Pike, R. & Winseck, D. (2004). The Politics of Global Media Reform,1907–23.

Media, Culture & Society. Vol. 26(5): 643-675.

The article argues that the rise of globalization and a global media system originated in
the mid-19th century, and in the 1920s especially. There are three conceptualizations of
globalization: 1) as imperialism (competing western nations utilizing communications to
aid in the expansion of their empires); 2) the technocratic view (the spread of modernity,
civilization, and the inevitability of technological progress); 3) as laissez-faire
capitalism/utopian view (a code for the creation of a world economy).

The case study focuses on the cable barons who moulded state policies in their own
interest and in ways that fundamentally shaped the international distribution of news and
information. Also, the long period between 1850 and the late 1920s that gave rise to the
global media system can be divided into two stages. The first stage occurred between
approximately 1880 and 1902, and was mainly restricted to demands within the British
Empire for government ownership of cables, the main result being the laying of the
Pacific Cable between Canada and Australasia in 1902. The second stage was
distinguished by a focus on the issue of news, as evidenced in the demands of the British
colonial press for cheap rates, and growing recognition in the US that British cable
monopolies, high cable rates, and exclusive concessions throughout Latin America and
Asia had led to news of the US in the foreign press being largely mediated through
foreign news agencies.

Lastly, radio became a much-touted possible rival to cable, even though up until the late
1920s most analysts believed that it would develop mainly as a supplementary adjunct to
cable. In sum, the ownership and control of the cables, the costs of cabling, the
adequacy of their technical facilities, their technological entrenchment, are the
cornerstones of a far-reaching politics of global media. This is a real source of
censorship.