Globalisation: Issues in World Change.Mass Media- Global Culture
The mass-media industries, print, radio film and television have in the modern world assumed an extraordinary significance. For the majority of the populations of the advanced industrial nations the mass media, in particular the visual media, film and most importantly television, in many ways appear to be attitudinally determinant. The images drawn from the screen have become part of our everyday experience and contribute in a very direct way to the view we have of the outside world, both nationally and globally.
The power of the mass communications industries in shaping the consciousness of populations has long been recognised, in the English speaking world at least, press censorship and control has existed for as long as the print industry had a literate audience to reach. The governments of the Third world were also quick to realise that the mass media had power to influence and affect the attitudes and behaviour of their own populations, but for a variety of historical reasons related to the imperial past have found that economic control rests outside the boundaries of the Nation State.
In the field of news gathering and dissemination four agencies dominate the globe in a way unique to mass media. UPI(United Press International USA), AP(Associated Press USA), Reuters (UK) and AFP(Agence France Presse) have a long and complex interacting history which also saw the emergence and eventual expiry of serious rivals but in the post war period at least these four institutions provide agency run information to every major news organisation in the world. Between them they are the main source of information about the world for the Third world and the main sources about the Third world for the Industrialised Nations.
All the international News agencies, while the differ in character (Reuters, because of its historical dominance of the sector specialises in financial information) are consortia owned by cooperatives of Newspaper groups for their mutual benefit- and consequently are, or at least were, in themselves non-profit making.
In the entertainment sectors of the mass media industries, the technology, an industrial product, has determined that the main centres of production have been and continue to be in the Industrialised world. Entertainment for mass consumption evolved first in the USA, at least in the forms we are familiar with. Indigenous versions of mass popular entertainment around the world during this century has paid homage to, and sometimes been overwhelmed by the film and television production centre of Hollywood. From the glamour and glitz of Indian Cinema musicals to the stylised comic book violence of Kung Fu and Manga Films of the Far east the influence of an English speaking, American run Film Industry is ubiquitous and profound.
Even before the advent of sound America in particular Hollywood had established itself as the dominant producer of film entertainment to the point that a few white Anglo Saxon faces were known throughout the world. In 1928 the Hollywood film industry earned $70 million outside the USA with the some nations industries so dominated that up to 95% of all feature films shown were of California origin.
Surprisingly with the advent of sound little of this dominance was lost- while many countries set up indigenous cinema production companies they had by that time to compete with the lavish production budgets that only Hollywood could provide and accommodate a public taste largely expecting American fare.
This dominance was world-wide - every major industrialised nation more or less failed, and still more or less fails, to compete with the Hollywood product, indeed French objections to the contents of the GATT trade agreement were only overcome after concessions were made relating to the importation of US made film.
The development of radio follows a slightly different technological pattern but again the transmitter and associated receivers are a product of the advanced industrial economies and again in entertainment the influence of Hollywood is pervasive.
Television has been so dominated by the place of it's commercial development that even what we understand as the medium is governed by western needs. There is no reason why for example the paradigm of the domestic receiver should be accepted as universally applicable or appropriate. In many areas of the world the concept of entertainment or information being in place in an isolated single family domestic unit is beyond comprehension. That being said many counties of the South have deliberately sought to develop mass communications networks of all kinds within the resources available to them.
India has a long established newspaper industry with considerable market penetration even into rural areas, which in a country with such diverse ethicity and language usage is remarkable in it self. The fact but for a short period in the 1970 the industry has operated largely without direct government censorship is almost unique in the Third world.
In terms of news broadcasting and publication the mass media of the third world, if such a term is appropriate given the levels of literacy, direct governmental control is the rule rather than the exception. Indigenous News agencies in most of the south are part of the governmental organisation usually under a department analogous to the Ministry of Information. the agencies receive the reports of the international news agencies and select those events deemed suitable for the population before passing the reports on to the broadcast or printed media companies.
Many journalists in the advanced industrial countries are quick to condemn the overt government manipulation of information that goes on in many countries of the South, but to a certain extent this is merely the extension of the government control of mass media that has been established practice in Europe and North America for many years- the actions of the IBA or the Board of governors of the BBC may be more indirect and much more subtle but government control is government control.
There has, in the last two decades, been considerable agitation by the counties of the South, in particular via the OAU and the Non - Aligned Movement, for a new international information order. The general thrust of this campaign can be viewed as an attempt to set the agenda of news coming out of and going into the Third World. At worst this can be seen as a attempt to legitimate censorship, at best as an attempt to put the events of the Third World in the historical context of colonialism.
The mass media in general and in particular visual media exhibit in the extreme some of the feature of mass production techniques and the laws of unequal development that are inherent in the world economy.
Television and Film in particular exhibit extreme economies of scale- once a program is made it can be sold and resold with little or no further outlay and continue to accrue revenue. One copy only of a tape for broadcast is needed to reach a huge audience across a national (or even with satellite broadcast a supranational) audience. At international television fares every year packages are sold to raise overseas revenue for the major Television companies which see "job lots" of programming sold at far below even a fraction of their production costs. This is possible only because the production cost and a proportion of surplus value will have already been realised in the domestic market. The sales costs of these packages is a source of embarrassment to both the suppliers and the customers- the fillers of job lots will include much low quality programming tagged on to major products sold as loss leaders. In the UK evidence of this practice is found in the "filler" programmes that dominate daytime and "through the night" schedules.
In broadcast media in particular the nature of the audience is key to understanding the influence of the ideology of the advanced industrial nations and its impact in the South. For the majority of the population in much of the South, television is virtually unknown. TV signals are restricted to urban areas and to the middle and elite classes. Even rural community radio will tend to be restricted to communal use at the premises of the local elite group.
This has the effect of further identifying the elites in developing countries with the values, aspirations and life styles of the industrialised North. The penetration of the mass media in the developing world has had the effect of yet further removing the urban elites from the rest of the population and confirming their assimilation into the international business and technological elite.
