Theories of Media Globalization

Development communications are organized efforts to use communications processes and media to bring social and economic improvements, generally in developing countries (Paterson).

Types of Development Communications Campaigns (Paterson)

1. Persuasion, changing what people do;
2. Education, changing social values; and
3. Informing, empowering people to change by increasing knowledge.

International News Flows: the transfer of information about and to other countries.

News flow analysis involves investigating:

• Which countries publish the most international news?
• Which countries are the primary focus of international news?
• Who are the primary sources in international news stories?
• What are the common images in international news stories?

International News Flow Imbalance: (McQuail, pg. 261-263)

1. News in more developed countries does not typically give a great deal of space to foreign news
2. Foreign news is largely devoted to events in other countries that are large, nearby and rich, or connected by language and culture.
3. Foreign news is usually narrowly focused on the interests of the receiving country.
4. Most foreign news can often be accounted for by attention to a small number of ongoing crises (e.g. conflict in the Middle East) of relevance to the developed world.
5. Large areas of the physical world are found to be systematically absent or minuscule on the implied 'map' of the world represented by the universe of news event locations.
6. Developing countries are only likely to enter the news frame of developed countries when some events there threaten the economic or strategic interests of the 'great powers', or when problems and disasters reach a scale so as to interest audiences in distant and safer lands.

Cultural Imperialism: the act of imposing the culture of one nation on to another. This usually refers to the cultural of an economically and militarily powerful nation on a weaker one.

• Implies a deliberate attempt to dominate, invade or subvert the 'cultural space' of others and suggest a degree of coercion in the relationship.
• Implies an overall cultural or ideological pattern in what is transmitted - 'western values' imposed on non-western cultures (individualism, secularism and materialism).
  

Media Imperialism: the use of mass communication to transmit the culture of one nation on to another.

• Global communications industries are dominated by US-controlled corporations (Herbert Schiller).
• Mass media fit into the world capitalist system by providing ideological support for capitalism and transnational corporations.

How to Read Donald Duck

"As long as he (Donald Duck) strolls with his smiling countenance so innocently about the streets of our country, as long as Donald is power and our collective representative, the bourgeoisie and imperialism can sleep in peace."

Donald Duck and the Gilded Man

Donald Duck and the Golden Christmas Tree

Donald Duck Lost in the Andes