The Myth Of Media Globalization

The ongoing interconnection of the world through modern mass media is generally considered to be one of the major developments underpinning globalization. This important book considers anew the globalization phenomenon in the media sphere.Rather than heralding globalization or warning of its dangers, as in many other books, Kai Hafez analyses the degree to which media globalization is really taking place. Do we have enough evidence to show that there is a linear and accelerated move towards transnationalization in the media? All too often the empirical data presented seems rather more anecdotal than representative. Many transborder media phenomena are overestimated and taken out of the context of locally and nationally oriented mainstream media processes all over the world. The inherent danger is that a central paradigm of the social sciences, rather than bearing scholarly substance, will turn out to be a myth and even a sometimes dangerously ideological tool. Based on a theoretical debate of media globalization, the work discusses most major fields of media development, including foreign reporting, satellite TV, film, internet, foreign broadcasting, media and migration, media policy and media economy. As an important new contribution to timely debates, The Myth of Media Globalization will be essential and provocative reading for students and scholars alike.

* A provocative and original assessment of a key contemporary topic: the globalization of the media * Rather than simply heralding globalization or warning of its dangers, the book analyses the extent to which media globalization is really taking place * Because of its controversial stance, the book is likely to be used on a range of courses, primarily global media or cultural studies, but also international communications, war reporting and politics * Crammed full of examples and includes a guide to internet resources for further study

Kai Hafez is Chair for International and Comparative Communication Studies at the University of Erfurt.

* Introduction * 1. Theory – structural transformation of the global public sphere? * 1.1 System connectivity * 1.2 System change * 1.3 System interdependence * 2. International reporting – ‘No further than Columbus...’ * 2.1 The world-view of international reporting * 2.2 The global non-dialogue of 11 September 2001 * 2.3 The Iraq War 2003: war reporting in the far from obsolete nation state * 2.4 The myth within the myth: the ‘CNN effect’ * 3. Satellite television – the renaissance of world regions * 3.1 Cross-border media use and the triumph of the monolingual middle classes over cosmopolitan elites * 3.2 Global television and the ‘spiral of silence’ afflicting democratisation * 3.3 The regionalisation of the media in geo-linguistic areas: ‘Huntington’ on the small screen * 3.4 The case of al-Jazeera: an ‘Arab CNN’? * 4. Film and programme imports – entertainment culture as the core of media globalisation * 4.1 Who’s afraid of Uncle Sam? Relativising American cultural hegemony * 4.2 How the globalisation of entertainment culture helps permeable national cultures modernise * 5. The Internet – the Information Revolution which came too late for the ‘Third Wave of democratisation’ * 5.1 The Net as Tower of Babel * 5.2 The digital divide * 5.3 Virtual cosmopolitanism * 5.4 The ‘Zapatista effect’ * 6. International broadcasting – from national propaganda to global dialogue and back again * 6.1 After 11 September: the new war in the ether * 6.2 Interdependence gaps and attempts at reform * 7. Media and immigration – ethnicity and transculturalism in the media age * 7.1 Cultural exiles and bi-culturals: immigrant media use * 7.2 A persistent cultural deficit: xenophobia in the age of global media * 8. Media policy – why the state continues to play a role * 8.1 The ‘New World Information Order’ in the age of globalisation: the rudiments of a pancapitalist vision