Chapter 3: Global Economy and International Telecommunications Networks

Introduction:

- The global economy should not be considered as an abstract term that does not affect us; on the contrary global economy is present in a variety of forms and consumption products in our daily lives

- Global economy and global communication are strongly related: global economy needs global communication to control and coordinate global division of labor

I. Premodern World

1. In the 13^th century, people’s possessions were locally made, and foreign products were exotic items that only the nobility and the rich could afford

2. Everyday goods were made by artisans and craftsmen that tended to work independently (which at the end affected productivity as we would conceive it nowadays)

II. Division of Labor

1. The main difference between the premodern world and the modern world is the fact that division of labor started to be used to enhance productivity: craftsmen and artisans started to work together, each one having a specific task (a specialization that permitted expertise and that increased efficiency)

2. The possible disadvantage of division of labor is that it creates interdependencies since the system is based on the coordination of the work

3. The problems that arise from coordination increases as the factory grows or managers decide to delocalize part of the production because some components could be made more cheaply in other parts of the world

4. Division of labor today happens in a greater scale (internationally), and it wouldn’t be possible without our modern communication technologies

5. Global trade in the past was limited to light weighted items, but thanks to transportation technologies weight is not an issue anymore. Global trade is, as a result, no more restricted to luxury goods, but also includes everyday items consumed by the common people

III. Imperialism

1. In the 13^th century the world was multipolar, in other words, dominated by several centers of power with decentralized but interconnected trading circuits

2. In the 14^th and 15^th centuries, the emergence of western powers (France, Britain, Spain, or Portugal) transformed the world into a monopolar one, organized around Europe, who was superior to the rest of the world in many aspects thanks to the development of science, and who had great colonial empires

3. The main motivation for European countries to have colonial empires was economic: they were interested in the raw materials they could acquire in their colonies to use them in the industries of the “mother country”. But once the raw materials transformed into finished goods, the colonies were their perfect market for selling their products

4. To maintain the colonies Europe created with the use of the military force, they adopted a strategy of cultural imperialism that went beyond the colonial elites to the masses (especially using the educational apparatus)

5. Telegraph lines can be used as analogy to better understand the relationship between the center and the peripheries (everything goes through the center, so the peripheries is inevitably subjected to the center)

IV. Electronic Imperialism

1. Global media flows

a. After World War II and the process of decolonization, the center of the world was no longer Europe, but the United States

b. US power over the peripheries was economic and more lately cultural, rather than military as it was the case with European imperialism

c. Many scholars argue that even in the European Empires dissolved, the mechanics of interdependency that existed at that time remained in place creating a global relationship of dependency between the rich countries (north) and the poor countries (south)

d. Today the US dominates the panel of electronic entertainment (mostly through movies and TV shows). This domination considered as simple business from the US side is viewed by the rest of the world as a dangerous cultural influence

e. The fear concerning US cultural influence comes mostly from developing countries who consider this influence as a new form of imperialism: cultural imperialism (also referred to as cultural invasion)

f. There is a disproportion among the different communication flows around the world, and the flows that goes from the US to the rest of the world is the most important, which is a further illustration of the center-periphery organization of our modern world (1970: major debate around this “one-way-flow”)

g. Many nations call for a “New World Information Order” (NWIO) to change the asymmetry that exists among global communication flows. However, it will be extremely difficult to implement (technologies are more and more difficult to control) and it implies that governments start to regulate information flows, in other words governments would control the media, which is an undemocratic solution.

(cf. US first amendment that guarantees the freedom of the press)

h. However, today, US first amendment protects media conglomerates in a country where setting up a printing press has become almost impossible

2. Transborder data flows

a. Even if with the improvement of transportation technologies international trade wasn’t restricted to light weighted items, services remained local because of the need for interaction between the service provider and the consumer

b. With the emergence of modern telecommunication networks services become finally tradable

c. Global division of labor evolved since the its beginning: manufacturing jobs have moved from the US to developing countries, where labor is usually cheaper (new world of international division of labor)

d. The US became the command-and-control node for global business activities (the money saved by the delocalization manufacturing jobs is invested in research and development, corporate services, management, and other activities of coordination and control)

e. The US encourages free trade and free flow of information, but developing countries are suspicious about it because they fear the US would exploit weaker countries that are US sources of cheap labor and raw materials + in the developing countries point of view, the free flow of information “blurs national boundaries and threatens national sovereignty”

f. Industrialized countries tend to take a huge share of the benefits generated by the global division of labor in comparison the amount developing countries get in exchange for their contribution

g. To sum up:

- Major similarity between imperialism and electronic imperialism: a strong central-periphery relationship with few lateral connections among the periphery

- Major difference between imperialism and electronic imperialism: the center employs more subtle ways to dominate the periphery than the brute military force used in the era of colonialism

V. Emerging Network Structures

1. The new transmission systems of communication do not follow the same logic as the previous centralized means of information (TV, radio, newspapers): we moved from a top-down communication organization, were few broadcasted to many, to a many-to-many communication logic (mostly via the Internet )

2. The idea that the internet is a democratized medium is subjected to debate starting with the inequality of people around the world to have access to it

3. The center-periphery organization the world exists also within the nature of the internet, the US being the center of this system in many aspects

4. New network investment patterns makes us presuppose that new regional network might emerge in the future in Europe and Asia, but a “change in the overall structure of the Internet” is unlikely in the near future

Chapter 2: Drawing a Bead on Global Communication Theories

I. “Normative” Theories
- These categories are aimed not only at comparing and contrasting types of media across the globe or better understand our own media system, but also a give a set of rules and guiding principles about how those system should operate.

1. Four theories of the press: taxonomy on the different media systems that proposes to group media system into four categories (in order to have a better understanding on our own nation’s media system)
a. Authoritarian system is found in dictatorships, is regulated by the state, and is subject to censorship. The main objective being to “protect the established social order” (Nazi-Germany)
b. Soviet system, has the same characteristics as the authoritarian system, but refers to communist dictatorships and can be considered as “worse than the authoritarian system” (mainly found in Russia)
c. Liberal system is free market based, and ruled by “capitalist moneymaking priorities”, and claims to be a “free market place of ideas” (owned by the private, relies on advertising)
d. Social responsibility monitors the government and reports to the public sphere, operates in a capitalistic dynamic but commits to serve the public’s needs. The model is considered as the best by the three authors of the Four theories of the Press, who insist on the duties of the media in s democratic context

2. Two models added by McQuail in 1994
a. The development model is responsible for informing the public (about AIDS for example) and addresses issues of poverty, health care, education and literacy. This media system aims at helping countries to develop, and exists in the emerging countries.
b. The participatory model responds to a will for public participation in the media (community radio stations), and for democratic processes of decision making. It is usually a small-scale local media that may also address some of the issues the development model does.

3. Some limitations of these media systems
a. These models don’t seem to be compatible with entertainment
b. The distinctions between the authoritarian system, the soviet system, and the development model are blurred (the authoritarian and soviet system were very similar, and to justify their existence they tend to hide behind their “development priorities”)
c. It is not clear whether these models are simple categories or models in the normative sense: a set of guidelines that ought to be followed


II. A Different Approach I: Comparing and Contrasting Media (the Russian example)
1. A closer look at the now extinct Soviet Russian media system
a. Even if it doesn’t exist anymore, the history of this media system helps us to better understand media elsewhere in the world
b. It is very challenging if not impossible to understand how the media works on the rest of the planet if we life in politically stable and economically advanced countries
c. Generalizing about the media through the study of it in countries such as the US, England, Germany or France is impossible: the most common context for media in the majority of the world includes issues of poverty, political instability and economic crisis among others
d. Russia is a good start for someone who wants to understand in the world at large instead of having superficial assumptions about the media in the world

2. Political power
a. The Soviet media system was always used as the perfect counterexample that proved the superiority and efficiency of the Western media: while the Soviet system meant repression and censorship, Western media (liberalism) meant freedom of the press and justice
b. It is true however that the machinery of control of communication in the Soviet system was extremely developed
c. The result of this control, repression and censorship is that people didn’t believe on the official media (unless one of its topic was confirmed by conversational rumors, or samizdat – hand circulated pamphlets, poems, essays, plays, novels and other self-published mediums)
d. Two levels of the media developed at the same time: official truths that few believed and unofficial realism: a traditional dilemma found in dictatorships

3. Economic crisis
a. The economic crisis that was a daily experience for a majority of Russian during the Soviet Union era continues to be a daily experience for many citizens across the globe
b. Until the last years of the Soviet Union, the Russian media didn’t mention problems such as the decline in living standards and in productivity. Adding to that they claimed that the capitalist countries were suffering from irremediable economic problems

4. Dramatic Social Transitions
a. Russia had to overcome many difficult transitions during the 20th century: the First World War, the 1917’s revolution, the three year civil war that followed the revolution, and the Second World War among others; experiences that affluent nations didn’t have to cope with (expect for the World Wars)
b. First media transition in Russia: Even if there was an active newspaper, magazine and book industry (restricted to the elite), the imperial censorship made it extremely risky to print anything that directly criticized the czars. After the revolution, literacy campaigns began and the new revolutionary regime got to convey its message to the majority of the Russian population
c. Second media transition in Russia: Art developed so much that Russian artists were the most spectacular and imaginative in Europe and strongly encourage by the revolutionary regime. Russian media was at a top level until the Soviet Union felled under Stalin’s dictatorship that impeded artists to continue they work threatening them with disgrace, prison camps and even death
d. Third media transition in Russia: after Stalin’s death, some Russian media professionals made cautious attempts to open up the media, but the soviet media system was still there, which didn’t permit publications of real critics of Stalin’s regime
e. Fourth media transition in Russia: it was only until the 1980’s, during the USSR era, that the country experienced a movement in favor of a reform of the current media system, which led to an very prolific period for the media
f. Fifth media transition in Russia: 1991, collapse of the USSR, most media sector were under the surveillance of the government, and even if independent media existed more than under the Soviet regime, Russian lacked of “anything approaching a genuinely democratic media system”

--- the Russian example is quite the norm about the media experience, because it is the more common; media systems that are permanent and that didn’t have transitions cannot be used to generalize about the media systems around the world ---


III. A different Approach II: Globalization and the Media
1. The term refers sometimes to structural economic changes through terms such as “liberalization” or “privatization”
2. Globalization is also applied to concepts concerning cultural and media processes (the earliest concept being “cultural imperialism”, or a more recent being “coca-colonization” to illustrate the spread of American way of life and products around the world)
3. Some even interchange the terms “globalization” with “Americanization” (which made Latin Americans to create a debate)
4. Schiller argues, in 1991, there is a new form or dominance, not necessarily American (even if based in the US): transnational corporations
5. Some writers argue that audiences are not necessarily moldable audiences, that they even show resistance to some cultural invasions (that creates most of the time examples of hybridization)
6. Arjun Appadurai argues in 1996 that media and migration are strongly related within the process of globalization: “the expansion of the media images and coverage of the rest of the planet opened up many people’s to realities wider than their immediate and local experience”


IV. A Different Approach III: Small-Scale Alternative Media
1. Further definition and explanation of the term “samizdat media” (self-publications that emerged as hidden response to state-publication)
2. The impact and the role of the samizdat in the collapse of the USSR
3. The USSR is not the only example where this kind of alternative media existed (US, Europe, Canada among other countries also experienced it), indeed this type of media puts the power of media in our hands instead of in the hands of our governments

Chapter 1: Following the Historical Paths of Global Communication

1. Geographical space: a barrier to communicate

- Even 3000 years ago, when there people did not have our technologies to communicate they found ways to overcome the principal barrier to communication of the time: great distances.

- Communication evolved so much that nowadays we are able to “internationally communicate” without facing barriers such as physical space. Therefore, it is considered that the “geography of experience” replaced the “geography of space”.

- 1979: date of the first introduction of the concept of “communication”, which shows that the concept is a relatively new one.

- Communication new technologies appeared from human needs, and once used, they transformed the traditional human interactions.

- The ancient world was viewed as an enchanted, mythical and mystical world. This conception started to change at the end of the Middle Age with the development of science, but especially with extension of trade and travel routes that enabled people to know the “unknown” and to realize that the “outside world” was not what they imagined before.

- Originally developed by the Chinese, the art of papermaking was brought to Europe by Arab soldiers, which certainly helped Guttenberg to develop his printing machine. The same way, the secrets of the magnetic compass was brought from Asia to Europe and enabled to develop the telegraph.

- The two first communication technologies that overcame the barriers of space and time were, as a result, the printing press and the telegraph.

- Scientifics and people in general understood the importance of technology, and collectively worked towards the same goals giving birth to the industrial revolution and to the information revolution (during the 19th and 20th centuries).

2. Geography and the mythical world

- Ancient people’s beliefs and worldviews derived mainly from mystifications built around concepts of sacred and profane. These beliefs even appeared illustrated in their earliest maps!

- Foreign places were also believed to be dangerous, frightening and inhabited by horrible monsters.

- Some took advantage of the psychological power carried by those myths and beliefs and encourage rumors about it to spread (ex. Attila, who was then certain to be feared by his enemies).

3. Ancient encounters of societies and cultures

- Greek and Arab philosophers and mathematicians wanted to end up with people’s mythical beliefs and construct a common ground of rational models of knowledge.

- Alexander the Great conquests permit to enhance the geographical knowledge that was then recorded and kept in the library of Alexandria, which was the largest library of the antiquity.

- This knowledge traveled across time and was translated into several languages.

4. Global explorers: migrants, holy people, merchants

- Once migrant pre-agrarian societies shifted to a nomadic life, only caravans, emissaries and armed escorts used to travel, since it was considered dangerous and uneasy.

- In the 15^th century Europeans got access to the Greeks knowledge about geography, and their based their travels and research on this knowledge (ex. Christopher Columbus). Adding to that, some travelers played a role in diffusing knowledge about astronomy, mathematics.

5. Mapmakers in the medieval world

- Maps were crucial in the way that they were considered as the “keys to unlocking unknown worlds” and permitted to “make the invisible visible”.

- Maps were also synonyms of power, and were secretly kept by the European royalty. However, the information reflected by maps had more to do with the mapmaker’s view of the world than with the reality.

- Travelling was usually considered as an act of religious devotion, an idea also reflected on some maps.

- The European crusades were an illustration of intercultural and even international communication: many Europeans started being in touch with foreign cultures, languages and places.

6. Inventors: signals and metaphors

- History showed that the development of information technologies appeared as responses to communication problems; as an example the earliest signal systems consisted of fires and beacons.

- Messengers (by foot or by horse) were used to convey long distant messages, especially for military and diplomatic purposes.

- The pony express style of relay system is an example of an effective, relatively fast, and reliable courier system of that time. The system was unsurprisingly adopted later by the Romans.

- Other courier systems used were pigeons and homing pigeons for dangerous routes, smoke signals, or tapped codes on metal tubes…

7. The printing press, literacy, and the knowledge explosion

- During the Middle Ages few people were literate. Clerics, who were part of the exception along with the elite, had administrative and legal duties in addition to their religious ones.

- It is mainly the printing press and the postal services that encouraged and enabled common people to be literate.

- The development of the new mass media brought by the printing press (book, newspapers, pamphlets…) gave rise to “popular political consciousness and public opinion”.

- This new literacy had an impact on people’s social relationships.

8. Scientists and international networks

- Technological innovations open the path to great changes in international relations.

- The first user friendly electric telegraph (1844) marked a turning point from the ritual modes of communication to the beginning of a new era for communication.

- Great importance was given to communication, since it appeared as having strategic importance for military and diplomatic purposes.

- Scientist on the other hand wanted global interest and support for their work; they paved the way for international standardizations of codes in different disciplines: the world is becoming more and more a global world.

9. The international electric revolution

- The 19^th century is marked by the electrification of industry and commerce.

- The telephone was a communication innovation that was adopted and used differently across the world.

- 1850: creation of one of the oldest news agencies that became a major source for international information, Reuters