How may media globalisation restructure or reorder global power relations?
Does the globalisation of media homogenize or hybridise cultures?
The globalisation of media has had a drastic effect on media systems globally and the production and dissemination of information and culture. The following paper will outline how the globalisation of media restructures relations between different media corporations/providers. It will further address the impact of media globalisation on culture through examination of the two central discourses surrounding the cultural impact of media globalisation; homogenisation and hybridisation.
The media and communications sector is perhaps the sector where globalisation has had its most prolific impact. Globalisation of the media has facilitated a complete restructuring of media systems into a single global media system. Robert McChesney (1999, p.260) claims that where “previously commercial media systems were primarily national… [recently] a global commercial-media market has emerged.”
The creation of this global media system has accompanied the rise of neoliberal free-market economic policies, most prolifically since the end of the Second World War. Jeffrey Lyons (2005) claims that “post World War II reconstruction through organizations such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund helped to spread globalization through financial investment” and that “media globalization has been a natural extension of corporate expansion on an international scale.” Organisations such as the World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary fund have helped to facilitate media globalisation through encouraging states to deregulate markets in order to attract foreign investment.
However, the creation of the global media system is not merely a product of globalisation and the paradigm shift toward neoliberal economic policies; it also facilitates further proliferation of such policies. Sean Siochrú (2004, p.1)...