Student No: 570886, Swansea University

Total No of Words: 3,311 (excluding bibliography)

Has the Internet changed global media?

Introduction
To answer the question – has new media technologies such as the Internet changed global
media systems, and if so, in what ways and to what extent – we will start by defining core
concepts, namely, the nature of global media and what is the “new” in new media; then we
will probe into the technological changes precipitated by new media and put these changes in
the context of society, economics, politics and culture. In this paper, we will focus on the
Internet as an example of new media technologies – hence, the shortened title and question:
Has the Internet Changed Global Media? It is important to note that changes brought about by
technology are not a simple ‘cause and effect’ analysis:

We need to understand technology, especially our media and information technologies… to

grasp the subtleties, power and consequences of technological change. For technologies are
social things, suffused with the symbolic, and vulnerable to the eternal paradoxes and
contradictions of social life, both in their creation and in their use. The study of the media…in
turn requires such a questioning of technology. (Silverstone, 1999, p. 26)

Furthermore, the questioning of technology has to be put in the context of society, economics,
politics and culture, and in order:

…to understand ‘what’s new for society about new media?’ it must locate technological
developments within the cultural processes and associated timescale of domestic diffusion and
appropriation. (Livingstone, 1999, p. 1)

Part I: Defining Core Concepts

The “global” in global media

When we think of global media, who or what comes to mind? Is it “global” - in the sense of
an international media approach, as compared to local or national media approaches; in the
shape of media companies that operate beyond the national boundaries of their head office or
place of origin; by possessing a global reach into the audiences located in different parts of
the world; by the delivery of global content that reflects a shared media experience? The
answer is probably all of the above (Steven, 2003, p. 35-36).
This textbook definition is limited in scope, as it does not explain the true nature of global
media, exhibited in the exercise of market power and global reach over audiences across the
world. Robert McChesney attributes the nature of global media to neoliberal deregulation
and new communications technologies resulting in:

…fewer and larger companies controlling more and more, and the largest of them are media
conglomerates, with vast empires that cover number media industries. (McChesney, 2006, pp.
101-105)

This is the new global media, and its inherent nature is to advance its own corporate and
commercial interests in a state of “hyper-commercialism” (McChesney, 2003, p. 266).

There are growing signs of a backlash against global media (January, 2003, p. 32) (Van Aelst
and Walgrave, 2002) (Friedman, 1996).1 There is optimism of forces at play, in the form of
local traditions and culture, coupled with domestic regulation and public policy, as counter-
measures to the global media onslaught (Giddens and Griffiths, 2006, p. 626). The Internet’s
decentralized model is enabling and empowering civic participation, and providing a platform
to mobilize political communication and democracy in action (Van Aelst and Walgrave,
2002) (Donk, 2004). Also, there is the countervailing nature of the Internet, potentially as a
viable commercial alternative to mainstream media on a global scale (McChesney, 2006).
Matt Drudge in “breaking” the Monica Lewinsky affair before mainstream media is proof of
this potential (McChesney, 2006 p. 108). So what is “new” in new media technologies?

The “new” in new media technologies

The popular meaning of new media is the distribution or exhibition of text on a computer,
instead of paper (Manovich, 2002). This does not capture the role of computerization in the
development of new media. Historically, it is the fusion of calculation (Babbage’s “the
Analytical Engine”) and for storage (Louis Daguerre’s daguerreotype) that has transformed
“…the computer as a media processor into a media synthesizer and manipulator” (Manovich,
2002 p. 28). This change is exemplified by the amalgam of the consumer and producer for
journalism at the edge, which is explained later.

1
‘Nationalist and religious revivals can thus be understood as a backlash against a world in which
‘national leaders no longer have the ability to comprehend, much less control, these giants (global
corporations)’ Whitewash: racialized politics and the media, John Gabriel (1998), p. 23
Comparing the characteristics of old media with new media - the “new” in new media
involves the conversion of continuous data into discrete representation i.e. digitization
(Manovich, 2002 p. 28). The “new” is defined by creating, accessing or re-using media
objects, with the Internet as a distributed media database. Old media is related to the old logic
of industrial mass production of standardization and conformity. In the post-industrial
society, new media enables customization and individualization (Manovich, 2002). This
paper takes the view that the Internet is “new” in new media technologies, and it is making
inroads incrementally and cumulatively over time into the domain of global media. It is early
days for the Internet, but there is a shift away from utopian and dystopian views.

Part I: Summary – Defining Core Concepts

To summarize, the true nature of global media is exhibited by media giants exercising their
market power to fulfill their corporate and commercial interests; there are countervailing
forces to the global media oligopoly - in domestic markets with local traditions and cultures,
and the Internet as a viable commercial alternative to mainstream media; and new media
represents the logic of a post-industrial society, that of individual customization rather than
mass standardization since the Internet represents ‘…the shift of all culture to computer-
mediated forms of production, distribution and communication’ (Manovich, 2002 p. 30),
manifested in “new” ways to synthesize all media types in all stages of communication.

Part II: Has the Internet Changed Global Media?

There are several views from a multi-disciplinary academic field of political economists,
media cultural theorists, historians, technologists, political scientists and even public policy
wonks, as to whether the Internet has changed global media. The literature reviewed is wide
and varied but we can identify three distinct perspectives.

Firstly, and pessimistically as it would appear, the Internet as a change-agent is no match for
the “double-whammy” of global hegemonic media structures and the dominance of neoliberal
capitalism (Herman and McChesney, 1997, Schiller and NetLibrary, 1999).
Secondly, and more optimistically, the emergence of alternative commercially viable online
media is a sustainable and long-term challenge to mainstream media and over time, to the
hegemony of global media (Witt, 2004, Gillmor, 2004, McChesney, 2006).

Thirdly, despite the failure of the NWICO debate (Vincent, 1998), the Internet persists as a
democratizing societal force (Dahlgren, 2005 p. 155), as a power base for the ‘bottoms-up’
convergence of the consumer and producer (or “prosumer”) (Shirky, 2009), as a mobilizing
force for collective action (Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2002) and as a participatory web
interface for journalism at the edge (Lasica, 2003) revealing the future potential of media and
technology convergence as a mirror of the eventual convergence of the political economy
with the culture industry.

Global media overpowers the Internet

The idea that global media is overpowering the rise of the Internet, can be traced back to the
originating political and economic forces of the 80s and 90s that led to market “liberalization”
and privatization of public interests, and coincided with the rise of the transnational media
corporation (Herman and McChesney, 1997, Chomsky, 1999)2. This is described as a

…new stage of global corporate capitalism that has come to provide the basis for the
formation of a global media system. (Herman and McChesney, 1997, p. 26)

In this view, the potential of the digital revolution is not called into question in this view.
Instead, the Internet is integrated into the dynamics of global capitalism (Schiller and
NetLibrary, 1999).

Further, the Internet does not pose an immediate or even foreseeable threat to the global
hegemony of the media conglomerates (Herman and McChesney, 2000).3 But even for the
2
Noam Chomsky in Profit over people: neoliberalism and global order (1999) said that ‘they take the
form of ‘socialism for the rich’ within a system of global corporate mercantilism in which ‘trade’ consists in
substantial measure of centrally managed transactions within single firms, huge institutions linked to their
competitors by strategic alliances, all of them tyrannical in internal structure, designed to undermine democratic
decision making and to safeguard the masters from market discipline.’ (p. 39)

3
‘…the evidence suggests that the Internet and the digital revolution do not pose an immediate or even
foreseeable threat to the market power of the media giants. In the current political climate, moreover, it
is likely that the global media firms will be able to incorporate the Internet and related computer
staunchest media critics, the Internet represents a glimmer of hope. McChesney and Schiller
called the Internet ‘…a two-ton gorilla of global media and communications…and a genuine
technological convergence is taking place’ (McChesney and Schiller, 2003 p. 15). In 2006,
Robert McChesney appeared to be a new convert to Internet’s potential, which he ascribes to
the plethora of new, Internet-only options of digital radio that have sprung up to compete with
mainstream radio stations (McChesney, 2006 p. 108). Access to a global audience, and
improvements in Internet technology over time, are changing the name of the game.

Citizen Journalism and Blogging: a new paradigm?

One of the earliest examples of citizen journalism, OhmyNews had 70% of its content from
over 26,000 registered citizen reporters (Cheon, 2004) (Kim and Hamilton, 2006). The motto
“every citizen is a reporter” is a change from public journalism to the public’s journalism
(Witt, 2004) powered by the Internet to enable multimedia real-time reporting real-time by
citizens for citizens. This change is evolutionary, grassroots and democratic:

…technology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone [to] become a
journalist at little cost and, in theory, with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been
remotely possible before” (Gillmor, 2004 Intro, xxiii).

The complexity of the blogosphere, as an organic and evolving conversation fueling a

bottoms-up generation of storytelling that feeds into mainstream media (Witt, 2004)4, is
evidence of its staying power and continuing evolution. Media futurists predict that by 2021,
citizens will produce 50 percent of the news “peer-to-peer” (Willis and Bowman, 2003) cited
in (Gillmor, 2004). Willis and Bowman call it participatory journalism – which is less about
informing the public but how journalists encourage and enable conversations with citizens
(Willis and Bowman, 2005). Together, these changes reflect a new paradigm.

How has global media reacted to this phenomenon? In a post-broadcast era of computer-
mediated communications, some are slow to adopt new media such as podcasting and Flickr
(Willis and Bowman, 2005). Others are attempting to the change the game-play to protect its
hegemony (Gibson, 2006)5. The more enlightened embrace the Internet to empower change
networks into their empires, while the egalitarian potential of the technology is minimized’ (p. 107)

4
Leonard Witt references the statement made by Joichi Ito, CEO of Neoteny, outlining the ecosystem
of weblogs, at the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos.
5
‘Power is moving away from the old elite in our industry – the editors, the chief executives
and let’s face it, the proprietors’ Rupert Murdoch, cited in Gibson’s article.
inside their own organizations. Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC World Service and
Global News division said that the BBC’s role is shifting from broadcaster and mediator to
facilitator, enabler and teacher: ‘We don’t own the news anymore. Our job is to make
connections with and between different audiences’, cited in (Willis and Bowman, 2003).

The hard lessons of the NWICO debate

Is the Internet becoming the “new” global media system? We start in the 70s with the
MacBride Commission report on an imbalance in one-way news and entertainment flows
from the global North to global South (Steven, 2003, p. 35-36). UNESCO and ITU were
pushed by developing economies to establish policies to redistribute Western domination of
media power and resources in preparation for the impending information society, that became
known as the new world information and communication order or NWICO (International
commission for the study of communication and MacBride, 1980). The MacBride proposals
were roundly rejected by the United States and most of the Western world.

Instead, a new regime of communication markets and policy frameworks were created,
anchored in the World Trade Organization (WTO), new domestic regulators, self-regulation
and an augmented role for the private sector in the ITU, OECD and the WTO (Lievrouw and
Livingstone, 2002, pp. 394-395). The original claim, for developing countries to strengthen
their communication capacities, to leapfrog over the industrial age into the information
society (Pitt and Weiss, 1986, p. 126), had not transpired. Golding and Harris concluded that:

…the strategy at UNESCO was played out within a larger context: attempting to use the US
system as a vehicle for gaining increased market entry into the Third World (Golding and
Harris, 1997, p. 111).

Ironically, the adverse reaction of the Western world to the NWICO debate has turned the
political economy of the information society into “digital capitalism” (Dan Schiller, 1999).

The NWICO debate can be viewed historically as an effort to ensure that the concept of
availability of and use of other communication technologies was given equal importance in
global debates (Vincent, 1998 p. 178). The outcome was severely criticized because:

The so-called ‘new world order’ advocated by Bush and promoted by current United States,
Western and United Nations policies has not provided many of the answers one might expect
of a ‘new order’. While political supremacy has been addressed in much of the dialogue on
the topic, issues of democracy and human rights are largely ignored. (Chomsky, 1994)
A democratic allocation of a global communication order was unfortunately lost.

The Internet: the “new” NWICO?

The growing digital divide, the backlash against global media giants and the dominance of
Western hegemonic infotainment industry, are cumulative factors towards the Internet
becoming the new global communications order by default. Technologists and culture
industry observers are documenting these changes, and the corporate world is taking notice.
In his book entitled ‘Here Comes Everybody’, Clay Shirky identified three major changes
brought by the Internet (Shirky, 2008). Firstly, the Internet …is the first medium in history
that has native support for groups and conversations at the same time…’ (Shirky, 2009)6, in a
“many-to-many” pattern (as compared to “one-to-one” with the mobile phone, and “one-to-
many” with television). Secondly, media digitization means that the Internet ‘becomes the
mode of carriage for all other media’ (Shirky, 2009)7 and it is not only the information source
but also a “site for coordination”. Thirdly, and more importantly, Shirky recognizes that the
audience can now also be consumers and producers –

Every time a new consumer joins this media landscape a new producer joins as well. Because
the same equipment, phones, computers, let’s you consume and produce (or prosumer). It’s as
if, when you bought a book, they threw in the printing press for free” (Shirky, 2009)8.

The more social the Internet media becomes, the greater the potential.

In this sense, the Internet is full of the promise and potential of a democratizing force:

It is especially the capacity for the ‘horizontal communication’ of civic interaction that is
paramount. Both technologically and economically, access to the Net…has helped facilitate
the growth of large digital networks of activists. At present, it is in the tension-filled crevices
deriving from the changes in the media industries, in sociocultural patterns, and in modes of
political engagement that we can begin to glimpse new public sphere trends where the Internet
clearly makes a difference (Dahlgren, 2005, p. 155).

6
Taken from the interactive transcript of Clay Shirky’s TED talk “How Social Media Can Make
History” filmed in June 2009, and made available on TED conferences online at
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history.html
7
Interactive transcript excerpts from Clay Shirky’s TED talk, Ibid.

8
Interactive transcript excerpts from Clay Shirky’s TED talk, Ibid.
Dahlgren’s description of the horizontal communication model is in alignment with Shirky’s
description of the decentralizing effects of technology. Dahlgren’s analysis is also aligned
with the ‘bottom-up’ changes envisaged by the technologist in Shirky.

There is direct evidence to support optimism of the Internet as a democratic force. Political
engagement is enhanced through collective action – ‘Political action is made easier, faster and
more universal by the developing technologies’ (Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2002, p. 465). The
derailment of the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in 1998 was largely attributed
to the concerted Internet-based campaign of an international network of organizations of
multiple countries (Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2002) (Smith and Smythe, 2003).

In analyzing the Internet empowerment of individuals involved in political democracy efforts,

three critical factors were identified (Van Aelst and Walgrave, 2002). Firstly, the use of the
Internet as a tool for mobilizing political action meant that the social groups were better
organized and more effective. Secondly, communication and coordination among the social
groups to create a global event occurred without a central command and control point.
Finally, activists were enabled by the low cost of operations on the Internet to run sustained
and multiple campaigns. It shows that the Internet can power collective action to support
democratic movements. When coupled with the voice of the individuals who wants to be
heard, it is a powerful alternative to traditional media. It evidences the shift of media and
culture, into computer mediated forms, made possible due to the synthesis of all media types
in all stages of communication (Manovich, 2002, p. 30).

Decentralization in itself is not sufficient. There must be an active online community, making
use of the Internet as a platform for communication and expression, as per Rheingold’s virtual
communities (Rheingold, 2000). The Internet as a participatory web combined with edge
computing, applies to journalistic endeavors. Lasica refers to “journalism at the edge” as:

…individuals playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, sorting, analyzing
and disseminating news and information – a task once reserved almost exclusively to the news
media (Lasica, 2003, p. 1).
The broadcast paradigm is being up-ended by the new paradigm exemplified as “publish first,
filter later” (Shirky, 2009). This typifies the new approach of edge journalism – inclusive
civic and citizen participation propelled by new media technologies – arguably a lethal
combination that is rapidly shifting from traditional and mainstream media to the power base
of the consumer and producer empowered by the Internet.

Conclusion
Many notable academics are highly skeptical of the Internet as a global commercially viable
medium to challenge the oligopoly of media conglomerates. This is an understandable,
considering we are in the early days of media convergence, in view of the dominance of
Western hegemonic media giants, the existence of entrenched media structures, the failure of
NWICO to create an alternative global communications order and the gradual creeping in of
the same old media culprits into the Internet domain. Still, the global media players are
playing catch-up with the latest technological and societal changes on the Internet, and in
some cases, they have been successful in keeping ahead of the Internet as a media competitor.

The Internet as a technology has forced the global media players to re-evaluate their strategies
and tactics. The changes precipitated by the Internet are coming fast and thick, every day, and
multiplied by expanding connectivity and faster connections. Every consumer coming online
each day is a producer (Shirky, 2008). The “mass” is no longer in mass media, but it is the
“mass” in individualization and customization growing multifold. This is the change to watch
out for. Even the substantial resources of the global media conglomerates are unlikely to
keep up. These events situated in society and culture, backed up by politics and economy,
seem to point to the future potential of media and technology convergence as a mirror of the
eventual convergence of the political economy with the culture industry.

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