CONTEMPORARY WORLD LESSON #3

THE MEDIA AND GLOBALIZATION

METALANGUAGE MEANING / DEFINITION

1 Media Lule describes media as a means of conveying

something, such as a channel of communication.

2 Communication It is the act of transmitting knowledge from one

place, person or group to another.

3 Global Village According to McLuhan, global village it is the idea

that people are connected by easy travel, mass
media and other electronic communication
interconnections.
4 Cultural Imperialism It is the practice of advocating and enacting a
culture, with a constitutionally influential nation,
over a less influential society.

5 Hegemony It is the political, economic, or armed superiority or

influence of one nation over others.

6 Cyber Ghettos It is a location on the cyberspace (ghettos) where a

group of community is disregarded.

7 Cyberbalkanization It portrays the method by which the restriction and

the presentation of flows on Internet subject matter
affects destruction or fragments within.

8 Splinternet It is a clever remark created to portray the Internet

as it exists in each independent nation offering its
personal individual version for clients of its territory.

9 Trolls They are professional users who harass political

opponents to manipulate public opinion through
intimidation and the spreading of fake news.

10 Global Online Propaganda It is the biggest threat to face as the globalization of

media deepens.
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(C) Essential Knowledge

Globalization entails the spread of various cultures. When a film is made in

Hollywood, it is shown not only in the Unites States, but also in other cities across the globe.
South Korean rapper Psy’s song “Gangnam Style” may have been about a wealthy suburb in
Seoul, but its listeners included millions who have never been or may never go to Gangnam.
Some of them may not even know what Gangnam is. Globalization also involves the
spread of ideas. For example, the notion of the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) communities is spreading across the world and becoming more widely
accepted. Similarly, the conservative Christian Church that opposes these rights moves from
places like South America to Korea and to Burundi in Africa. People who travel the globe
teaching and preaching their beliefs in universities, churches, public forums, classrooms, or
even as guests of a family play a major role in the spread of culture and ideas. But today,
television programs, social media groups, books, movies, magazines, and the like have made
it easier for advocates to reach larger audiences.
Globalization relies on media as its main conduit for the spread of global culture and
ideas. Jack Lule was then right to ask, “Could global trade have evolved without a flow of
information on markets, prices, commodities, and more? Could empires have stretched
across the world without communication throughout their borders? Could religion, music,
poetry, film, fiction, cuisine, and fashion develop as they have without the intermingling of
media and cultures?
There is an intimate relationship between globalization and media which must be
unraveled to further understand the contemporary world.
Media and Its Functions
Lule describes media as “a mean of conveying something, such as a channel of
communication.” Technically speaking, a person’s voice is a medium. However, when
commentators refer to “media” (the plural of medium), they mean the technologies of mass
communication. Print media include books, magazines, and newspapers. Broadcast media
involve radio, film, and television.
Finally, digital media cover the internet and mobile mass communication. Within the
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category of internet media, there are the e-mail, internet sites, social media, and internet-
based video and audio.
While it is relatively easy to define the term “media,” it is more difficult to determine
what media do and how they affect societies. Media theorist Marshall McLuhan once
declared that “the medium is the message.” He did not mean that ideas (“messages”) are
useless and do not affect people. Rather, his statement was an attempt to draw attention to
how media, as a form of technology, reshape societies.
Thus, television is not a simple bearer of messages, it also shapes the social
behavior of users and reorient family behavior. Since it was introduced in the 1960s,
television has steered people from the dining table where they eat and tell stories to each
other, to the living room where they silently munch on their food while watching primetime
shows.
Television has also drawn people away from other meaningful activities such as
playing games or reading books. Today, the smart phone allows users to keep in touch
instantly with multiple people at the same time. Consider the effect of the internet on
relationships. Prior to the cellphone, there was no way for couples to keep constantly in
touch, or to be updated on what the other does all the time. The technology (medium), and
not the message, makes for this social change possible.
McLuhan added that different media simultaneously extend and amputate human
senses. New media may expand the reach of communication, but they also dull the users’
communicative capacities. Think about the medium of writing. Before people wrote things
down on parchment, exchanging stories was mainly done orally.
To be able pass stories verbally from one person to another, storytellers had to have
retentive, memories. However, papyrus started becoming more common in Egypt after the
fourth century BCE, which increasingly meant that more people could write down their
stories. As a result, storytellers no longer had to rely completely on their memories. This
development, according to some philosophers at the time, dulled the people’s capacity to
remember.
Something similar can be said about cellphones. On the one hand, they expand
people’s senses because they provide the capability to talk to more people instantaneously
and simultaneously. On the other hand, they also limit the senses because they make user
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easily distractible and more prone to multitasking. This is not necessarily a bad thing; it is
merely change with a trade–off.
The Global Village and Cultural Imperialism
McLuhan used his analysis of technology to examine the impact of electronic media.
Since he was writing around the 1960s, he mainly analyzed the social changes brought
about by television. McLuhan declared that television was turning the world into a “global
village.”
By this, he meant that, as more and more people sat down in front of their television
sets and listened to the same stories, their perception of the world would contract. If tribal
villages once sat in front of fires to listen to collective stories, the members of the new
global village would sit in front of bright boxes in their living rooms.
In the years after McLuhan, media scholars further grappled with the challenges of a
global media culture. A lot of these early thinkers assumed that global media had a
tendency to homogenize culture. They argued that as global media spread, people from all
over the world would begin to watch, listen to, and read the same things.

Localizing the Material

If cultural organization merely entails the spread of a Western monoculture, what

explains the prevalence of regional cultural trends? For example, the regionalization of
culture was a boon to Filipino telenovels. From 2000 to 2002, ABS-CBN aired Pangako
Sa’Yo starring Jericho Rosales and Kristine Hermosa. The show soon became a hit in
Singapore and Malaysia, and its two stars became household names. In 2013, Cambodia
TV even purchased the rights to produce its own version of the show. Until now, Filipino
telenovels like Be Careful with My Heart find audiences across Southeast Asia.

This thinking arose at a time when America’s power had turned it into the world’s
cultural heavyweight. Commentators, therefore, believed that media globalization coupled
with American hegemony would create a form of cultural imperialism whereby American
values and culture would overwhelm all others.
In 1976, media critic Herbert Schiller argued that not only was the world being
Americanized, but that this process also led to the spread of “American” capitalist values
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like consumerism. Similarly, for John Tomlinson, cultural globalization is simply a

euphemism for “Western cultural imperialism” since it promotes
“homogenized,Westernized, consumer culture.”
These scholars who decry cultural imperialism, however, have a top–down view of
the media, since they are more concerned with the broad structures that determine media
content. Moreover, their focus on America has led them to neglect other global flows of
information that the media can enable. This media/cultural imperialism theory has,
therefore, been subject to significant critique.

Critiques of Cultural Imperialism

Proponents of the idea of cultural imperialism ignored the fact that media messages
are not just made by producers, they are also consumed by audiences. In the 1980’s, media
scholars began to pay attention to the ways in which audiences understood and interpreted
media messages.
The field of audience studies emphasizes that media consumers are active
participants in the meaning–making process, who view media “texts” (in media studies, a
“text” simply refers to the content of any medium) through their own cultural lenses.
In 1985, Indonesian cultural critic Ien Ang studied the ways in which different
viewers in the Netherlands experienced watching the American soap opera Dallas. Through
letters from 42 viewers, she presented a detailed analysis of audiences–viewing
experiences. Rather than simply receiving American culture in a “passive and resigned way,”
she noted that viewers put “a lot of emotional energy” into the process and they
experienced pleasure based on how the program resonated with them.
In 1990, Elihu Kats and Tamar Liebes decided to push Ang’s analysis further by
examining how viewers from distinct cultural communities interpreted Dallas. They argued
that texts are received differently by varied interpretative communities because they
derived different meanings and pleasures from these texts.
Thus, people from diverse cultural backgrounds had their own ways of
understanding the show. Russians were suspicious of the show’s content, believing not only
that it was primarily about America, but that it contained American propaganda. American
viewers believed that the show, though set in America, was primarily about the lives of the
rich.
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Apart from the challenge of audience studies, the cultural imperialism thesis has
been belied by the renewed strength of regional trends in the globalization process. Asian
culture, for example, has proliferated worldwide through the globalization of media.
Japanese brands–from Hello Kitty to the Mario Brothers to Pokémon–are now an indelible
part of global popular culture.
The same cab said for Korean pop (K-pop) and Korean telenovels, which are widely
successful regionally and globally. The observation even applied to culinary tastes. The most
obvious case of globalized Asian cuisine is sushi. And while it is true that McDonald’s has
continued to spread across Asia, it is also the case that Asian brands have provided stiff
competition. The Philippines’ Jollibee claims to be the number one choice for fast food in
Brunei.
Given these patterns, it is no longer tenable to insist that globalization is a
unidirectional process foreign cultures overwhelming local ones. Globalization, as noted in
Lesson 1, will remain an uneven process, and it will produce inequalities. Nevertheless, it
leaves room for dynamism and cultural change. This is not a contradiction; it is merely a
testament to the phenomenon’s complexity.
Social Media and the Creation of Cyber Ghettoes
By now, very few media scholars argue that the world is becoming culturally
homogenous. Apart from the nature of diverse audiences and regional trends in cultural
production, the internet and social media are proving that the globalization of culture and
ideas can move in different directions. While Western culture remains powerful and media
production is still controlled by a handful of powerful Western corporations, the internet,
particularly the social media, is challenging previous ideas about media and globalization.
As with all new media, social media have both beneficial and negative effects. On the
one hand, these forms of communication have democratized access. Anyone with an
internet connection or a smart phone can us Facebook and Twitter for free. These media
have enabled users to be consumers and producers of information simultaneously.
The democratic potential of social media was most evident in 2011 during the wave
of uprisings known as the Arab Spring. Without access to traditional broadcast media like
TV, activists opposing authoritarian regime in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya used Twitter to
organize and disseminate information. Their efforts toppled their respective governments.
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More recently, the “women’s march” against newly installed US President Donald
Trump began with a tweet from a Hawaii lawyer and became a national, even global,
movement.
However, social media also have their dark side. In the early 2000s, commentators
began referring to the emergence of a “splinternet” and the phenomenon of
“cyberbalkanization” to refer to the various bubbles people place themselves in when they
are online.

In the United States, voters of the Democratic Party largely read liberal websites, and
voters of the Republican Party largely read conservative websites. This segmentation, notes
an article in the journal Science, has been exacerbated by the nature of social media feeds,
which leads users to rea articles, memes, and videos share by like–minded friends.
As such, being on Facebook can resemble living in a echo chamber, which reinforces
one’s existing beliefs and opinions. This echo chamber preludes users from listening to or
reading opinions and information that challenge their viewpoints, thus making them more
partisan and closed–minded.
This segmentation has been used by people in power who are aware that the social
media bubbles can produce a herd mentality. It can be exploited by politicians with less than
democratic intentions and demagogues wanting to whip up popular anger. The same
inexpensiveness that allows social media to be a democratic force likewise makes it a cheap
tool of government propaganda.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has hired armies of social media “trolls” (paid users
who harass political opponents) to manipulate public opinion through intimidation and the
spreading of fake news. Most recently, American intelligence agencies established that
Putin used trolls and online misinformation to help Donald Trump win the
presidency– a tactic the Russian autocrat is likely to repeat in European elections he seeks to
influence.
In places across the world, Putin imitators replicate his strategy of online trolling and
disinformation to clamp down on dissent and delegitimize critical media. Critics of the
increasingly dictatorial regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are threatened by
online mobs of pro-government trolls, who hack accounts and threaten violence. Some of
their responses have included threats of sexual violence against women.
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As the preceding cases show, fake information can spread easily on social media
since they have few content filters. Unlike newspapers, Facebook does not have a team of
editors who are trained to sift through and filter information. If a news article, even a fake
one, gets a lot of shares, it will reach many people with Facebook accounts.
This dark side of social media shows that even a seemingly open and democratic
media may be c0-opted towards undemocratic means. Global online propaganda will be the
biggest threat to face as the globalization of media deepens. Internet media have made the
world so interconnected that a Russian dictator can, for example, influence American
elections on the cheap.
As consumers of media, users must remain vigilant and learn how to distinguish fact
from falsehood in a global media landscape that allows politicians to peddle what President
Trump’s senior advisers now call “alternative facts.” Though people must remain critical of
mainstream media and traditional journalism that may also operate based on vested
interest, we must also insist that some sources are more credible than others.
A newspaper story that is written by a professional journalist and vetted by
professional editors is still likely to be more credible than a viral video produced by someone
in his/her bedroom, even if both will have their biases. People must be able to tell the
differences.

Conclusion
This lesson showed that different media have diverse effects on globalization
processes. At one point, it seemed that global television was creating a global monoculture.
Now, it seems more likely that social media will splinter cultures and ideas into bubbles of
people who do not interact. Societies can never be completely prepared for the rapid
changes in the systems of communications.
Every technological change, after all, creates multiple unintended consequences.
Consumers and users of media will have a hard time turning back the clock. Though people
may individually try to keep out of Facebook or Twitter, for example, these media will
continue to engender social changes. Instead of fearing these changes or entering a state of
moral panic, everyone must collectively discover ways of dealing with them responsibly and
ethically.
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(D) Self Help

1. Article: OpenStax CNX . Introduction to Sociology 2e (Module 6: Media Globalization).

Retrieved: June 3, 2020
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-bhcc-introsoc/chapter/reading-global-implications-
of-media-and-technology/
2. YouTube: Harvard Kennedy School (June 11, 2013). The Internet, Globalization and
the Media Future. Retrieved: June 4, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=XuzvmoMCygg
3. Recommended Film: The Internship (2013)

(E) Let’s Check

Exercise no. 7: True or False: Write TRUE if the statement is correct and FALSE if it is
incorrect.

1. Imperialism refers to the various bubbles of people place themselves in when

they are online.

2. Voters of the Democratic Party largely read conservative websites.

3. According to Jack Lule media simultaneously extend and amputate

human senses.

4. Voters of the Republican Party largely read liberal websites.

5. Social media have both beneficial and negative effects.

6. McLuhan declared that television was turning the world into a “global village.”

7. Herbert Schiller argued that not only was the world being Americanized.

8. Globalization entails the spread of various cultures.

9. Very few media scholars argue that the world is becoming culturally
homogenous.

10. Cultural imperialism ignored the fact that media messages are not just
made by producers, they are also consumed by audiences.
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(F) Let’s Analyze

Media is a very powerful tool of communication; however

it is also the most abuse and the most misused. Using the discussions we
have above on media and globalization, how does globalization contribute
to the spread of fake news? Create reliable examples with citations.

(G) In a Nutshell

Activity no.7: Using the lessons we have above, kindly explained the following:

1. Media create hegemonic world

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