What is Media Globalization?

Globalization: is the establishment of a capitalist world economy, in which national borders are becoming less and less important as transnational corporations, existing everywhere and nowhere, do business in a global market (Storey, pg. 152).

• Time-space compression - the world appears to be getting smaller.
• Increasing global mobility of people.

Global Village: A phrase first coined by P. Wyndham Lewis but popularized by Marshall McLuhan in his book The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962). His book describes how electronic mass media collapse space and time barriers in human communication, enabling people to interact and live on a global scale. In this sense, the globe has been “shrunk” by modern advances in communications, turned into a village by the electronic mass media. McLuhan likened the vast network of communications systems to one extended central nervous system, ultimately linking everyone in the world (Wikipedia).

Media Globalization: The domination of the world communication and media industries by a handful of transnational corporations and economically organized around an advertising-based, commercial system.

Causes of Media Globalization: (McQuail, pg. 229)

• More powerful transmission technologies (satellite)
• Commercial enterprise
• Follow-on from trade and diplomatic relations
• Colonization and imperialism, past and present
• Economic dependency
• Geopolitical imbalances
• Advertising
• Expansion of telecommunications
  

Varieties of Global Mass Media: (McQuail, pg. 251)

• Direct transmission or distribution of media channels or complete publications from one country to audiences in other countries.
• Certain specifically international media, such as MTV Europe, CNN International, BBC World; plus the international news agencies.
• Content items of many kinds (films, music, TV programs) that are imported to make up part of domestic media output.
• Formats and genres of foreign origin that are adapted or remade to suit domestic audiences.
• International news items, whether about a foreign country or made in a foreign country, that appear in domestic media.
• Miscellaneous content such as sporting events, advertising and pictures that have a foreign reference or origin.
• The World Wide Web.
  

Why do U.S. Products Dominate?

1. English-language: competitive advantage of being created in English (first or second language of choice for almost all the developed world).
2. Non-U.S. companies find it very difficult to compete with giant U.S. firms (like Time Warner, Disney) in terms of production, marketing and distribution.

   World Box-Office Share FQ1/2005

   World Box-Office Share by Country

The Meanings of Media Globalization: (McQuail, pg. 252)

• Media are increasingly owned by global media firms.
• Media systems become increasingly similar across the world.
• The same of very similar news and entertainment products are found globally.
• Audiences can choose media from other countries.
• These trends have effects of cultural homogenization and westernization.
• Decontextualization and reduction of time-space differences.
• Reduction in national communication sovereignty and more free flow of communication.