UAMG 3053 CommunicationTechnology

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UAMG 3053CommunicationTechnology

• Week 8 9
• Culture in Cyberspace

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Imperialism

• 1 imperial government, authority, or system
• 2 the policy, practice, or advocacy of
  extending the power and dominion of a nation
  especially by direct territorial acquisitions or
  by gaining indirect control over the political or
  economic life of other areas broadly the
  extension or imposition of power, authority, or
  influence

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Modern Imperialism

• To Malaysia, British and Japan were once our
  imperial governments. Our resources were taken by
  them as their own and they reorganized our social
  structure directly
• But in modern day, we are looking at the
  international communication and trying to link
  Communication Imperialism to cultural Imperialism
  and media Imperialism

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Modern Imperialism

• Johan Galtung, a structuralist, tried to link
  international communication to cultural
  imperialism
• Five types of imperialism economic, political,
  military, communication, and cultural
• Imperialism can be introduced in any one of these
  five forms and the spread to the others

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Modern Imperialism

• The instant communication afforded by
  tele-satellites and the movement of enormous data
  and information across national facilitates
  control of the North over the South
• For structuralists, the international
  communication system is said to be vertical
  from North to South and there is no horizontal
  communication taking place

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Modern Imperialism

• 1. High levels of industrial capacity and
  technological innovation exist only in the
  developed economies of North America
• 2. Western news agencies which dominate
  international news gathering and dissemination
  (AFP, AP, UPI, and Reuters)

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1974

• Nonaligned nations demanded for a New
  International Economic Order (NIEC) during a
  special session of the General Assembly in the
  United Nations meeting
• There are imbalances in international relations
  that allegedly enrich the North and perpetuate
  dependency for the South

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1974

• That led to the demand of a New World Information
  Order (NWIO) from the Third World nations
• The demand of NWIO was meant to balance
  international inequalities in the flows of
  information, news, and communication technologies

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1977

• The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
  Cultural Organization (UNESCO) funded The
  MacBride Commission to review the totality of
  the problems of communication in modern society

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1978 and 1980

• 1978 - The Commission published Interim Report
  
• 1980 - The Commission published a Final Report

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1985

• The MacBride Report intensified some of the
  hostilities on both sides (North and South) of
  these debates
• To defend the status quo and to defend a free
  market in international news, the Reagon
  Administration withdrew from UNESCO

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1985

• Despite the report, problems in international
  communication remain unresolved
• E.g. the West in general and the United States in
  particular often suffer from their lack of
  information in regard to the true nature of
  events in much of the world

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1985

• At the same time, the centers of East-West
  conflicts are shifting from North Atlantic to
  Third World context (i.e., Afghanistan, Central
  America, and southern Africa)

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The New Order in International Relations

• 1950s and 1960s the rise of nationalism and the
  end of colonialism most of the Third World
• Many less developed countries (LDC) gained
  political independence but their national
  autonomy (self-government) continued to be
  compromised through other means

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The New Order in..

• Many LDCs remain dependent on their former
  imperial states for trade, technology, expertise,
  and cultural resources
• The proposal for an NIEO addresses four key areas
  to promote rapid development in the Third World,
  while simultaneously reducing the dependency of
  the LDCs on the West

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Four keys of NIEO

• 1. LDCs were to be given absolute sovereignty
  over their natural resources, including the right
  of nationalization
• 2. Preferential treatment was to be given to
  Third World goods in Western markets
• 3. Grant, gifts, and other transfers of advanced
  technologies from the west to the Third World
  were to be vastly increased and funded by the
  wealthy industrialized nations
• 4. New controls were to be placed on
  multinational corporations (MNCs) which operate
  in the Third World

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NWIO

• NWIO followed NIEO because LDCs still rely on
  foreign sources for news and communication
  technologies
• The technology necessary for modernizing a
  national agency or broadcasting studio is
  primarily a Western export

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Four keys of NWIO

• 1. Absolute sovereignty for LDCs over all of
  their information resources
• 2. Preferential treatment for Third World news in
  Western markets
• 3. Direct grants and other gifts of advanced
  communication technologies from the West to the
  Third World
• 4. The breakup of the Western transnational news
  agencies (TNNAs AFP, AP, Reuters, and UPI)

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Two dimensions in the flow of information

• Stevenson Cole (1984)
• The East and West flow -
• The dominant and industrialized countries of the
  capitalist West and the socialist countries of
  Eastern Europe along with the former Soviet
  Union.

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Two dimensions ..of flows

• The North and South flow -
• - the industrialized countries of the Northern
  Hemisphere and the developing, mainly nonaligned
  nations of the Third World, located
  psychologically if not always geographically in
  the Southern half of the globe

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Three Schools of Thoughts on International
Communication

• A) The Conservatives backed by U.S. government
  politically most powerful group of thoughts
• They denied that imbalances in international
  information flows are due to the activities of
  governments and media in the West

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The Conservatives..

• They see the imbalances in news flow as being
  caused by certain natural characteristics of
  information gathering and dissemination
• Deny the charges that a free market of
  information and a free press have adverse effects
  on underdeveloped nations

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The Conservatives

• Stress on the positive aspects of a free market
  in news and information Western technologies
  serve as a tools of development for the Third
  World
• Defend the status quo in International
  communication and argue against governmental
  control of the mass media either the Soviet
  form of censorship and government controls, or
  the American tradition of press freedom

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The Reformists

• Receives much broader international support that
  conservatives from many Western journalists and
  media executives
• Admits that imbalances in information flows are
  due to the Wests near-monopoly of newswires and
  technology

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The Reformists

• Recognized the harmful social and political
  effects that result from the unregulated actions
  of Western TNNAs
• Believe that the current international order can
  be made more effective and equitable through a
  series of incremental adjustments

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The Reformists

• Believe much can be done on the current context
• E.g., reduction of costs of communication for
  LDCs (lower newsprint costs)
• E.g., Western assistance to train journalists
  from LDCs, and increased coverage of Third World
  nations in the Western press

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The Reformists

• Reformists proposed to advocate more coverage of
  ongoing projects for social, political, and
  economic development
• Development journalism to replace spot news
  which concentrated on episodic events such as
  riots, coups, and disasters

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The Reformists

• two-way form, horizontal, interactive flow, a
  process of give and take
• Called for a mix of governmental controls and
  free press institutions

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The Structuralists

• Neo-Marxist journalists, Third World diplomats,
  and theorists like Herbert Schiller and John
  Galtung
• Believe that the source of global informational
  imbalance can be found in the Wests desire to
  retain hegemony over formerly colonized areas
• To Schiller, communication dominance has replaced
  more direct forms of political and military
  control

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The Structuralists

• Control of communication and information is also
  said to be the means by which Western MNCs
  promote their economic interests at the expense
  of the developing nations
• John Galtung, a structuralist, tries to connect
  communication imperialism and cultural
  imperialism the former leads to the latter

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The Structuralists

• Divided nations into a) the center (developed)
  and b) the Periphery (underdeveloped)
• The center dominated the network of communication
• The center owns the major news agencies
• The center provides the definition of what is
  newsworthy for the Periphery

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The Structuralists

• Journalist and media users in the Periphery come
  to see events with center eyes
• These factors erode the cultural identify,
  national sovereignty, and political independence
  of developing states

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The Structuralists

• Structuralists view the current order in
  international communication as extremely unjust
  and beyond redemption
• Argued that a new order is need to replace the
  current international system

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The Structuralists.

• Place a much heavier emphasis on balance than
  freedom
• To achieve political and economic autonomy, Third
  World or underdeveloped nations must become
  technologically self-sufficient

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Tutorial 10 - Questions

• In brief, explanation what is Cultural
  Imperialism and how does the imbalance flows of
  information effects the underdeveloped nations?
• Explain the two dimension of flows of
  information. Do these two dimensions of flow
  still exist?
• Do you agree with the conservatives, the
  reformists, or the structuralists?
• Based on your extra reading, what will the
  dependency of East Europe media suggest?

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UAMG 3053CommunicationTechnology

• Week 8 9
• Culture in Cyberspace

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Two Conceptions of News

• What is News? Much of the scholarly and
  diplomatic debate about NWIO revolves around this
  simple question.
• News as commodity
• News as social goods

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News as commodity

• In Western context news is treated as a
  commodity
• Western media provide international news in the
  form of merchandise rather than a service
• News stories are selected for their impact,
  exoticism, and ability to entertain

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Commodity

• Contents of international news are determined by
  market interests
• News, historically, serves a particular economic
  interests and catered to specific cultural taste
• A news report tells what, when, where, why, who,
  and how (later)
• A well-written news story should be brief,
  to-the-point, and clear good news reporting

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News as social goods

• New as social good developed during the 20th
  century campaign for decolonization
• LDCs tried to improve and broaden their
  industries, educational institutions, and general
  social welfare all at the same time

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Social goods

• All national assets, including information, came
  to be seen as resources held in common, under
  absolute sovereign control of the state
• Information was to be employed as a tool for
  rapid development

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Cultural Imperialism and Media Imperialism

• Cultural Imperialism Theory, developed by Herbert
  Schiller in the late 1960s and early 1970s
• Cultural Imperialism is about the struggle and
  shift of power and control that lead to
  domination and the erosion of local culture.
• Stated that global mass media are basically
  dominated by Western nations

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Cultural Imperialism

• It suggested a one way (imbalance, vertical) flow
  of information
• Western nations control flows of international
  news and information, allowing them to undermine
  the cultures of the rest of the world

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Cultural Imperialism

• To Petras (1999), imperialism is a systematic
  penetration and domination of the cultural life
  of the popular classes by the ruling class of the
  West in order to reorder the values, behavior,
  institutions, and identity of the oppressed
  people to conform with the interest of the
  imperial classes (p. 140).

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Cultural Imperialism

• Western domination over the media also means the
  ability of Western media to impose Western views
• Western media serve as a vehicle from Western
  values, Western norms, and Western culture
• Along with news and entertainment, Western media
  carry to the LDCs images of a more prosperous
  life and more exciting lifestyles

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Cultural Imperialism

• Third World nations are dependent upon the West
  for their international news and entertainment
  broadcasting, they allegedly become molded in the
  Wests cultural image
• Western way of life is said to effect social,
  political, and economic changes on the Third
  World nations

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Cultural Imperialism

• E.g., it stimulates desire on Western culture
  demands for a more westernized lifestyle increase
  the demands of Western goods lead to increased
  importation of Western commodities and increased
  dependency by LDCs on their Northern trading
  partners

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Cultural Imperialism

• Anthony Smith, the flow of media exports acts as
  a kind of ideological prerequisite for the flow
  of other material exports the condition of
  cultural imperialism
• Referred by Thomas McPhail as electronic
  colonialism the dependency relationship
  established by the importation of communication
  hardware, foreign-produced software, along with
  engineers, technicians, and related information
  protocols

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Assimilation and Acculturation

• Melting Pot or Salad?
• Rethinking acculturation and assimilation
• Acculturation defined as the cultural changes
  resulting from contact with various societies
  over time.
• Generally regarded as one strategy of
  acculturation, assimilation has been understood
  as a process of melding, whereby one culture
  changes its cultural characteristics entirely in
  order to acquire the culture of the host society.

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• E.g Hispanic population in United States
• Chinese in Canada
• Indonesians in Malaysia
• Cultural historians have begun to explore the
  extent to which Hispanics are changing American
  culture.
• As Hispanics adopt American ways, their own
  traditions exert a growing influence on American
  culture, from tastes in food and popular music to
  the economic and politics.

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• Hispanic youth tuned into popular American
  culture, its fashion, music, television and films
  and connected to the Internet.
• E.g signs of assimilation point to the recent
  study by Nielson Media Research in 2000 found
  that younger Hispanics prefer watching TV in
  English even in household where adults speaks
  Spanish.
• These signs of assimilation require a more
  nuanced view. It also noted that Hispanic youth
  now see regularly see many Latino icons in
  popular movie actors and pop stars such as
  Penelope Cruz, Antonio Banderas, Jennifer Lopez,
  Shakira and Christina Aguilera

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• Media consumption Among Hispanics
• Spanish-language media outlets catering both
  Spanish only speakers as well as Hispanics who
  speaks English.
• Spanish radio station in U.S increased from 210
  in 1992 to 550 in 2000.
• By adding this acquisition to TV and Internet
  audiences, communication companies hope to
  increase market penetration.

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• Magazines Latina, Latin Style, Hispanic
  Business and Hispanic Network
• Internet networks Spanish-language version such
  as AOL Espanol

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• In summary, Hispanics acculturation in the U.S
  presents a mixed picture.
• Exposure to popular American culture through
  multimedia channels together with the economic
  advantages generally associated with
  acculturation- has contributed to Hispanic
  assimilation, especially the 2nd and 3rd
  generation Hispanics.

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Tutorial 10 - Questions

• In your opinion, what are the factors that helps
  to contribute assimilation and acculturation
  among minorities?
• What are the two conceptions of News

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References

• Curran, J. (2002). Media and Power. New York
  Routledge.
• Meyer, W.H. (1988). Transnational Media and Third
  World Development. New York Greenwood Press.
• Petras, J. (1999). Globalization A critical
  analysis. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 29, 3-37.

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References

• Schiller, H. J. (1973). Communication and
  cultural domination. White Plains, NY
  International Arts and Sciences Press.
• Stevenson, R.L., Cole, R.R. (1984). Issues in
  foreign news. In R.L. Stevenson D.L. Shaw
  (Ed.), Foreign News and the New World Information
  Order (pp. 5-20). Ames, IA The Iowa State
  University Press.
• Green, L. (2001). Chapter 9. Pg 153.