global media culture essay

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Exploring the Vibrant Tapestry of Global Media Cultures in the Contemporary World

Global media culture, in the contemporary world, refers to the interconnected set of values, beliefs, practices, and behaviors that arise from the interaction between media and various cultures on a global scale. It encompasses the dissemination and consumption of media content across borders, leading to the emergence of a shared cultural landscape that transcends national boundaries. Global media cultures reflect the interplay between local, regional, and international influences, and shaped by the flow of media content, cultural hybridity, and the formation of transnational audiences. In this dynamic context, global media culture both challenges and enhances our understanding of diverse cultural perspectives and identities.

Global media culture in contemporary world is as a fusion of local, regional, and international elements, influenced by the widespread dissemination and consumption of media content across borders. It reflects the interconnectedness and interdependence of media systems and audiences worldwide, as well as the cultural exchange and hybridization that occurs as a result.

Top 5 Global Media Culture examples

Sure! Here are some examples of global media cultures:

Hollywood: The American film industry, centered in Hollywood, has a significant impact on global media cultures. Hollywood movies are widely distributed and watched across the world, shaping filmmaking trends, storytelling techniques, and influencing cultural references.
Anime: Japanese animation, known as anime, has a dedicated and passionate global fan base. Anime series like “Dragon Ball,” “Naruto,” and “One Piece” have captivated audiences worldwide, leading to the development of fan communities, conventions, and a widespread appreciation for Japanese animation style.
Bollywood: The Indian film industry, popularly known as Bollywood, produces a vast number of films each year. Bollywood movies are not only popular within India but also have a significant global following, influencing fashion, music, and dance styles around the world.
YouTube Creators: The rise of YouTube has enabled individuals from various countries to become influential content creators. YouTube stars like PewDiePie, Dude Perfect, and Lilly Singh have millions of subscribers and shape global media cultures through their vlogs, comedy sketches, and other content.
Social Media Influencers: Social media platforms have given rise to a new generation of influencers who have a substantial impact on global media cultures. Influencers such as Kylie Jenner, Huda Kattan, and Chiara Ferragni have built massive followings, shaping fashion trends, beauty standards, and lifestyle choices.

These examples highlight the diversity and influence of global media cultures, where content from different regions resonates with audiences worldwide, shaping trends, and fostering cross-cultural connections.

What are the effect of Global Media Cultures

Global media cultures in the contemporary world refer to the widespread dissemination and consumption of media content across different countries and cultures. With advancements in technology and the internet, media has become increasingly accessible and interconnected, leading to the emergence of a globalized media landscape. Here are some key aspects of global media cultures:

Media Convergence

The convergence of different media forms, such as television, film, music, and the internet, has played a significant role in shaping global media cultures. This convergence allows for the seamless integration of content and the ability to access and share media across various platforms and devices.

Cultural Exchange

Global media cultures facilitate the exchange of ideas, values, and perspectives among different cultures worldwide. Television shows, films, music, and online content from one country can quickly reach audiences in other parts of the world, leading to cross-cultural understanding and influence.

Transnational Media Companies

Large transnational media conglomerates, such as Disney, WarnerMedia, and Netflix, have a significant influence on global media cultures. These companies produce and distribute content that reaches audiences globally, often tailoring their content to appeal to diverse cultural tastes.

Localization and Glocalization

While global media cultures are prevalent, localized adaptations of media content are also common. Media companies often adapt their content to suit local cultural contexts by dubbing, subtitling, or remaking shows and films. This process is known as localization. Additionally, glocalization refers to the blending of global and local elements, where media content incorporates global themes while retaining local cultural nuances.

Social Media and User-Generated Content

The rise of social media platforms has empowered individuals to create and share their own media content, contributing to global media cultures. User-generated content, such as videos, memes, and social media challenges, can quickly become viral and reach a global audience, influencing popular culture and trends.

Media Imperialism and Cultural Hegemony

Some critics argue that global media cultures perpetuate the dominance of Western or American media and values worldwide. They argue that the concentration of media power in a few transnational companies leads to cultural imperialism, as local cultures may be overshadowed or marginalized by the dominance of global media content.

Media Activism and Resistance

Global media cultures also serve as platforms for activism and resistance, allowing marginalized communities and social movements to amplify their voices and challenge dominant narratives. Social media campaigns, online petitions, and digital storytelling have become powerful tools for social and political change.

Cultural Appropriation

The globalization of media culture has also raised concerns about cultural appropriation. Cultural symbols, practices, and identities can be commodified and appropriated by dominant cultures, leading to the marginalization or misrepresentation of certain cultures in the media.

Media Literacy and Interpretation

Global media culture requires individuals to navigate and interpret media content from diverse cultural contexts. Media literacy skills become crucial for understanding and critically engaging with the complexities and nuances of global media representations.

Cultural Influence and Soft Power

Global media culture plays a significant role in shaping perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors on a global scale. Media content from powerful media industries and countries can exert soft power, influencing cultural norms, values, and lifestyle choices in other societies.

Overall, global media cultures in the contemporary world are characterized by the interplay between global and local influences, the exchange of cultural ideas, and the power dynamics within the media industry.

What are advantage and disadvantage of global media culture

Advantages of Global Media Culture:

Cultural Exchange and Understanding: Global media culture allows for the exchange of ideas, values, and perspectives among different cultures, fostering cross-cultural understanding and promoting empathy.
Access to Diverse Content: Global media culture provides individuals with access to a wide range of diverse content from around the world. People can explore different cultural expressions, artistic forms, and storytelling traditions, expanding their horizons and enriching their cultural experiences.
Global Connections and Communities: Global media culture enables individuals to connect with like-minded people from different countries and cultures. Online platforms and social media facilitate the formation of global communities, where individuals can share their interests, passions, and experiences.

Disadvantages of Global Media Culture:

Cultural Homogenization: A major disadvantage of global media culture is the potential for cultural homogenization. Dominant global trends and content can overshadow local cultural expressions, leading to the loss or marginalization of unique cultural identities and practices.
Influence of Stereotypes and Biased Narratives: Global media culture can perpetuate stereotypes, biases, and misrepresentations of certain cultures or communities. Misunderstandings and negative perceptions can arise when cultures are portrayed in a simplistic or stereotypical manner.
Cultural Imperialism: Critics argue that global media culture can reinforce the dominance of certain countries or regions, particularly Western or American media. This can result in cultural imperialism, where local cultures are overshadowed or marginalized, leading to a loss of cultural diversity.
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13.6 Globalization of Media

Learning objectives.

Identify three ways that technology has helped speed globalization.
Explain how media outlets employ globalization to their advantage.
Describe some advances that can be made in foreign markets.

The media industry is, in many ways, perfect for globalization, or the spread of global trade without regard for traditional political borders. As discussed above, the low marginal costs of media mean that reaching a wider market creates much larger profit margins for media companies. Because information is not a physical good, shipping costs are generally inconsequential. Finally, the global reach of media allows it to be relevant in many different countries.

However, some have argued that media is actually a partial cause of globalization, rather than just another globalized industry. Media is largely a cultural product , and the transfer of such a product is likely to have an influence on the recipient’s culture. Increasingly, technology has also been propelling globalization. Technology allows for quick communication, fast and coordinated transport, and efficient mass marketing, all of which have allowed globalization—especially globalized media—to take hold.

Globalized Culture, Globalized Markets

Much globalized media content comes from the West, particularly from the United States. Driven by advertising, U.S. culture and media have a strong consumerist bent (meaning that the ever-increasing consumption of goods is encouraged as an economic virtue), thereby possibly causing foreign cultures to increasingly develop consumerist ideals. Therefore, the globalization of media could not only provide content to a foreign country, but may also create demand for U.S. products. Some believe that this will “contribute to a one-way transmission of ideas and values that result in the displacement of indigenous cultures (Santos, 2001).”

Globalization as a world economic trend generally refers to the lowering of economic trade borders, but it has much to do with culture as well. Just as transfer of industry and technology often encourages outside influence through the influx of foreign money into the economy, the transfer of culture opens up these same markets. As globalization takes hold and a particular community becomes more like the United States economically, this community may also come to adopt and personalize U.S. cultural values. The outcome of this spread can be homogenization (the local culture becomes more like the culture of the United States) or heterogenization (aspects of U.S. culture come to exist alongside local culture, causing the culture to become more diverse), or even both, depending on the specific situation (Rantanen, 2005).

Making sense of this range of possibilities can be difficult, but it helps to realize that a mix of many different factors is involved. Because of cultural differences, globalization of media follows a model unlike that of the globalization of other products. On the most basic level, much of media is language and culture based and, as such, does not necessarily translate well to foreign countries. Thus, media globalization often occurs on a more structural level, following broader “ways of organizing and creating media (Mirza, 2009).” In this sense, a media company can have many different culturally specific brands and still maintain an economically globalized corporate structure.

Vertical Integration and Globalization

Because globalization has as much to do with the corporate structure of a media company as with the products that a media company produces, vertical integration in multinational media companies becomes a necessary aspect of studying globalized media. Many large media companies practice vertical integration: Newspaper chains take care of their own reporting, printing, and distribution; television companies control their own production and broadcasting; and even small film studios often have parent companies that handle international distribution.

A media company often benefits greatly from vertical integration and globalization. Because of the proliferation of U.S. culture abroad, media outlets are able to use many of the same distribution structures with few changes. Because media rely on the speedy ability to react to current events and trends, a vertically integrated company can do all of this in a globalized rather than a localized marketplace; different branches of the company are readily able to handle different markets. Further, production values for single-country distribution are basically the same as those for multiple countries, so vertical integration allows, for example, a single film studio to make higher-budget movies than it may otherwise be able to produce without a distribution company that has as a global reach.

Foreign Markets and Titanic

Figure 13.5

The movie Titanic , which became the highest-grossing movie of all time, made twice as much internationally as it did domestically.

Scott Smith – Best In Film: American Film Institute Showcase – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Worth considering is the reciprocal influence of foreign culture on American culture. Certainly, American culture is increasingly exported around the world thanks to globalization, and many U.S. media outlets count strongly on their ability to sell their product in foreign markets. But what Americans consider their own culture has in fact been tailored to the tastes not only of U.S. citizens but also to those of worldwide audiences. The profit potential of foreign markets is enormous: If a movie does well abroad, for example, it might make up for a weak stateside showing, and may even drive interest in the movie in the United States.

One prime example of this phenomenon of global culture and marketing is James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic . One of the most expensive movies ever produced up to that point, with an official budget of around $200 million, Titanic was not anticipated to perform particularly well at the U.S. box office. Rather, predictions of foreign box-office receipts allowed the movie to be made. Of the total box-office receipts of Titanic , only about one-third came from the domestic market. Although Titanic became the highest-grossing film up to that point, it grossed just $140 million more domestically than Star Wars did 20 years earlier (Box Office Mojo). The difference was in the foreign market. While Star Wars made about the same amount—$300 million—in both the domestic and foreign markets, Titanic grossed $1.2 billion in foreign box-office receipts. In all, the movie came close to hitting the $2 billion mark, and now sits in the No. 2 position behind Cameron’s 2009 blockbuster, Avatar .

One reason that U.S. studios can make these kinds of arrangements is their well-developed ties with the worldwide movie industry. Hollywood studios have agreements with theaters all over the world to show their films. By contrast, the foreign market for French films is not nearly as established, as the industry tends to be partially subsidized by the French government. Theaters showing Hollywood studio films in France funnel portions of their box-office receipts to fund French films. However, Hollywood has lobbied the World Trade Organization—a largely pro-globalization group that pushes for fewer market restrictions—to rule that this French subsidy is an unfair restriction on trade (Terrill, 1999).

In many ways, globalization presents legitimate concerns about the endangerment of indigenous culture. Yet simple concerns over the transfer of culture are not the only or even the biggest worries caused by the spread of American culture and values.

Explaining Global Media: A Discourse Approach

Submitted: 21 October 2010 Published: 01 August 2011

DOI: 10.5772/17557

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Ulrika olausson *.

Örebro University, Sweden

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1. Introduction

The term “transnational” is here used to describe events, technology, processes, connections, etc. which transcend nation-state borders but do not necessarily encompass the entire globe ( Hannerz, 1996 ).

However, these notions about the media’s pertinent role in globalization processes have also been fiercely challenged by quite a few media scholars, who instead emphasize the continuing stability and centrality of the nation-state paradigm. National propaganda is often present in transnational media as well, not least in CNN, as are stereotypical and negative depictions of the “others” ( Hafez, 2009 ; Thussu, 2003 ). Given the existence of obstacles such as language barriers and the “digital divide,” which separates the “haves” from the “have nots” with regard not only to communication technology itself, but also to the skills necessary for using it, there are no real signs of a media network with the ability to constitute a global public sphere ( Hafez, 2007 ). Severe scepticism concerning the notion of global media has also been expressed by scholars within the political economy tradition who claim that global media are in fact better described as Western or American media, and only contribute to maintaining Western dominance (e.g. Herman & McChesney, 1997 ). Some authors are critical of the very idea of globalization, of the way the concept has developed and been used in the social sciences (e.g. Calhoun, 2007 ; Sparks 2007a , 2007b ). Thus, within the field of global media studies there is an ongoing conflict between the “globalists,” proponents of the fluidity argument, and the “sceptics,” who pursue the stability argument ( Cottle 2009 : 30f).

Nonetheless, these two positions – their obviously conflicting views notwithstanding – have in common one fundamental and largely taken-for-granted assumption about global media: global media are interpreted as media networks or technology whose nature is global (or at least transnational) in terms of geographic reach. I would propose, however, that having global reach is not a necessary condition of global media. From a discourse theoretical perspective, an emergent trajectory of the research field ( Cottle, 2009 ), “global” is instead understood as a discursive feature. From this point of view it could be argued that global media cannot be reduced to transnational media networks; a global discourse might develop in any kind of media, be it local, national, or transnational, as well as in any kind of media content – local, domestic, or foreign ( Berglez, 2008 ; Olausson, 2010 ). Any medium might, in fact, be labeled “global” if it provides its audiences with a global interpretative framework. Thus, the argument put forward in this chapter is that the view on global media as transnational media networks and technology needs to be supplemented with a discourse theoretical approach, which also includes national media and takes the very knowledge production of the global into consideration.

I will develop this position first by examining the arguments of the line of research that equates global media with transnational media networks, including its contradictory arguments about the ability of these networks to contribute to or be part of globalization processes. Following this, the discourse perspective will be introduced and exemplified with some empirical examples from a study on the emergence of a transnational (European) identity in national news reporting on global climate change ( Olausson, 2010 ). The chapter ends with a discussion in which the discourse theoretical approach is put in relation to broader issues of cultural and political transformation, conclusions are drawn about the media’s relationship to globalization processes, and suggestions are made for an integral explanation of global media.

By necessity, the two perspectives on global media are outlined here with rather broad strokes and the presentation might be somewhat lacking in detail and precision. This is the price to be paid when trying to squeeze the complexity of a research field into rather rigid “boxes.” Nonetheless, this categorization will hopefully elucidate the argument that the established understanding of global media as media of transnational reach needs to be complemented with a discourse approach that also includes national media if we want to achieve an integral explanation of global media.

2. Global media as transnational media networks

Cross-border communication technologies such as the internet, mobile phones, and satellites have contributed to the deterritorialization of space over the last decades, and transnational media networks and news services such as CNN, BBC World News, FoxNews, and Al-Jazeera have entered and transformed the media landscape. In a dialectic fashion, these media are believed both to constitute and to be constituted by globalization, transforming understandings of time and space ( Chalaby, 2003 ; Thompson, 1995 ). Due to their deterritorialized nature, diverse audiences, and independence of any national loyalties, arguments about their ability to loosen up distinctions between domestic and foreign have been pursued:

“The cross-border coverage of transnational television networks, their multinational audience and international production operations tear apart the relationship between place and television and challenge the traditional relationship between broadcasting and the nation-state.” ( Chalaby, 2003 : 457)

Global broadcasting corporations not only provide people with a better understanding of global politics ( Chalaby, 2003 ), they also offer new journalistic styles and formats able to transgress the nation-state outlook and, in a dialectic relationship with national news angles, give rise to new horizons for political identity and citizenship ( Volkmer, 2003 ). Accordingly, transnational media have been attributed the potential to constitute a global, or at least a transnational, public sphere ( Chalaby, 2003 ; Volkmer, 2003 ).

The idea that transnational media networks are able to move beyond the nation-state paradigm has, however, not escaped criticism. Hafez (2007 ) argues that there is not enough empirical evidence of a media system that could accurately be described as “global” in the sense of enhancing the possibilities of a global public sphere. On the contrary, the majority of empirical evidence points in the direction of reinforced stability of the nation-state paradigm. Information and news may be transnational in character, but the media in fact still are, to a considerable extent, local and national phenomena. In times of war, Western propaganda is also present in transnational media, as are polarizing perspectives of “us” and “them” and stereotypical depictions of the “other” ( Hafez, 2007 ; Thussu, 2003 ):

“Today’s international exchanges of images and information, it seems, are no guarantee for global intertextuality in news, for growing awareness of ‘the other’s’ stories and perspectives, and for an increased complexity of world views in the mass media and beyond.” ( Hafez, 2009 : 329)

Even though CNN, as the topical case in point, under regular circumstances does contribute various “global” perspectives and viewpoints, it is extremely sensitive to American patriotism and displays bias in times of military conflicts in which the US is involved, such as the 2003 Iraq war ( Hafez, 2009 ). Not even the communication technology most associated with cross-border communication, the internet, has according to Hafez (2007 ) proved to fulfil this expectation. Most people use this technology locally – to communicate with people in their nearby surroundings – not to engage in cultural interaction across nation-state borders. Furthermore the necessary technological means are far from being globally diffused; “no electricity, no internet,” as was pointed out by Sparks (2007b : 152). The nation-state paradigm is, according to this view, as powerful as ever before and has, in several respects, even gained in importance. Hafez (2007 ) illustratively labels this viewpoint in the field of global media studies “the myth of media globalization,” and Sparks (2007a ) dismisses the entire theoretical framework of globalization arguing that current developments are better explained as part of the continuing capitalist and imperialist expansion (cf. Nohrstedt & Ottosen, 2001 ).

The scepticism surrounding global media is far from new. The well-established field of international communication, based on the political economy tradition, has a long history of persistently arguing that global media are in fact best described as Western (or American) media, at most of global scope (e.g. Herman & McChesney, 1997 ; Schiller, 1993 ). The central argument of these scholars is that escalating media conglomeration has led to a notable Western (American) bias both in terms of ownership and with regard to the distribution of media products. The media achieve their global characteristics as a result of purchases made by a small number of Western-, predominantly US-based multinational media giants, who distribute their products – permeated with neoliberal values and Western lifestyles – all over the globe. Even the “glocalization” that takes place when cultural products are tailored to fit a specific local market is viewed as a commercial strategy and as such nothing more than yet another sign of cultural imperialism ( Sparks, 2007b ). The rise of competing non-western media networks such as Al-Jazeera notwithstanding, the westernizing tendencies of global media have not been eliminated since the power of western, and particularly US-dominated media networks such as CNN, is not only restricted to their own large-scale activities; they set the agenda also for other networks ( Thussu, 2003 ).

Thus, claims about cultural imperialism and cultural homogenization have been made, and warnings have been issued about the democratic dangers that surface when it is no longer possible to hold media institutions accountable to political regulation at the nation-state level. The prospects for democracy do not seem any brighter if we add the argument that active citizens, due to the commercial logic of global media, over time transform into pure consumers in Western-dominated markets (e.g. Herman & Chomsky, 1988 ; Herman & McChesney, 1997 ). The consequences of the ravages of seemingly global media, it is alleged, are harmful both to indigenous cultures and to democracy. In this fashion global media counteract rather than promote a global public sphere, and contribute to the maintenance and stability of Western (US) dominance.

In this research tradition, media conglomeration, concentration, and commercialization have functioned as the analytical point of departure – restricting the interest to the shape and structure of transnational media institutions – and claims about media effects have been made without much analytical attention being paid to the actual reception and use among locally situated audiences. As a counterbalance to this macro-perspective, the research field of cultural studies has instead focused on the micro-dimension of global media (e.g. Barker, 1999 ; Crane 2002 ; Tomlinson, 1999 ). Instead of viewing the impacts of global media as a one-way process that completely erases local cultures, scholars within this research tradition emphasize processes of cultural “creolization” ( Hannerz, 1996 ) or “hybridization,” i.e. the creation of completely new cultural expressions in the encounter between different cultural forms:

“Most forms of culture in the world today are, to varying extents, hybrid cultures in which different values, beliefs and practices have become deeply entwined.” ( Thompson, 1995 : 170, emphasis in original)

The idea of the “active audience,” quite capable of negotiating and opposing media information, has been a guiding principle in cultural studies. Suggestions have even been made (though not uncontested) that the opportunities to “pick and choose” cultural forms due to the rapid development of communication technologies and the creative hybridization that follows, will most likely lead to new and improved conditions for global dialogue ( Lull, 2007 ). Thus, cultural studies have to a considerable extent problematized the idea of the homogenizing effects of global media and questioned the cultural imperialism thesis of the international communication field.

The perspectives accounted for above are fairly well established in the research field of global media. The main arguments of international communication and of cultural studies respectively are frequently discussed in the literature (e.g. Rantanen, 2005 ), as are the “globalist” and the “sceptic” perspectives (e.g. Cottle, 2009 ). Despite their conflicting opinions when it comes to the media’s relation to globalization, the “globalists” and the “sceptics” share at least one basic viewpoint on global media, namely that the proper objects of study first and foremost are those media whose global nature is defined in terms of geographic reach. The discourse perspective that will now be discussed takes a somewhat different stance towards this assumption.

3. Global media as global discourse

The discourse approach to global media proposed here does not direct specific attention to the geographic reach of the media, but focuses primarily on the very epistemology of the global ( Berglez, 2008 ). As pointed out by Cottle (2009 : 28) in his discussion of the principle paradigms structuring the field of global media studies, it is necessary to go beyond the paradigms of “global dominance” and “global public sphere,” since these approaches to global media fail to explain how issues such as crises of different kinds are mediated and constituted in practice and how they, through their formation in the news media, achieve their “global” characteristics:

“Global crises are principally constituted epistemologically as ‘global crises’ through the news media where most of us get to know about them and where they are visualized, narrativized, publicly defended and sometimes challenged and contested.” ( Cottle, 2009 : 165, emphasis in original)

Admittedly, local or national crises, such as 9/11, the 2010 flooding in Haiti, or the 2011 Egyptian revolution, need the connectivity that a cross-border communication infrastructure provides in order to become known, more or less simultaneously, to people around the globe. But, to achieve their global features – to become global crises, involving people and generating action across the world – they are entirely dependent on discursive constructions of them as such.

Extending this line of argument, when studying the production of knowledge about the global it is necessary to acknowledge national media as equally important objects of study as any media of transnational reach. As Robertson (2008 ) argues, the issue of media globalization is an empirical question, and the assumption of most authors that global broadcasters are, or at least should be, more inclined to produce global outlooks than national broadcasters, must be empirically demonstrated rather than axiomatically asserted. In the debate on global media, however, national media, which doubtlessly still are the media that most people turn to, are most often dismissed as not significant knowledge producers concerning the global due to their inclination to depict the world according to nation-state logic ( Altmeppen, 2010 ; Hafez, 2007 , 2009 ). This logic saturates much of their contents, not least in the form of what Billig (1995 ) terms “banal nationalism,” a national mode of reporting which makes the world orbit around the nation-state, and in terms of taken-for-granted conceptions of the world as constituted by self-governing national “islands” rather than being a complex transnational network ( Berglez & Olausson, 2011 ). In national media the domestic and foreign worlds are, by tradition, separated, and the nation-state becomes disconnected from the rest of the world ( Berglez, 2007 ). At best, relations between the domestic and foreign are constructed through the domestication of foreign events, i.e. by the addition of a national angle to the story from “outside” in order to make it more relevant to the national audience as it is perceived ( Clausen, 2004 ; Gurevitch et al., 1991 ; Riegert, 1998 ).

This tendency of national media to reproduce and maintain nation-state discourse and identity must of course be acknowledged. However, the national outlook should not be viewed as totally precluding other, transnational or global outlooks on the world. As suggested by Volkmer (2003 ), national media are to an increasing extent influenced by transnational media style and formats. Furthermore, and even more importantly, due to the globalization of risks such as climate change, and conflicts such as transnational terrorism or the Global War on Terror (as labeled by George W. Bush), national discourse is constantly (and perhaps to an increasing extent) challenged by transnational or global discourses that strive for the hegemonic position ( Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 ). It is thus not a question of either national or global discourse but both-and, with national and local views functioning in interaction with transnational or global outlooks ( Beck, 2006 ).

In a similar fashion, Hjarvard (2001 ) suggests that the possible emergence of a global public sphere should be viewed in terms of both-and; the transnational communicative space that has come into existence through the development of transnational media should be seen as a supplement to national public spheres. The globalizing tendencies of politics, economics, and culture have put the national public sphere under constant pressure, as has the increasing connectivity with other national public spheres. This will ultimately lead to what Hjarvard labels a “global reflexivity,” since fewer and fewer topics can be dealt with without including information from “outside.” In this way, national public spheres will gradually become deterritorialized through the “increased presence of global connections within the national framework” ( Hjarvard 2001 : 24, emphasis added). Like Hjarvard, Cottle (2009 ) emphasizes the media’s ability to provide…

“…a transnational and global perspective on a problem that both migrates across and transcends national frames of reference or explanation, exposing international interconnections, contextualizing motives and exploring both the scope of the problem and its human consequences.” ( Cottle 2009 : 100, emphasis added)

The issue of whether or not the media are capable of displaying global or transnational connections is pivotal to the discourse approach to global media suggested here. Global discourse in the news media is, as argued by Berglez (2008 ), characterized by the depiction of connections – including antagonistic ones – between people, processes, events, and phenomena at the local, national, transnational, and global levels. This focus on interconnections between various geopolitical scales makes the global news style quite different from the traditional foreign news style, which primarily reports from one nation to another without displaying any connections between the two ( Berglez, 2008 ). If a global discourse is present, the most local (in terms of geography) of all media might be labeled “global” (in terms of discourse), providing a global interpretative framework by linking national and transnational identities or positioning a local event in a global context or vice versa.

Thus, the decisive criterion of global media, from a discourse theoretical perspective, is the ability to display complex and often subtle connections between various geopolitical scales. These relations do not have to be of the “objective” or realist kind to be acknowledged as building blocks of a global discourse. More precisely, a global discourse does not have to comprise “real” relations of causality, motives, and interconnections, for instance that it is the carbon dioxide emissions of the First World that is the cause of the extreme droughts in the Third World. The connections displayed in media discourse could also be of a purely constructivist nature, i.e. be the “creations” of media logic itself. The inherent characteristics of news media, such as their preference for dramatic and emotionally charged reporting (perhaps occasionally also supplemented with the journalist’s deliberate intent to incite action among citizens) sometimes lead to the emergence of a global discourse that involves interconnections between people across vast distances.

A telling example of this kind of global discourse, building on pure constructivist connections, is the “globalization of emotions” ( Cottle, 2009 : 99) that the media have engaged in over the last decades in relation to human suffering caused by wars or natural disasters. As noted by Nohrstedt (2009 , cf. Shaw, 1996 ), there has been an increasing tendency in the news media to display the “true face” of war, i.e. the casualties and human suffering it causes, something which could be viewed as an invitation to audiences around the world to unite in compassionate responses. In her seminal work on “the spectatorship of suffering” Chouliararki (2006 : 24) discusses on the one hand how the various routines of the media, such as almost endless repetition, in all probability create distance between the audience and the distant sufferers, and on the other hand how the media are capable also of establishing an “imaginary ‘we’ that brings all spectators together in the act of watching.” With the purpose of exploring how distant suffering is depicted in television news, and building on Boltanski’s (1999 ) theories on the topic, she distinguishes between the following three different modes of representation, each of which invites the viewers to respond to the suffering observed on the television screen in a specific way: empathy, denunciation, and contemplation. Another example, which builds on the theories of Boltanski (1999 ), is Robertson’s (2008 ) exploration of the news reporting on the 2004 Asian tsunami. In searching for a global, or cosmopolitan, outlook deriving from compassion for and empathy with the sufferers, she examines five nationally-based European broadcasters and compares them with three European channels broadcasting to global audiences. Interestingly enough, the results show that a global discourse, in terms of constructions of “togetherness,” could be found on all the channels. It was far from the case that transnational broadcasters contribute more global outlooks than the national channels; in one case a transnational broadcaster even provided a less global outlook – a finding which indisputably strengthens the argument of including national media when exploring global discourse.

As Cottle (2009 ) points out, media research has been focused on examining how news content “positions” the audience in relation to distant suffering; there has been a lack of empirical studies that show how the “discourse of global compassion” ( Höijer, 2004 ) in the news media actually is received and handled by the audience. Höijer (2004 ), however, has demonstrated that the emotionally charged portrayal of human suffering in the news tends to trigger a variety of complex responses among the audience, and her findings challenge the notion of a pronounced compassion fatigue among people in general ( Moeller, 1999 ). Audience research has also shown that the news reporting on distant suffering has the potential to trigger transnational identification with distant sufferers, if not for more than a moment ( Olausson, 2005 ; Olausson & Höijer, 2010 ). These processes of identification are characterized by the empathetic capacity for “feeling oneself in one’s fellow man” ( Boltanski, 1999 : 92).

The global discourse built on compassion in the news media is composed – not always but in many cases – of pure constructivist connections. There are no “real” relations between the sufferers and the spectators beyond those “created” in news discourse, which highlights the constitutive role of the media in the process of globalization. Global media are not only the products of a globalized economy and technology, or the intermediaries of pre-existing events, processes, or connections already shaped by globalization, but are to a considerable extent also contributors to the expansion of transnational identifications and connections (cf. Volkmer, 2008a ).

Thus, events or processes in various parts of the world, be they natural disasters, environmental hazards or wars, take global shape not only, or even primarily, in terms of worldwide impacts or as effects of the technological reach of transnational media, but also, and most essentially in this context, in terms of their formation in the news media where people, places, and objects are linked more closely together (cf. Cottle, 2009 ). This discursive demonstration or “creation” of transnational connections takes place not least in national media, their inclination to apply national angles and reinforce national identity notwithstanding.

When arguing in favor of the inclusion of national media in the search for a global discourse, it is necessary to address the question of “methodological nationalism,” raised by Beck (2006 ). Not only the media but also social research has been criticized as being caught in a nation-state logic in ways that do not correspond to the globalizing trends of late-modern society. However, the determining cause of methodological nationalism is not the study of national media per se; this fallacy rather comes into existence when the analysis is conducted through a national lens, and this could be the case whether the object of study is national or transnational in character. Or, to put it differently, when examined through a “national prism” both national and transnational media might take on national features, just as both national and transnational media might assume global features when examined through a “transnational prism” ( Cottle 2009 : 168). Indeed, the nation-state logic still permeates national news media but with a discourse theoretical approach and the analytical application of a “transnational prism” it is possible to detect at least embryonic forms of transnational or global connections also in national media, a suggestion that will be empirically illustrated below.

3.1. The question of a European public sphere and identity

Much research on the possible emergence of a European public sphere and a European identity has been carried out over the last years. Volkmer (2008b : 231), as an example of an “optimistic” view on this, argues that advances in satellite technology have created, if not a public sphere in the traditional sense, at least “a platform for new, interesting flows of trans-European communication.” However, there are also quite a few voices that are less hopeful regarding the possibility of a European public sphere. Sparks (2007a , 2007b ) concludes that despite the development of supra-national political bodies such as the EU, there is as yet no sign of a corresponding media system; most media remain confined within the borders of the nation-state. This is commonly used by authors in the field as an argument against the possible development of a European public sphere: since there is no functioning European media system, the prospects of a European public sphere are rather discouraging. And, additionally, since the national realm has considerable power as the point of reference for the making of identity, the chances of creating a common European “us” are minute. The only viable way to enhance political interest at the EU-level among citizens and to instill a sense of European belonging is for national news media to present news about the political institutions of the EU: EU policy-making, EU-level actors, EU politics, etc. The more frequently EU topics appear in various national media, the better the breeding-ground for a sense of community and for the development of “Europeanized national public spheres,” it has been argued. Accordingly, EU topics in national media have been measured quantitatively – the more the EU topics, the more the transnationalization, or Europeanization, of national news media, it has been assumed (e.g. D’Haenens, 2005 ; De Vreese, 2007 ; Koopmans & Erbe, 2004 ; Machill et al., 2006 ).

I would argue, first, that the sheer presence of EU topics in national news media does not automatically lead to the emergence of a transnational discourse. Following the argumentation above, in order for EU topics in national media to contribute transnational outlooks and not traditional “foreign” ones, they have to be, in one way or another, discursively connected to local and/or national conditions. These connections should not be interpreted in terms of mere domestications of EU topics (what will happen with Swedish moist snuff when the EU legislates against it?), which rather reproduce national outlooks (Sweden and the EU), but through the discursive intermingling of EU and national horizons, for instance the forging of a common European “us,” as in the example presented below (Sweden in the EU). Secondly, it is not only EU news in national media (whether intertwined with national horizons or not), that might contribute to a sense of EU belonging. Instead, such topics tend to impose themselves on national media from above as “Europeanization projects” ( Lauristin, 2007 ). I would suggest that the everyday reporting of events or phenomena of transnational scope is just as relevant an object of study since such events, due to their borderless character, have the potential to trigger discursive transformation. According to Beck (2006 ), it is transnationalized threats and the suffering they cause that by necessity pave the way for a global outlook, since traditional dichotomies such as internal and external, national and international, and us and them lose their validity when confronted with these kinds of dangers (cf. Nohrstedt, 2010 ); a new cosmopolitanism becomes essential in order to survive in “world risk society” ( Beck, 2009 ). The transnationalization of risks and crises such as climate change, terrorism, and financial crises pushes even national media – slowly and unsteadily perhaps, and most likely not at the same pace everywhere, yet nevertheless – in the direction of transnational modes of reporting. These transnational outlooks could well be in embryonic stages, not entirely explicit in nature, but instead common-sensical and “banal” in the words of Billig (1995 ), and deeply embedded and naturalized in the everyday language of news. This means that they are difficult to capture empirically without the aid of sensitive discourse analytical tools ( Olausson, 2010 ; cf. Berglez & Olausson, 2011 ).

Some authors (e.g. Schlesinger, 2008 ) dismiss the entire notion of a European identity and argue that there are too many obstacles, such as the lack of a common language, history, and worldview, for such an identity to evolve. However, it is not very productive to cling to this “cultural” conception of identity, which can only lead to the discouraging conclusion that a European identity is a rather unachievable project. Instead, identity could be treated in a more modest way which does not demand cultural homogeneity; from such a perspective, identity concerns the identification with a political “us,” in relation to some given events, phenomena, or issues more than others ( Mouffe, 1995 , 2005 ). Thus, European identity could simply be treated as, in the words of Habermas and Derrida (2003 : 293), “a feeling of common political belonging” as is illustrated by the empirical example presented next.

Elsewhere ( Olausson, 2010 ), I have shown how the embryo of a European political identity is being forged in Swedish news reporting on climate change. In the construction of this transnational outlook, the discursive transcendence of national identity is pivotal and occurs when the national and the transnational become so closely entwined that they merge into a common “us.” Admittedly, this study also confirms the common conclusion of media research that national identity holds a hegemonic position in national news media. In this case, it is constantly reproduced through, for instance, elements of national self-glorification such as “If any country can manage this, Sweden can,” and “Sweden is one of the countries that have succeeded best.” The national outlook is also nourished through domestications of the climate issue, for example when maps of Sweden recurrently fade in and out between images of flooded areas and other alleged consequences of the changing climate on the television screen.

However, it is also evident that the national mode of reporting does not entirely preclude the emergence of transnational outlooks. As a matter of fact, it seems as if national identity functions as a necessary anchoring mechanism in the construction of a common European “us” which momentarily dissolves the distinction between the national and the transnational. Sweden and the EU are on the one hand mentioned in the news reporting as two separate entities, but on the other hand they are also closely tied to each other in the sense of their all being part of the group of “climate heroes.” In contrast to the “climate villain,” the USA, “we,” the EU, take climate change seriously and make earnest efforts to mitigate it, the message reads. The quotation from the broadsheet Dagens Nyheter “Perhaps it is not unknown to us in Sweden and Europe that greenhouse gas emissions cause great changes in the world climate” implies how national identity is transcended and incorporated into a European identity, how a common “us” is established.

Thus, the already established and naturalized national outlook becomes a means to introduce a transnational counterpart, which is not yet an integral part of everyday thinking and discourse. In the news program, Rapport, produced by the Swedish public service broadcaster, SVT, a sense of European community in relation to the climate issue takes shape through an intriguing blend of national and transnational identity positions. In the initial phrase of the reporter’s statement a “we” that transcends the national and includes the European sphere is constructed: “Exactly the way we do things within the EU…” However, when the reporter continues, this European “we” becomes integrated within the national: “…says our Swedish Minister for the Environment,” with “our” here referring to the national community.

The purpose of these brief empirical examples of the construction of a European political identity is to demonstrate that national and transnational outlooks are not engaged in discursive struggles where the destruction of one or the other is the inevitable outcome ( Laclau & Mouffe, 1985 ). As Sparks (2007a : 150) suggests, the local, national, and global exist alongside each other in news discourse and tensions do arise between them, but “the evidence does not support the contention that one is being undermined by the other two.” I would even go so far as to claim that they in fact are highly dependent on each other: in order for less established transnational outlooks to become naturalized and integrated in everyday thinking and discourse, they need to become anchored within the familiar and established national horizon ( Olausson & Höijer, 2010 ). Thus, there is reason to suppose that national and transnational discourses work interactively and that they mutually (re)construct each other (cf. Delanty, 2000 ; Olausson, 2007 ).

4. Conclusion

In this chapter, I have put forth the argument that the research field of global media needs to acknowledge not only the trans-boundary nature of media technology but to a greater extent the very knowledge production of the global that takes place not least in national media. When the given assumptions about what exactly the “global” in “global media” refers to are changed from being a matter of geographic reach to becoming a discursive feature, then it is possible to discover transnational and even global “embryos” in several as yet relatively unexplored media contexts, as has been shown (cf. Berglez, 2008 ).

As noted by Volkmer (2003 ), there is still a remarkable focus on the cultural impact of new communication technologies in the sociological debate on globalization. Cultural transformation has also been a dominating issue, not least in the disagreements between the fields of international communication and cultural studies over the cultural imperialism thesis. Hafez (2007 ) for his part, regards absence of cultural transformation generated by cross-border communication as a sign that a truly global media does not exist. Before there is reason to talk about global media it must be clarified “whether receiving cultures are changed by transmitting cultures in the process of cross-border communication through the Internet, satellite broadcasting, international broadcasting or through media imports and exports” ( Hafez, 2007 : 14). Thus, it seems that without the evidence of cultural transformation generated by cross-border communication, the notion of global media remains utopian.

It is true that the discourse perspective on global media, as proposed here, says little about cross-border communication and cultural transformation, but it does not totally exclude these aspects. In particular, this holds true if we go beyond the traditional technology platforms of the news media – newspapers, radio, and television – and widen the focus of research to include web-based forms of news reporting. The digital versions of newspapers, for instance, offer links to other websites around the world, hyperlinks which enable user interaction, etc. The digitalization of (national) news allows, to a greater extent than previous technologies, for cross-border communication and perhaps also cultural transformation ( Berglez, 2011 ; Heinrich, 2008 ). But, what is deemed even more important here is political transformation – how the nation-state logic of political identity loosens up, is transgressed, and transforms into transnational political identities in certain contexts, as in the example above of the discursive construction of EU-identity in relation to climate change. I would argue that the discourse perspective contributes knowledge of a fundamental ingredient, both in a global public sphere and in what Berglez (forthcoming) describes as a global political culture, namely how and under what circumstances the media – national or transnational – provide their audiences with a global interpretative framework capable of including politically relevant interconnections between various geopolitical scales (cf. Volkmer, 2003 ).

A central aspect of this line of reasoning is the idea of late modernity being characterized by contingency in every respect, which means that everything that exists right now could take quite a different form in another situation and context ( Mouffe, 1995 ). The contingent character of today implies that it is not reasonable to expect the media, be they national or transnational, to produce global knowledge all the time – the reporting on certain objects or phenomena, such as global risks, is probably more inclined to assume global characteristics than the reporting on local events such as a traffic accident. But it is also true that the media do not reproduce the nation-state logic throughout their reporting. And the same goes for the media audience; our national identity positions are, in all probability, activated in relation to quite a few of the events and phenomena reported in the media, but in certain cases and under certain circumstances, possibly in relation to distant suffering or global risks such as climate change, we accept global outlooks provided by the media and take on transnational identities, if not for more than a brief moment (e.g. Olausson, 2007 , forthcoming). The national and global, as shown, are not mutually exclusive, but reinforce and reconstruct one another. Thus, it is rather unproductive to understand the media as contributing to either the stability of the nation-state or the fluidity of globalization, since they most likely contribute to both of these conditions depending on context and circumstances, and in a dialectic fashion. Stability and fluidity are two sides of the same coin.

The discourse approach to global media studies, for which I argue in the present chapter, is certainly not the perspective that provides us with the only “correct” version of reality. However, this perspective is currently somewhat obscured by the dominant view on global media as consisting of transnational media networks and technologies, and there is reason to draw attention to the discursive aspect of global media, which is something qualitatively different from technological reach. Nonetheless, I would like to bring this chapter to a close by emphasizing the fruitfulness of there being a variety of theoretical perspectives that pose different kinds of questions about global media and together enrich the research field. Considering their, in all essentials, complementary nature, the diversity of theoretical perspectives and approaches is indispensable for an integral explanation of global media.

The term “transnational” is here used to describe events, technology, processes, connections, etc. which transcend nation-state borders but do not necessarily encompass the entire globe (Hannerz, 1996).

© 2011 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike-3.0 License , which permits use, distribution and reproduction for non-commercial purposes, provided the original is properly cited and derivative works building on this content are distributed under the same license.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section History of Global Media

Introduction, navigating the field: resources and journals.

General Overviews
The Telegraph and Global Communications, 19th to Mid-20th Centuries
News in the Age of Colonial Empires, 1850s to 1950s
Media in the Colonial and Postcolonial World I: Asia and the Middle East
Media in the Colonial and Postcolonial World II: Africa
Media Histories of Latin America
Media and the Cold War

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History of Global Media by Sönke Kunkel LAST REVIEWED: 26 February 2020 LAST MODIFIED: 26 February 2020 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756841-0243

Inspired by the “global turn” in the humanities and social sciences, the history of global media has developed into a burgeoning interdisciplinary field in recent years and now integrates a wide spectrum of diverse approaches and disciplines, ranging from media and communication studies over political science to history. This article reviews particularly the newer historical scholarship which has seen a major rise of output in recent years and has added much new empirical insight to the field. The focus is especially on works covering the 19th and 20th centuries and it concentrates first on newer works on global telegraphy and news agencies as well as on broader overviews. The second part of this article then maps works on the classic mass media in Africa, Asia, and Latin America: print, radio, and television, with a few glimpses toward cinema. It concludes with a section on the Cold War. Global media history means three things in the context of this article: (1) the history of media as global connectors and forces of globalization that enabled and promoted transnational flows of news, texts, pictures, information, ideas, and lifestyles; (2) the history of mass media in regions beyond the United States and Europe; and (3) the history of the ways in which governments and other historical actors used media to promote cross-national and international connections, messages, and interactions. The underlying understanding here, then, is that writing global media history involves as much a specific perspective on entanglements and interconnections as it is a programmatic effort to decenter existing European and US-centered national historiographies and enrich those with Latin American, African, and Asian experiences. The first studies on global media already appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. Mostly written by social scientists and communication scholars under contract by governments or UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), those works mapped the contemporary media environments of African, Asian, and Latin American countries, but usually also touched on historical developments. Common themes of those works were the media policies of the postcolonial state and the charge of cultural imperialism. Genuinely historical works on global mass media only began appearing from the mid-1980s on and initially focused on the interrelationships between diplomacy and global communications. Since the 2000s the historical study of global media has gradually broadened, and now overlaps considerably with other fields such as imperial history, business history, the history of public diplomacy and propaganda, and even ocean studies, making it a highly dynamic and fast-growing field.

Global media history has many outlets these days, and much recent work is published in journals that do not necessarily specialize in media history, including the Journal of Global History , History and Technology , or journals with a more regional focus. Readers looking for newer works that go beyond the scope of this bibliography may therefore find it most productive to go through academic databases first, many of which have indexed and made searchable journal articles across the disciplines of history and communication studies. There are also a number of specialized journals for media historians, however, and those increasingly treat global perspectives. Among those, The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television is one of the oldest, followed by Media History which has been published since the 1990s. Journalism Studies , too, often includes historical pieces. Many media historians are organized in the International Association for Media and History whose blog often features book reviews and news about recent developments in the field, and thus is another useful resource for a first contact with global media history.

The Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television . 1980–.

The leading journal on the international and global history of media. Published four times a year, the journal features research articles and a very extensive book review section. Though an emphasis is often on transatlantic media, journal issues usually also feature items of interest for global media historians. Most recommended as a resource.

History and Technology . 1983–.

The focus of this journal is the history of technology, defined in a broad sense. Issues often cover essays on media technologies and mass communications, ranging from the telegraph to the telephone. There is a certain predominance of research articles on technologies in the Western world, but the non-Western world gets a fair share of treatment as well.

International Association for Media and History

The most important professional association for media historians, bringing them together with practitioners under one roof. The Association organizes an international conference every two years, runs a blog, and offers masterclasses for postdoctoral researchers and postgraduate students on a regular basis.

Journalism Studies . 2000–.

Featuring up to twelve or more issues a year, this journal is devoted to the study of journalism in all of its aspects and dimensions. Focus is mostly on current issues, but the journal also often features historical pieces. Includes only research articles, no book reviews.

Journal of Global History . 2006–.

The flagship journal for global historians. Publishes research on global history, though media history has not yet drawn much attention within its pages. Still, every now and then issues do include contributions on media history, making the journal a useful starting point for scholars interested in global media history.

Media History . 1993–.

Formerly known as Studies in Newspaper and Periodical History , this interdisciplinary journal covers the broad sweep of media history from the 1500s to today, though the focus is mostly on the 19th and 20th centuries. Often publishes special issues on topics of interest. Also includes a short book review section. One of the leading journals in the field.

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Globalization in Terms of Media and Cultures Essay

Introduction, globalization in media, human expression, cultural transparency, works cited.

Globalization in the sphere of media is profit-driven; it is aimed at reaching high popularity. Profit is an engine of the media globalization. TV programs become famous because they are transmitted all over the world; only those programs that are interesting for the wide audience are launched into the global broadcast. The pilot projects represent the innovation in the sphere of market research in the sphere of global media. It is unlikely for the global media chiefs to spend money on unprofitable projects. The news that are considered uninteresting in terms of popularity are not included into the issue. Programs that are really interesting and helpful for the audience, but do not provide a benefit, are unlikely to be ever launched.

Media globalization destroys local cultures; especially when “the cultural forms emanate from the West” (Lull, 8). It is impossible to live observing the rules and traditions of the national customs and encounter the Western aggression shown in the media. How can one live with a permanent sense of anxiety? The United States of America are likely to send their military forces in order to get what they want. The people of the Islamic countries are aware of this fact and feel it necessary to protect themselves from the tyranny of the West. “Global awareness of extreme disparities in living standards and lifestyles provokes much more than terrorist assaults by religious fanatics” (Lull, 1).

Nevertheless, the media globalization helps people from different countries to know about the world events without even leaving their room. The variety of the sources, which let us know about the actions and processes on the other side of the world. Moreover, the necessary information can be received via internet connections, satellite-based communication, television and radio. However, the correctness of the global information is a disputable issue; particularly when taking into consideration the facts. Thus, it is easy to misrepresent the information in order to color the situation bright.

The media globalization affected all countries; sometimes it involves great problems. Thereby, the top leaders and authorities of the Islamic world are not likely to encourage Islamic people to listen to the Western music, to wear “Western-style neckties at work” (Lull, 24). Islamic women who have been oppressed for centuries have no right to follow the Western style either. The men are restricted to act according to the Western style, women are prohibited to breath without men’s permission. Make-up is one of the most severe taboos; it can cause great problems with local authorities.

It goes without saying that the cruelty of the Islamic laws is the burning issue of the modern human rights conferences. “It seems absurd that prohibitions [like these] could exist anywhere on Earth in the twenty-first century and be enforced with such (de)moralizing zeal” (Lull, 25). The Islamic laws impose too much restrictions upon the people who follow the religious and social traditions of their native country. The disobedience in terms of expressing liking of the Western culture is always punished in the cruelest way.

The traditions in the Islamic countries are cruel, consequently, one must follow the traditions in order to live in a safety world. The leaders of this world are not likely to let the Western culture into the ancient customs and lifestyles. The Islamic world resists the invasion of technologies, global communication and informational transparency. Furthermore, they have an inherent right to live in their own world without any means to communicate with an outer world. The freedom is spread by the United States of America. Do you want your relatives to follow the examples of the Western-style culture (promotion of drugs, violence, free love)? The Islamic world resist the bad tendencies of the Western culture.

The cultural transparency represents a chance to know more about different countries of the world. The information can be retrieved from the internet databases and any digital library by means of a simple search. It is necessary to get knowledge about cultures different from our native one. Any objective knowledge can be developed and used in future. The sphere of global cultures contains the key to communication as being aware of the peculiarities of different cultures it can be easier to establish contacts with representatives of alien cultures.

As soon as one comes to know about the alien culture, this person is likely to go to the country that represents this particular culture. The possibility to travel rises a range of new issues. Thus, being aware of the culture you come to the country and see the (in)correctness of the source you have used. It is possible to check the information about the countries by means of traveling and comparing.

Some traditions can be considered as cruel ones; it is impossible to judge the culture by some stereotypes that have been established by biased media sources. The world is an organism, which grows and develops its features and skills. One cannot deprive some cultures of the right to be unique and self-sufficient. The world approaches to liberalism; it learns basic rules of liberal society. The traditions are likely to change, so are the people, cultures, and their traditions.

Lull, James. Culture-on-Demand: Communication in a Crisis World . Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2007.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Globalization in Terms of Media and Cultures." December 1, 2021. https://ivypanda.com/essays/globalization-in-terms-of-media-and-cultures/.

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Home / Essay Samples / Social Issues / Globalization / Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

Media and Globalization: Shaping Our Perception of the World

Category: Sociology , Social Issues
Topic: Effects of Social Media , Globalization , Media Influence

Pages: 5 (2221 words)

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