INTERNATIONAL

COMMUNICATION
THEORY
Globalization
 Process Whereby World Is Made into Single Place
with Systemic Differences

 Elements: Transborder Capital, Labor, News,

Images, Information Flows

 Main Engines: TNCs, TMOs

Media Globalization Aspects
 Space-time Compression
 Changing Working Habits
 Information Accessibility in Most Remote Places
 Impact on Local Cultures
 Media Events Providing Common Experience and
Uniting Globe
LIMITATIONS OF
GLOBAL VILLAGE
Uneven Access to Information

 Media Distribution per 1,000 citizens

 Knowledge Gap
Media Distribution per 1,000

2500

2000

1500
Newspapers
Radios
1000
TV's

500

0
Pakistan India Japan
Unbalanced Flow of Information

 World’s News Agencies

 Monopoly Control over Flow from and to
Developing Countries
 North-North
 North-South
 South-South
Structure of Global News Flow

North North

South Soth
New International Information and
Communication Order
UNESCO Conference, Belgrade, 1980

 Elimination of Present Inbalances and Inequalities

 Elimination of Negative Effects of Certain
Monopolies & Exessive Concentrations
 Removal of Obstacles to Balanced Dissemination
of Information
New International Information Order,
contd.

 Plurality of Sources & Channels of Information

 Freedom of Press & of Information
 Freedom of Journalists
 Developing Countries to Improve
 Sincere Will of Developed Countries to Help
New International Information Order,
contd.

 Respect for Each People’s Cultural Identity and

Right of Each Nation to Inform World about its
Interests, Aspirations and Values
 Respect of Right of All Peoples to Participate in
International Exchanges of Information on Basis of
Equality, Justice and Mutual Benefit
NWICO
 In the past, much of the IC debate focuse on the
NWICO, which respresents:

1) An evolutionary process seeking a more just and

equitable balance in the flow and content of
information
2) A right to national sefl-determination of domestic
communication policies
NWICO

3) At the international level, a two-way information

flow reflecting more accurately the aspirations
and activities of less developed countries (LDCs)
NWICO

Ultimate goal:
restructured system of media and
telecommunications priorities in order for LDCs to
obtain greater influence over their media,
information, economic, cultural, and political
systems
Conflict over NWICO
 LDCs postulate measures that clash with strongly
held journalistic traditions and practices in the
West:
 Government control of the media
 Limited reporter access to events
 Journalistic codes
 Licensing of reporters
 Taxation of the broadcast spectrum
Balanced Flow of Information

 Approved by UNESCO in the 1970s

 Even that idea criticized as interference with free

flow and free market mechanisms. Only an open
and free flow of information is consistent with the
goals of a truly free press
NWICO

 Not merely a theoretical issue

 Used to legitimize a governmental role in

disseminating information in several states, notably
in Africa (in Liberia journalists need permits to
cover information, no permit ever given to use the
Internet)
International News in Western
Media

 The average mass circulation newspaper in the

West carries less international news than ten years
ago (with the exception of time around 9/11)
Reasons for less international coverage

 Costs ($250,000 per year to place an equip one)

 Restrictions from censorship to jailing
 High turnover of foreign correspondents
 Trend toward ”parachute journalism”-flocks
descending in scenes of conflict to trivialize and
sensationalize complex issues
 Lack of public concern, as reflected in the trend toward
light, fluffy, and trendy journalism
CHANGES IN
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA IN
1980S AND 1990S
American Media
 Background
 Deregulation

 Unprecedented Corporate Growth

-Mergers
-Concentration
-Conglomeration
-Monopoly
Media Research
 Most research looks at micro issues such as:
 agenda-setting
 Violence

 Ownership

Or a specific medium such as:

 Print

 Television
NWICO offers a macro approach,

so do the following theories:

Theories of International
Communication

 Electronic Colonialism Theory (ECT)

 World-System Theory (WST)
 Free Flow of Information
 Modernization Theory
 Dependency Theory
 Structural Imperialism
Theories of International
Communication, cntd
 Hegemony
 Critical Theory
 The Public Sphere
 Cultural Studies perspectives
 Theories of the Information Society
 Discourses of Globalization
 A Critical Political-economy of the 21st century
Electronic Colonialism Theory

 Throughout history there have been few successful

efforts at empire building:

 Military Colonialism (B.C.-1,000 A.D.)

The expansion of the Roman empire throughout most
of what is today Europe during the Greco-Roman
period
 Christianity Colonialism (1,000-1,600)
Militant Christianity of the Crusades that sought to
control territory from Europe to Middle East.
Beginning 1095, 200 years of crusades led to the
establishment of new European colonies in the ME.
The territories were seized from Muslims as Western
civilization became the dominant international force
 Mercantile Colonialism (1,600-1,950)
Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and the Americas became
objects of conquest by European powers that sought
markets, raw materials, and other goods unavailable at
home in return sending colonial administrators, immigrants,
a language, educational system, religion, philosophy, high
culture, and a lifestyle that frequently were inappropriate
for the invaded country. International status was a function
of the number and location of one’s foreign colonies
 Electronic Colonialism (1950-Present)

In 1950s and 1960s rise of nationalism in

developing countries and a shift to a service-based,
information economy in the West set the stage for
the fourth and current era of empire expansion
Electronic Colonialism
Represents the dependent relationship of LDCs on
the West established by the importation of
communication hardware and foreign-produced
software, along with engineers, technicians, and
related information protocols, that establish a set of
foreign norms, values, habits, values, and
expectations that, to varying degrees, alter
domestic cultures, habits, values, and the
socialization process.
Electronic Colonialism Theory

The concern is that this new foreign information

will cause the displacement, rejection, alteration, or
forgetting of native or indigenous customs,
domestic messages, and cultural history. LDCs fear
EC as much as MC. Whereas MC sought cheap
labor, EC seeks minds. It is aimed at influencing
attitudes, desires, beliefs, lifestyles, and consumer
behavior.
Electronic Colonialism Theory

As the citizens of LDCs are increasingly viewed

through the prism of consumerism, control of their
values and purchasing patterns becomes
increasingly important to multinational firms.
Tools: Western media messages, e.g. at its peak in
mid-1990s, Baywatch was watched by more than 1
billion people a week in nearly 150 countries.
Electronic Colonialism Theory

EC relies on the long-term consequences of

exposure to these media images and messages to
extend the West’s market’s, power, and influence.
World-System Theory
 Provides the concepts, ideas, and language for
structuring international communication. WST was
proposed and developed by Immanuel Wallerstein.
 WST proposes that global economic expansion takes
place from a relatively small group of core zone
nation-states out to two other zones of nations-states,
these being in the semi-peripheral and peripheral
zones
World-System Theory
 It is assumed that the zones exhibit unequal and
uneven economic relations, with the core nations
being the dominant and controlling economic entity.
 Core nations
 exert control and define the nature and extent of
interactions with the other two zones
 provide technology, software, capital, knowledge, finished
goods, and services to the other zones which function as
consumers and markets
World-System Theory
 Core
 Capital-intensive, high-wage,high-technology production
involving low labor exploitation and coercion
 Periphery
 Labor-intensive, low-wage, low-technology production
involving high labor exploitation and coercion
 Semi-periphery
 Core-like actiivties, periphery-like activities
World-System Theory

Core Nations (30+)

Semi-Peripheral
Nations (20+)
Peripheral Nations
(100+)
Free Flow of Information
The concept reflected Western, and specifically US, antipathy
to state regulation and censorship of the media. It was part of
the liberal, free market discourse designed in the post-WWII
bi-polar world of free market capitalism and state socialism.
As such it was part of the Cold War discourse. The FFI
doctrine assisted the West in advertising and marketing their
goods in foreign markets, in ensuring continuing influence of
Western media on global markets, and in strengthening the
West in its ideological battle with the Soviet Union. Also
helped communicate, in subtle rather than direct ways, US
government’s points of view to international audiences
Modernization Theory
 Complimentary to the doctrine of free flow in the
post-war years was the view that international
communication was the key to the process to the
modernization and development of the so-called
‘Third World.’
 Daniel Lerner, MIT, The Passing of Traditional
Society (1958)- early 1950s research into audience
exposure to radio in Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria,
Jordan, and Iran. Hypothesis: exposure to the media
made traditional societies less bound by tradition and
made them aspire to a new and modern way of life.