“Globalization invites more to controversy Than consensus, and the areas of consensus are narrow by comparison to the controversies.” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2004: 8)Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2004) Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

“There is no single theory of globalization upon which all social scientists, let alone everybody else, are agreed.” (Sparks, 2005: 20). Sparks, C. (2005) The Problem of Globalization. Global Media and Communication,1, 1: 20–23.

“the rapidly developing process of complex interconnections between societies, culture, institutions and individuals world-wide.”Tomlinson, J. (1997) Cultural Globalization and Cultural Imperialism, pp. 170-190 in Ali Mohammadi (ed.) International Communication and Globalization. London: Sage.

“(The) broad task of globalization theory is both to understand the sources of this condition of complex connectivity and to interpret its implications across the various spheres of social existence” (Tomlinson, 1999: 2)Tomlinson J. (1999) Globalization and Culture, Cambridge: Polity

We can study the processes of media globalization—taking place within the media and communications’ sphere—by answering the following questions:

-How is this condition created?

-In what way are the opportunities for global mediation and communication utilized?

Specifically we may do this by exploring:

-The emergence of a cross-national and increasingly global media and communications infrastructure, and;

-The characteristics, intensity and limits of the specific activity taking place within this infrastructure

1.The development of a global communications infrastructure.

2.Central theoretical concepts and understandings of the relationship between media, culture and globalization.

3.A case study from my own research on media, cultural practices and globalization.

1.The development of a global communications infrastructure.

The Silk Road extending from Southern Europe through Arabia, Somalia, Egypt, Persia, India and Java until it reaches China.

2.Central theoretical concepts and understandings of the relationship between media, culture and globalization.

“Theories have their own history and reflect the concerns of the time in which they were developed.”Thussu, D.K. (2006) International Communication: Continuety

and Change. London: Arnold.

.

1. Critical political economy2. Cultural studies i.e. audience/ reception studies

.

1. Critical political economy- influential since the 1960s; - the significance of questions of power and ideology in particular through economic, political and symbolic power interacted in the cultural sphere. - economic structures of dominance in the media and communications industries promotes the circulation of dominant ideas – limits diversity of ideas.- 1960s/1970s; cultural imperialism & media imperialism (Thussu, 2006)

Cultural Imperialism

“The sum of the processes by which a society is brought into the modern world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even to promote, the values and structures fo the dominant centre of the system.” (Schiller, 1976: 9) Schiller, H. (1976) Communication and cultural domination. New York: International Arts amnd Science Press.

Boyd-Barrett’s concept of ‘media imperialism’, mirrored the notion of cultural imperialism and domination, by drawing attention to the uneven distribution of power between countries and the dominating role of the US and primarily Western countries, specifically within the international media sphere (Boyd-Barrett, 1977: 117).

Boyd-Barrett, O (1977) Media Imperialism: Towards an International Framework for an Analysis of Media Systems. In: Curran, J, Gurevitch, M, Woollacott, J (eds) Mass Communication and Society. London: Edward Arnold, 116-135

2. Cultural studies – i.e. audience/ reception studies

“If, for much of the 1970s, the audience was largely ignored by many media theorists in favour of the analysis of textual and economic structures which were presumed to impose their effects on the audience, the 1980s, conversely, saw a sudden flourishing of 'audience' (or 'reception') studies (…)” Morley, David (1991) 'Where the Global Meets the Local: Notes from the Sitting Room', Screen, 32(1): 1-15.

MTV has neither in the 1990s nor later threatened the position of European national broadcasters. Television produced specifically for a national audience remains the most popular.

Such developments led to a critique of theoretical concepts such as cultural imperialism as; ‘frozen in the realities of the 1970s, now a bygone era’ (Sreberny, 2000: 96)

Sreberny, A. (2000) The Global and the Local in International Communication. (pp. 93-119) In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch (Eds.), Mass Media and Society. London: Arnold.

“Globalization may be distinguished from imperialism in that it is far less coherent or culturally directed process.” (Tomlinson, 1991)

Tomlinson, J. (1991) Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Globalization and culture: Three Perspectives on the development and consequences:

1.Cultural differentialism or lasting difference, cultural heteorogenization

2.Cultural convergence or growing sameness,cultural standardization

3. Cultural hybridization or ongoing mixing (inclglocalization)

Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2004) Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

“Globalization invites more to controversy than

consensus, and the areas of consensus are narrow

by comparison to the controversies.” (Nederveen Pieterse, 2004: 8)Nederveen Pieterse, J. (2004) Globalization and Culture: Global Melange. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

“There is no single theory of globalization upon

which all social scientists, let alone everybody else, are agreed.” (Sparks, 2005: 20). Sparks, C. (2005) The Problem of Globalization. Global Media and Communication,1, 1:

20–23.

3.A case study from my own research on media and globalization

We can study the processes of media globalization—taking place within the media and communications’ sphere—by answering the following questions:

a) How is this condition created, and to what extent, and:

b) In what way, are the opportunities for global mediation and communication utilized?

Specifically we may do this by exploring:

1) the emergence of a cross-national and increasingly global media and communications infrastructure, and;

2) the characteristics and intensity of the specific activity taking place within this infrastructure

The approach resonate with calls for more nuanced:

“… approaches which can deal both with the global-local dynamic of these cultural processes at a substantive level, and with the need to articulate the micro- and macro-dimensions, so as to integrate more effectively our analyses of the domestic, the local, the national and the international aspects of communications.” (Morley, 1991: 15)

Morley, D. (1991) Where the global meets the local: notes from the sitting room Screen. 32 (1): 1-15

Mjøs, O. J. (2012) Music, Social Media and Global Mobility. London and New York: Routledge.

The Corporatization of Social Media

Year of Acq. Social Media Acquiring Company Price (in mill.)

2005 MySpace.com News Corporation $580 (est.)

2006 YouTube Google $1.650

2007 Facebook Microsoft $240 (1.6%)

2008 Bebo AOL/Time Warner $850

 

The Users’ experience of Social Media

“I think I do not exaggerate when I say that (social media) are the most important. The social media form the spine (of our music practice) in a way. But, a spine without arms cannot play the guitar. But, it is like that. Since MySpace emerged, then I think social media have been, yes, the spine in the system, actually. So, therefore, I think it is good that more of them have arrived.”

(Fredrik Saroea, Datarock, October, 2010 in Mjøs, 2012).