various groups and nation-states. From shedding light on the development of organizations like Intelsat (after years of passing their Oz-like office in Van Ness, I now know what it is!) to adding detail background to the Wal-Mart debate, both Hanson and Sinclair provided a solid framework for understanding the various players in globalization.

Hanson’s discussion of globalization notes the search for “greater efficiency and competitive advantage” by the dominant MNCs that has led to production processes being split between many countries. In many ways, this sounds incredibly efficient, and seems like a good way to draw upon the talents of individual nation-states. Indeed, she mentions later that this trend has allowed small and medium enterprises to even be considered for participation in production processes. I wondered, though, how this is affecting the overall growth of each nation. If a nation is identified as a provider of merely one step in the production process, and remains pigeon-holed into this (potentially non-skilled) step, is that really progress? Additionally, there is no mention of the environmental impact of such “efficiency”. By the time many products have been completed, various parts have been shipped from all over the globe, with little attention paid to the energy used. With artificial or subsidized energy prices, how can we really know what is going into the creation of something like a car, with parts from multiple countries?

On the other hand, I was encouraged to see the opportunities for many countries that have missed out on past technological innovations to “leap-frog” into current technologies. The cell phone provides the perfect example: without taking the time and incredible cost to install the infrastructure needed to install land lines, many nations are now able to communicate efficiently and relatively affordably through cell phones. This example is currently being pushed in other areas, too – in seeking ways to provide electricity to remote areas, environmental organizations are working to leap-frog coal and other methods and create systems of renewable energy for these villages. In addition to being more environmentally friendly, these systems can empower villages to own their own energy and be freed from energy poverty at low cost.

Finally, Marjorie Ferguson’s theory provided a realistic analysis of the advances in technologies. In short, just because something exists doesn’t mean it is useful for all groups. She acknowledges that in the cases of MNCs, bigger is not necessarily better, and in terms of TV channels, more is not necessarily better. The various theories presented throughout the articles helped show the nuance in the globalization debate, and, significantly, how various nations are working to maintain power over their role in globalization.

Is technology killing our culture?

2009-09-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Hanson's chapter on The Globalization of Communication was an interesting summary of the impact different communication technologies have on globalization. What I found most interesting though was the conclusion of the chapter, "The Revolution Continues". As new technologies continue to emerge and we become immersed in webs of connectivity, I find myself asking the same question that researchers have attempted to answer in a book Hanson mentions, The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture. While our culture keeps evolving, I can't help wondering how not only the internet, but cell phones (blackberry and the iphone) and ipods are fundamentally transforming our culture and if this transformation is a good or bad change.

I remember the good old days of dial up internet in middle school - coming home after a long day to talk on ICQ or MSN instant messenger with friends. The internet made life easier, we could talk online instead of talking on the phone where our parents could eavesdrop on our conversations. Similar with television rules in our household, growing up my siblings and I were limited to 1 hour of internet time a day. My parents believed that while technology was beneficial, we didn't need to spend our entire day watching tv, talking on the phone, or conversing on the internet. There were many more important things that could be done - playing outside, doing schoolwork, or helping with chores. Even during my high school years these rules remained in place in regards to the internet. Then came college and hello facebook and AIM. Now the internet was a full blown necessary part of my life - keeping in touch with friends from home and making new friends at college were essential and the internet provided a way to do that. While living in the sorority house, my roommates and other sisters would AIM each other from the same room or across the hall instead of getting up to go ask them a question or share a piece of gossip. I wonder what my parents would say if they knew of the laziness that the internet brought to college life, and life in general. The first thing to do in the morning was to check facebook, and it was also the last thing to do before retiring at night. We mastered the ability to gather in one room, watch a movie, write a paper, AIM people across the hall, and facebook at the same time. What multi-taskers we became. Did we really need to spend so much of our time on the internet? Was it really a necessary part of life? Is it?

I did not receive my first cell phone until first semester of freshmen year. Why? My parents didn't think it was necessary; that's what land lines were for. It took my 65 year old grandmother convincing them that I should have a cell phone in case of emergency since I was now living 5 hours away. Even then my parents balked - so I was put on my grandparents plan. And there I reminded until my junior year (2 years ago) when my mother finally bowed to peer pressure and got a cell phone plan. Now we have moved up in the world to having unlimited texting, and my mom is grasping the concept of T9word. While this has been beneficial to my siblings and my relationship because we can now text, I don't know how beneficial being attached to a cell phone 24/7 is. My father remains anti-cell phone (but interestingly has a facebook account) and when on vacation every year, refuses to be surrounded by any form of technology. From blackberry's to Iphone's, are cell phones killing our culture slowly too?

Now I present the case of the ipod. I did not buy my ipod until last summer while interning on Capitol Hill. Riding the metro would have been unbearable I figured unless I had music. Now, people have their ipods in everywhere - on the metro, bus, walking around campus. It's the walking around campus part that disturbs me the most. I remember as a freshman and sophomore in undergrad walking down campus and talking to everyone that passed by. I noticed towards the end of my senior year that those same people had their ipods in. Goodbye saying hello to anyone or holding a conversation, we walk like robots passed each other, not even acknowledging the presence of our peers.

I do not know if I think technology is killing our culture, or furthering it. Right now, I can see the extreme negative impacts of the effects. We change our facebook or twitter status while watching TV, texting, and listening to music. Why take time to talk to someone face to face when you can text them, talk to them online, or do both at the same time? Why get out of your chair to go down the hall to talk to a sorority sister when you can just AIM her or text her? Why build a relationship on human contact when you can have an entire relationship online? I see these technologies as necessary evils and I understand their importance, especially if you are one with family not in the same country. But to those of us who are not faced with that issue, what is our excuse? Why do we spend so much time updating our facebook status and talking online instead of making plans to talk in person? These technologies have furthered our creativity in more ways than I can fathom and have also added to multiple words to our dictionary. Now I am fearing the day where I go into an interview and answer a question with "idk" because my brain has morphed from an intelligent specimen into someone who only talks in text or facebook lingo and no longer knows how to hold a conversation in person. Is that where this growth is taking us? Killing our culture, slowly, and changing it into one we barely recognize and full of people who are texting their mothers, writing on their grandmother's facebook wall, updating their status on twitter, listening to their ipod, and walking down a campus mall, never making eye contact with anyone around...because everyone only exists in their globalized communication world.

Diasporas in International Communication

2009-09-14T19:04:00.000-07:00

After finishing the assigned readings for this week, the one that impacted me the most was Karim H. Karim’s, “Re-viewing the ‘National’ in ‘International Communication’: Through the Lens of Diaspora”. It impacted me, because I can relate to the points Karim makes in this reading, having recently moved to the United States from Puerto Rico. Some of the points that I found to be most important are: the linkages the media and new technologies provide diasporas with their home country and culture, the hope some diasporas hold of returning home at some point, the nomadic like migrations with the objective of obtaining better career and business opportunities, and the comfort of interacting with people you can easily relate to, from places similar to your country.

The media and new emerging technologies now allow a strong link between diasporas and their homeland. Taking the example Karim mentioned of Univision, the largest Spanish-language U.S. network and how it is also available on the majority of cable systems in Latin America. Watching Univision and Telemundo is a way of keeping contact with the Latin community. Another example is newspapers; right now I can go online and read all the headlines that were in the newspaper today in Puerto Rico, and I don’t have to wait for anyone to let me know. I can also listen to music that is playing on the radio stations and hear the headlines they give on radio talk shows, everything over the internet. Cell phones are another strong linkage to keep alive friendships, business contacts, and get in touch with family.

For many years, Puerto Rico has had a constant migratory cycle with the U.S. Puerto Ricans move to the United States to look for better jobs with more pay and a better quality of life, but most of us plan on returning some day because the cultural bond is very strong and also being away from family is hard. Not all who migrate return to the Island, but many of us do, sometimes various times during the course of our lives.

I personally think that the salad bowl analogy describes the United States better than the melting pot, because although we do acquire some of the cultural values from the American culture be it through: television broadcasting, radio, or everyday life, we still keep most of the values and traditions from our homeland. At first, it is a great culture shock and Puerto Rico is not that far away from the US and we’ve always had some kind of influence from American culture, so I can’t even begin to imagine what people from other countries go trough to adjust. It takes some time to get used to the change, that’s probably the reason why Latin Americans tend to form a very quick bond with other Latinos because of the culture similarities.

With a population that grows more diverse every day, the integration of international workers to the workforce and international businesses to the economy has become an important part of our lives nowadays. As Silvio Waisbord mentioned in “Media and the Reinvention of the Nation”, not even Hollywood is a “pure” American creation anymore. Now Hollywood has investors from all around the world, without which they wouldn’t be able to produce their films. Also now there are different cultural influences (Asian, European, and Latin American) which are reflected in the films. For this reason, international communication is very important so diversity can be managed in a efficient and beneficial manner, and taking the diasporas into consideration is an important point.

Diasporas and Elections

2009-09-14T17:52:00.000-07:00

Karim's article on the role of a diaspora in international communication and the importance of this discussion in our field was incredibly interesting. In analyzing the communication structures in a diaspora, he touched on the importance of symbols in re-creating a sense of home. I experienced this myself while living in Germany: while my apartment building clearly existed within German borders, we often joked that when you crossed through the apartment door you were in America. This feeling wasn't because of the furniture (all German), the architecture (German, too) but rather in the areas Karim discussed: "languages, customs, art forms, arrangements of objects, and ideas." Further, when the presidential inauguration fell during a trip to Hamburg, one of our travel-mates begged to be sure the hotel broadcast was from CNN - NOT BBC. It was important to her that the commentary (however minimal) be from an "American" angle. (However authentically "American" that might have been is up for debate, as Waisbord reveals when pointing out the various international partners that work together in creating "national" media outlets. However, he does offer inaugurations as an example of something that "coordinates the life of a nation" and an event that "...put(s) the nation on a center stage (to) show cultural coordination at work.")

The American presidential inauguration example also came to mind in Cassells' article. In analyzing the globalization of issues, the existence of t-shirts that proclaimed "Germans for Obama" being worn by non-voters made more sense. Beyond acknowledging the general international interest in this election, Cassells' article made me consider which issues the international audience was considering when contemplating the U.S. presidential election. Many of the commonly discussed issues fell into the global category, specifically those Castell highlighted - management of the environment, human rights, social justice, and global security. As he discussed, the gap between where these issues arise and where they are managed is both growing and ambiguous, and the role of the global civil society and network state in addressing these issues is a fascinating developing topic. While a leader may represent one nation, there is an increasing expectation that global issues will be addressed. The question is, will it be politicians or "network-states" that solve these issues?

Analysis Question #1- Political Economy

2009-09-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

Thussu describes the political-economy approach as the “underlying structures of economic and political power.” Although recently there has been a shift from analyzing the political economy to analyzing the cultural aspects of communication and media, I believe that political economy concerns are still relevant in the discussion of international communication. Within the Marxist theory, political economy focuses on the “commodification of communication” which looks at how those in power use mass media to produce and distribute material. Additionally, it focuses on how the audience consumes the material they are given. Many may argue that with the development of new media technology, people are able to reach out across national boundaries to communicate with each other, therefore, it is no longer necessary to analyze how those in power influence political economy. However, in many countries economic and political power still remain restricted to a “tiny unrepresentative elite” and eventually those in power will develop ways to use new media technology to legitimize their political establishments. For example, in the weeks leading up to 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, Chinese internet users were denied access to sites such as: Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Livejournal, Tumblr, the Huffington Post and Microsoft's Live.com, Hotmail, and Bing. This is a perfect example of how a nation-state controlled the distribution of new media technology in an effort to control communication between people of nation-states. With the economic growth of nations like China, who have the potential to influence the emerging global ‘knowledge society,’ we must continue to analyze the political economy approach in order to understand the way these dominate nations will influence international communication.

Analysis Response

2009-09-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Thussu describes the political economy approach of theorizing international communication as “the underlying structures of economic and political power relations”. The political economy approach focuses on the question of power – who has it, how it is exercised, and how it shapes communication within a nation and the various groups that compose the nation. Karl Marx, proponent of communism, saw international communication as an attempt by the ruling elite to manage and control all facets of communication. The political economy approach was applicable when nation-states controlled international relations and those nation-states did not allow much communication or rights to be exercised by the people. Due to the changing style of communication and invention of new technologies that government and ruling elite can not control, IC researchers need to develop alternate questions regarding theorizing international communication.
New media technologies – Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and Youtube have aided in the development of horizontal communication between people of nation-states, whereas communication between these nation-states used to only be exercised vertically from the rulers to the people, or between the leaders of various nations. Ultimate power still rests with the government, but much of that power has now been given to the people. An example of this is terrorist organizations who operate trans-nationally and not within a specific territory. Terrorists make videos that can be seen on the internet, and these videos are not under the control of the government of the nation in which these videos are being watched. The Pakistani government does not control the communication of terrorist groups within its borders. A second example is the Iranian revolution. The government controlled all legal forms of communication within the country, but information about election fraud and people’s outrage were spread through new media sources that the government could not control.
One alternative approach to the political economy theory of international communication is the cultural studies also discussed by Thussu. In this theory, communication and media create values and meanings that can be spread across cultures. Facebook is one of these tools that can be utilized with this approach. Facebook has created its own place in the media spotlight – as news anchors, talk show hosts, and media outlets use it to post questions, gain feedback, and spread their message across national boundaries. This type of communication can not be controlled through the typical political economy approach, as government officials do not exercise control of the message anymore. The impact of Facebook and similar technologies on international communication need to be further evaluated. Similar theories should be the focus of IC researchers, as technology and the role of communication in the nation-state continue evolving.

The United States: A Country of "Diasporas"

2009-09-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

Of the various readings this week, Karim H. Karim's "Through the Lens of Diaspora" struck a cord with me. The United States is viewed as melting pot or a salad bowl, and how we became whichever of these terms you believe revel ant, is through the various Diasporas that have migrated here over the past hundreds of years. While the term Diaspora was originally referred to the Jewish migration out of Israel, it now refers to a growing list of ethnic communities that have left their "homeland" or geographic location to settle elsewhere. These Diaspora's vary in their level of connectivity to their original nation, leading Karim to make the argument that "transnational communication [is] affording individuals and groups the ability increasingly to remain in contact across countries and continents". Often, groups remain very connected to their heritage, while others attempt to fully assimilate into the "American" way of life. These Diaspora's lend themselves to an important part of the American political landscape and the American culture.

My last name, McCullough, is Scottish for "son of wild boar slayer" (I know, you are very jealous right now). My ancestry is composed mainly of German and Scottish peoples, with dashes and sprinklings of Native American thrown in for good measure. The German and English migrants can be argued to have fully acclimated into American life. While I am German, my family does not cook German food, celebrate holidays in typical German fashion, or even really know much about our own heritage. There is no push from political parties to win the "German" or "Scottish" vote, and there is not a strong connection between German-Americans and the country of Germany. It can be argued that German-Americans are not really German-Americans, but our rather just Americans due to the fact that most of us have lost any connection to our country and ancestry of origin.

As Karim discusses, the most well known Diaspora is the outpouring of Jewish people from Israel and other European countries following World War II. Unlike those of German or Scottish heritage, those of Jewish heritage maintain a very strong tie to their homeland. These strong ties have manifested themselves within every characteristic of the American political landscape. With strong lobby groups, including the most well known, AIPAC, political parties strive to win the Jewish vote. The American-Israel alliance is arguably one of the strongest, and this is only influenced further by the strong connection Jewish-Americans have to Israel. Jewish-Americans have probably not fully assimilated into American culture, as they maintain a strong relationship with their home country.

One of the largest Diaspora's is still occurring right now - the migration of immigrants from Mexico into the United States. Some of these are legal, some are illegal. This stresses the point that Karim makes, "Governmental systems have resisted the accommodation of people without fixed addresses". While we encourage legal immigration, we do not encourage illegal immigration. Most of these migrants have also not fully adapted the American lifestyle, clinging to their heritage and their home country. However, they have integrated into the American political system very well and there is always a debate between the political parties of who is going to win the Hispanic vote.

One of the founding principles of our country is the acceptance of other cultures and peoples that have migrated here through Diaspora's. While this enriches our culture in various ways, it continues to fragment our culture. Especially recently, differences continue to be the focal point, rather than the similarities that may unite us. Instead of uniting various cultures, they continue to be divided as people attach hyphenated names to the word American. We will never think of ourselves as just Americans, everyone will always think of themselves as whatever their hyphenated affiliation is + American.

The Media's Important Role on 9/11

2009-09-12T16:03:00.000-07:00

I read Silvio Waisbord's "Media and the Reinvention of the Nation" on Friday, which was the eighth anniversary of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks. While I hadn't been reading the piece with the attacks in mind, one portion of Waisbord's piece led me to bridge my memory of the attacks with his ideas about media and national identity.

He states that "If nations require collective experiences and shared memories, the media offer a suitable environment and resources to nurture national identities." Viewed from the tragic perspective of 9/11, I think this statement really resonates. We all watched the horrific events of that day unfold via the media. Most of us were in school that day, sitting numbly at our desks as we saw the plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York. The television media became a reluctant window for the country and the world to see the towers collapse, the smoke unfurling in thick clouds from the Pentagon. Americans sat open-mouthed in shock as the world changed in front of their eyes.

I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school on 9/11. Prior to that day I had thought of history as something that came to life through books or through other (older) people's experiences. Not mine. But as I watched people covered in dust running away from lower Manhattan, I knew that I was watching history being made, and the media was bringing that history to me. Waisbord echoes this in venturing that " 'Media events' are examples of those experiences, moments when the daily lives of entire nations come to a full stop to watch or listen to the same event." My parents had told me what it was like when President Kennedy was assassinated--everyone was glued to their TVs, disbelieving, but united in that disbelief through the common experience of watching the events on national television. I think the same thing happened on 9/11. When I went home from school later that day, the streets were eerily empty, and they stayed that way for the next few days. Everyone was inside watching TV, feeling a multitude of emotions, but for certain united in their grief. I think that the presence of the media was an essential part of uniting Americans on 9/11 and the immediate aftermath. Without the media, both print and broadcast (I'm sure the Internet played a role as well, although at 15 I still got most of my news from the newspaper and TV; also, blogs and forums weren't as developed as they are today), we wouldn't have had such a common experience of the attacks.

As much as we would wish otherwise, the 9/11 attacks are a part of our national identity. They are part of who we are as Americans. I would venture that the vast outpouring of patriotism after the attacks--flags on lawns, "God Bless America" stickers on cars--might not have been as profound if it weren't for the role of the media. We knew that everyone had experienced that day through the same mediums as we had. Although our personal reactions to 9/11 may have varied--there are a plethora of emotions associated with that day, and we all have different recollections of how we first learned of the attacks--we all lived it by watching TV, reading the newspaper, or going online. On 9/11, the media brought us together as a nation.

Theorizing International Communication

2009-09-08T09:36:00.000-07:00

Thussu’s “Approaches to Theorizing International Communication” discusses several theories of communication that reflected the concerns of the time in which they were developed. These theories are the free flow of information, modernization, dependency, structural imperialism, hegemony and critical. In particular, I found the modernization, dependency and structural imperialism theories to be the most profound in illustrating how the Western states attempt to influence developing countries and its people through communication.

The modernization theory, which strived to promote development in the Third World, utilized international mass communication to spread the Western economical and political models to newly independent countries in the south. Thussu states that exposing southern countries to events in a far-off place made them reassess their traditional way of life “and made them aspire to a new and modern way of life.” I believe that this theory might have actually had the reverse effect and made the southern countries embrace their traditional values even more after witnessing events in modern societies. Last week’s reading, “The Historical Context of International Communication,” discussed the SITE case study which was a project that attempted to bring about behavioral changes among the rural developing communities and help them reject traditional social attitudes which were seen as antithetical to the goals of modernization.” The project was unsuccessful because TV programming played a limited role in changing the behavior among its audience and instead resulted in indifference towards the medium as well as the message itself. Similarly, I believe that the messages spread by Western states as described by the theory of modernization, played a minimal role in influencing the independent countries in the south.

The dependency theory stated that development initiatives by transnational corporations (TNCs) in developing countries were “shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the ‘peripheral nations in a position of dependence.” Structural imperialism states that there is “a harmony of interest between the core of the centre nation and the centre in the periphery nation” and the core nation maintains its dominance over the periphery nations with the help of the periphery nation’s core. Additionally, the vertical principle states that relationships are asymmetrical from the more developed state to the less developed state and the feudal principal states that there is no interaction from one periphery nation to another. After reading this, I immediately pondered to what lengths, if any, the core countries go to ensure that there is no cooperation among the feudal states. Or perhaps, the feudal states simply make no attempt to connect with other feudal states because they believe they have no influence on the global market.

Although these theories were developed to reflect the sentiments of the time in which they were developed, they all highlight important methods developed states used to control the flow of information in developing states.

Communication between Developed and Developing Countries

2009-09-07T19:46:00.000-07:00

While reading the Overview of Harold Innis, what he calls the time-biased media and the space-biased media seemed to have a very strong connection with the dependency theory Thussu mentions in, Approaches to Theorizing International Communication. Based on the explanation of the dependency theory there are two types of nations: the developed nations or centre nations which try to implement new necessities in the peripheral nations or the developing nations, for as to create a dependent relationship and at the same time control the peripheral nations. The example Thussu used was how the countries in the South created a dependency towards the hardware and software of communication and media from the Western (developed) countries like the United States.

Harold Innis states that there are two types of media, the time-biased media that encourages such things as the maintenance of traditions and cultures through time by mediums like speech. In contrast with, the space-biased media which travels long distances and encourages the expansion of empires by mediums, such as paper.

Relating the dependency theory to these types of media, the time-biased media would be used by the peripheral countries which have a very defined culture because of the knowledge and traditions that have been and continue to be passed down from generation to generation. The space-biased media, is utilized by the developed nations that transmit their communication media and with it their particular lifestyles, ways of thinking, and culture to the developing countries.

By imparting their ways of thinking through the media towards the developing nations, the developed nations gain control of the peripheral nations, and these create a dependence on the developed nations. This statement also coincides with one of the definitions of communication James Carey gives us in A Cultural Approach to Communication; he says “communication is the transmission of signals or messages over distance for the purpose of control”. All three authors agree that the developed nations are using communication as a way of controlling the developing countries.

Inconsistent Policies or Inconsistent Communication about Policies?

2009-09-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

As we draw near the eighth anniversary of the September 11th attacks, I found Gary Weaver's A Personal Reflection of the development of International Communication very pertinent. As an undergrad, I was very focused on International Relations and never considered the importance or impact of communication about International Relations. It was not until I took a course in Intercultural Communication that I realized the role of Communication in International Relations.

Many researchers have attempted to explain why Islamic extremists hate American culture with such a passion. It is not hard to see why: Americans thrive in a culture that defies the ordinary: success can be gained through hard work, determination, and straight up will to succeed. How we communicate that with the rest of the world is what causes problems and issues in regards to foreign policy and decision making. Many argue that the Bush Administration took it a step to far in the wrong direction, focusing on demonstrating the strength of the American culture through military might and other means (which in turn reminds me of President Teddy Roosevelt sending the Great White Fleet around the world to showcase America's naval superiority). However, I can argue that the Obama Administration has hurt our standing in the world just as much. While giving a speech to the Muslim World in Egypt is a good idea in hindsight, it has given the wrong impression to many. As Americans, we are proud of our hard work, determination, and success and feel that a president apologizing for all of our past actions does not correctly communicate the importance of our standing in the world. It is a sketchy line when it comes to International Communication...do we "beef" up our branding of ourselves in the world, or do we diminish it to make us appear "more like everyone else"? Should we be proud of our culture, success, and the differences that make us stand out, or should we shy away from pointing them out to other countries as though we should apologize for being great? This is a line that all Presidential administrations attempt to define in their own way along their own ideological terms. Is their a right way or wrong way to communicate American culture in terms of achieving foreign policy goals? While our democracy is enriched through the differences and the direct participation of the people, I almost feel that in order to accomplish foreign policy goals it is necessary to have a streamlined, non-changing approach to foreign policy, and not one that changes every four to eight years.

I grasp the fact the International Relations is a dynamic, changing discipline and the approach taken to it is based upon current events, I just wonder if it would benefit our standing in the world and take out the uncertainties present if our government settled on specific International Communication strategies to convey our foreign policy agenda more consistently. Right now, the Obama administration has opened a can of worms in a probe regarding terrorists interrogations used under the Bush Administration. Ignoring our own political leanings, whatever they may be, what message does that communicate to our foreign policy allies and foes? If the next administration investigates the Obama's administration's techniques, we change our message in the international arena again. This appears to be an unsolvable question to an unsolvable problem, but once nonetheless that should be considered and evaluated. I do not have the answers, I do not even know where to begin about discovering such answers. I do however feel that such a conversation should be taking place among the International Relations and International Communication scholars in the United States foreign policy arena, especially as we look back on the attacks of September 11th in just a few short days.

Images in Media

2009-09-07T11:11:00.000-07:00

I read Carey's article first this week and have been thinking about his comparison between the "transmission view" and "ritual view" of communication for the past few days. Earlier this week, when a media furor erupted over the publishing of photos showing fatally-wounded Marine Joshua Bernard, I wondered how these theories could be applied to the various reactions to the photos. Based on Carey's analysis, responses to this issue go beyond a partisan response (while even party leaders contend that their support of or opposition to the photos is not a political issue).

Is it that we have grown to expect a certain kind of "appropriate" information from our newspapers that we find these photos so shocking? That we have grown accustomed to being shielded from the most upsetting views of war in our mainstream media that we resent their appearance in our living rooms while we experience our morning "ritual" of news-reading? Some societies are more accustomed to this type of communication. My sister reminded me of the shock she experienced when living in Mexico, where stories on murderers were accompanied by full-color pictures of the victims - post-attack. In the US, however, unaccustomed as we are to this type of communication, do these photos assist in making these events more real? In the case of war photos, I'd venture that they do - that they go beyond having mere shock-value and remind us of the authenticity and human cost of our on-going involvement in war.

Carey goes on to discuss how "news is a historic reality. It is a form of culture invented by a particular class at a particular point of history..." In our current reality, does war not include the death of American military? (February's announcement that the media can now print photos of fallen soliders - with permission from the family - changes then President George H.W. Bush's 1991 restriction wherein "the media has been barred from photographing the flag-draped caskets of about 3,850 U.S. servicemembers killed in action since 2001."

Do we really want to look at these photos? Maybe not, but perhaps more accurately, should we, in creating a more accurate reality, at least have access to these photos? Much like Carey's example of drawing a map to provide the most accurate symbol for relaying directions to a child, do photos provide the closest "symbolic form" with which we can understand events occurring across an ocean? Or by looking at them are we reducing "news" to simply "drama"?

I went on to read Thussu's history of the many men who have influenced international communication theory (yes, all men - thankfully Gary Weaver's article acknowledged Margaret Mead's role) and was interested in and also shocked by how "politically incorrect" many of these theories now seem. I wondered if many of the theorists were simply acknowledging what they believed to be the trends in international communication, or if they believed things should also be that way.

Finally, Harold Innis' assertion that stable societies were a result of an effective balance between time and space based media seemed especially relevant, especially in this period of explosive growth of new - and often temporary - media. In a time of expanding types of communications technologies, his assertion cautions us not to neglect the more permanent expressions of communication as we work to maintain a stable society.

The Fellowship of Communication

2009-09-06T14:33:00.000-07:00

Among this week's readings, James Carey's "A Cultural Approach to Communication" really struck a chord with me. I admit that before I read his piece, I thought of communication in the transmissive sense: defined as "imparting, sending, transmitting, or giving information to others." I liked his explanation of how this definition developed in relation to geographical distance and the spread of empire (which of course hearkens back to last week's readings about the historical basis of communication). I also liked the way he connected transmissive communication to the American experience--movement in space to leave the old world and discover the new, which we kept doing via westward expansion all through the nineteenth century. Our previous readings haven't presented the study of communication from the American perspective, and it was useful to link its definition with our country's history.

Carey rightly recognizes, however, that the transmission definition of communication is not a complete one. He presents a second definition--a ritual view of communication--that really piqued my interest because of the way he integrates religion.

I survived sixteen-plus years of Catholic school, including four years at a Jesuit college, and we naturally did a lot of talking and writing about religion and faith. Carey states that the ritual definition of communication is "the maintenance of society in time; [...] the representation of shared beliefs." I found this view very easy to relate to, having learned quite a bit over the years about the ritual of the mass and the roots of fellowship, both of which he touches on later in his explanation. He compares ritual communication to "the sacred ceremony which draws persons together in fellowship and commonality." While this view is not overtly religious (nor should it be, in order to win acceptance in a secular society), it does favor the more personal, the inner workings of us as individuals and as members of society. For example, I appreciated Carey's example of how the act of reading a newspaper is very different in the ritual view than in the transmissive view. Newspapers in the transmissive definition are seen as conveying and imparting information to readers, and not much more. In the ritual view, on the other hand, Carey compares newspaper reading to "attending a mass, a situation in which nothing new is learned but in which a particular view of the world is portrayed and confirmed." I never would have compared reading the Washington Post, or any other newspaper, to attending a mass, but upon reflection I agreed that he has something here. When we read the paper, we actively participate in and experience the emotions of the stories' subjects, whether it's the happiness that comes from our favorite sports team's victory or the heartbreak of a family who lost one of its members in a Middle East bomb strike. We are integral parts of our society through the shared medium of news, and communication as a whole. We share our lives with each other through that medium, not unlike the ritual of being at a mass or other religious service and sharing fellowship with others.

News as a form of communication connects us to other people on a very personal level, and in reading it (or watching it, as the case may be), we participate in a fellowship of being human. Language, the basis of human communication, makes this fellowship possible; without it, our world would cease to exist.

The Information Revolution

2009-09-01T07:04:00.000-07:00

This week’s reading on the Origins of the Information Revolution by Elizabeth Hanson provides a great overview of the different technological innovations that have impacted the way society communicates over long distances. From the printing press to broadcasting, these technologies have revolutionized the way in which we communicate and share information across borders. Hanson does an excellent job in explaining how each of the technologies (printing press, telegraph, telephone, and broadcasting) play a role in disseminating information domestically and internationally.

One of the more interesting points that was highlighted in the chapter is the discussion of how domestic programming, in particular newscasts, “helped to shape images of other countries and interpretations of international events, providing a potential influence on individual opinions about foreign policy and conceptions about world politics.”

If I had to expand Hanson’s list of technological innovations to include modern day technologies, I would add Internet-based technologies such as social networking sites, blogs etc. There is no denying that many of us, myself included, use these mediums to gather information, spread ideas, and influence the way our friends, family and people in our social circle think about an issue. This has allowed individuals to directly influence each other’s opinions more than any other time in history. Therefore, as we utilize these technologies we must be responsible in making sure that the information we disseminate is accurate (although “accurate” can be a relative term).

Not to be left out, the government is beginning to take a more active role in utilizing these mediums as well. For example, the U.S. State Department currently has accounts on Twitter and Facebook, as well as a social networking site on its own web server. This will allow the State Department to play a more active role in directly influencing the opinions of individuals on its own terms.

As more people seek internet-based networking sites to access information, and governments increase their efforts to shape public opinion through these mediums, broadcast (radio and television) will, if not already, become an obsolete way to shape public opinion.

The Media: Its Beginnings, Purposes and Evolution

2009-08-31T16:58:00.000-07:00

In this weeks' reading from The Information Revolution and World Politics, I learned how the different means of communication began and evolved through time. The evolution of media types, such as: the telegraph, the printing press, the radio, the telephone, and the television were impulsed by the necessity of providing a larger number of people with information and the popularity each of these mediums achieved.

Some types of media communication evolved faster than others and had a larger audience than others. For example, the telegraph and radio were immediate hits, compared to the rest and how long it took people to support the new media types. Furthermore, these two medias reached a greater number of people than inventions before them. The telegraph’s reach progressed to over international waters, making the flow of information between countries very quick. On the other hand the radio managed to enter most peoples’ homes, even into the poorest communities. As we can see from the above examples, the audience of each type of mass communication focused on a different kind of person, but still reached a lot.

The recount of events that most impacted me was the history that led to the evolution of the radio and how its use had many distinct objectives. Objectives like, its use for national security, intercepting enemy broadcasts during the war, commercial, educational, and informative broadcasting. With this last one, countries began to use it in their favor and influence how other nations and their own people perceived the country. Examples of this are: Radio Ghana, which impulsed “nationalism and anticolonialism, and religious stations sponsored by Protestant groups who had the objective of spreading their beliefs to others."

The influencing of peoples’ opinions by the different broadcasting at radio stations could work positively or negatively. In my opinion this can largely relate to the topic we spoke of in the last class of framing. Other than just informing the news, it is possible to give a country a negative spin because of an action or offense committed by a person from that country. Important examples of this were the attacks committed on 9/11, as all Arabs in the United States suffered through discrimination and hate crimes because one person from the same race performed a horrible violent act. As we have seen, the types of mass communication have evolved uniquely and their purposes evolve with them.

The United States: Once unique, but no longer?

2009-08-29T16:10:00.000-07:00

As I read the assigned texts for this week, I noticed a central theme that separated the development of communication networks in the United States versus those developed in Europe - the difference between state controlled enterprises and private, commercial entities. No where is this more prevalent than in the development of the radio and use of airwaves worldwide as a means of informing the population about current events. In the United States, there was minimal regulatory attempts to control this form of media. However, in Britain, the government placed all broadcasting under a public corporation, the British Broadcasting Corporation. Especially evident throughout the years of the Cold War, any attempt made by US officials to regulate any form of the communication industry was seen as a path to state controlled broadcasting. As the medium of communication has changed from radio, to television, to Internet this theme can still be seen. China exercises complete control over the Internet, often prohibiting access to social media networks such as Facebook, whereas the United States appears to remain more lax. Is this however reversing as the United States moves toward policies of communication regulation?

A point can be made for more control over media in this country, specifically for national security purposes. But has the previous and current administration gone to far in this effort? The Patriot Act gave the FBI and CIA telephone wiretapping capabilities without a warrant, leading to outrage of the government "spying" on private conversations, only before seen across the oceans from our European and Asian counterparts. Now, President Obama has introduced a bill that would allow him to take complete control of the Internet for "security purposes". This comes on the heels of the White House asking for emails from people discussing information that may appear "fishy" or untrue regarding the President's health care agenda. These actions, occasionally seen from the Bush administration but now more hurried from the Obama administration, appear to be taking the United States away from the idea of private owned media in a move to exerting more "state control" over the mediums of communication in this country. My concern with these actions is the silence that is greeting these attempts by the administrations. When much uproar was made regarding any attempt of the government to take control of the radio during the 1900's, not much is being made now. While some of these actions may be deemed necessary in terms of national security, is the government perhaps overstepping its bounds and changing the free communication medium in the United States into a controlled enterprise as seen in Europe and Asia?

An Historical Spin on International Communication

2009-08-28T14:09:00.000-07:00

Daya Thussu's "The Historical Context of International Communication," chapter one of the book International Communication: Continuity and Change, offers a solid, comprehensive view of the field's evolution over time, especially to those of us just starting to study it. He makes several compelling points to show the essentiality of communication across different cultures. One which I found particularly interesting was the idea that in ancient times, the size of an empire could indicate the strength of its communications network. Thussu states that "Communications networks and technologies were key to the mechanics of distributed government, military campaigns and trade." In other words, the more organized and advanced an empire's communication tools, the further it could spread. He also mentions the emergence of the world's first newswriters in ancient India, a fact which was news to me--I didn't think they appeared on the scene until much later.

The role of the telegraph in international communication was a prominent one in the 19th century, especially for Great Britain. Thussu's emphasis on the telegram's role in commerce and information gathering is strong, and for good reason--it truly connected the world at what was then an amazing speed. Thussu conveys its communicative power when he names cities on opposite sides of the world from each other--for example Lisbon and Recife in Brazil--that before the telegraph would have had to wait at least a month to communicate with each other via ship. Also important to note is the forming of the International Telegraph Union in 1865, which was the "first international institution of the modern era," albeit an almost totally Eurocentric one (all 22 founding member countries, except Persia, were in the Old World.) The United States was also a major player, however, second only to Britain in the miles of cable and the share of the market it owned.

Thussu's discussion of news agencies was also very thorough. I especially liked his treatment of the role that the three major agencies of the late 19th century--Havas (the predecessor to Agence France-Presse), Wolff in Germany, and Reuters in Britain--played in imperialism. I studied French imperialism as an undergrad, but I had never considered the role of news agencies in its execution. Thussu's statement at the beginning of the chapter about communication networks and ancient empires rings just as true for the colonial empires of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In order to stay on top of everything going on in the British Empire, for example, constant communication links via Reuters were essential and were viewed as a sign of strength and success by the colonizers. The news agencies also proved important in forming and maintaining links with the people on the ground--the colonial and foreign administrations. Of course, the agencies also promoted the aims and values of the colonizers--for instance, Thussu notes that "Reuters was for the most part the unofficial voice of the Empire, giving prominence to British views."

After World War I, the radio revolutionized international communication all over again, according to Thussu. During the Second World War, radio evolved into a propaganda tool, as both sides broadcast in a huge variety of languages to try to influence public opinion. I appreciated Thussu's exploration of Voice of America and its cousins, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty--I hadn't known the magnitude of the competition between VOA and Radio Moscow during the Cold War.

One final point that I thought especially worth mentioning was Thussu's contrasting VOA and the BBC on a cultural basis. He states that the BBC provided a "mature, balanced view, winning by argument, rather than hammering home a point, in the best tradition of British understatement." I at first thought this was a little biased, as it made VOA sound brash, lacking in restraint, and in-your-face. However, when I went back and reread Thussu's descriptions of VOA broadcasts, I had to admit he had a point. The difference in styles between VOA and the BBC is just one example of how cultural differences can affect the way news and other information is relayed. All in all, Thussu's observations were a good starting point to the semester and provided a necessary context to the field of international communication.

Wikipedia Gets Serious

2009-08-26T06:02:00.000-07:00

We spent our first class talking about the power of citizen blogging and the evolving criteria used to ensure the credibility of diverse forms of communication. After embarrassing user "updates", including the announcement of deaths that hadn't yet happened, it seems Wikipedia is eager to take back some control over its content. They have announced that "within weeks, the English-language Wikipedia will begin imposing a layer of editorial review on articles about living people." Wikipedia will make a distinction between their regular contributors and their trusted editors - the latter of which must approve changes to articles discussing people. With over 3 million English-language articles and prominent rankings in most Google searches, it makes sense that they'd like to enforce a little quality control over the website. The New York Times article also notes that after a steady increase in popularity, Wikipedia had been recently losing credibility as a result of inaccurate edits by newbie contributors that required continuous correction.

Readers are eager to see how long the new approach will delay updates. Under the new system, would Ted Kennedy's death (and two paragraphs on the circumstances surrounding it) already be posted this morning? (Since midnight last night, around 150 edits have been made - and argued about - on his page. One editor even questioned in his notes whether it was too soon to be updating the Wikipedia page.) For now, we can carefully read Senator Kennedy's updated article but note Wikipedia's prominent warning: "This article is about a person who has recently died. Some information, such as that pertaining to the circumstances of the person's death and surrounding events, may change rapidly as more facts become known."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/technology/internet/25wikipedia.html