The Geopolitics of Media
Canadian and Global Perspectives
Table Of Contents
The Mass Media
Media Theories of Marshall McLuhan
Differences Between Media
Who Creates the News?
Electronic Colonialism
Freedom and the Media
The "Free Flow of Information"
The Emergence of the Internet and Democracy
The Mass Media
The word media is the plural of medium. We say that air is the medium of sound because sound travels through air. We do not usually think of it this way, but air is, in fact, a communications medium for gesture and speech. It provides a medium for conveying information.
Normally, when we speak of media nowadays, we are talking about large-scale electronic media. These include the entertainment media (TV, radio, videos, compact disks, and so on) and the communications media (telephone, telex, fax, the World Wide Web, etc.). However, some of the older type of mechanical media are still around. Books, magazines, and newspapers typify the "print media"; film survives as a "mechanical medium".
A medium in a broader sense is anything that facilitates communication or the conveying of information. Thus, in this sense, even the light bulb can be considered as an electronic medium. At night, the light bulb gives us access to visual information about our immediate world. TV, in a sense, can do a similar thing: give us access to visual information about the world beyond our normal range of vision.
Media Theories of Marshall McLuhan
Since the early 60's there has been much attention paid to the importance of the media themselves: their effect on individuals and on society. The probing (and playful) writing of Canadian academic Marshall McLuhan led the way to Media Studies, a whole subject in itself. In his words, The Medium is the Message meaning that the effect of a new medium on society is, in the long run, more significant that any particular message it conveys. He modified this aphorism to The Medium is the Massage to get across the idea that a new medium works over the human nervous system and the brain and modifies them.
McLuhan saw technology, in particular, electronic technology, as the determining factor in modern life: a factor more important than religion, economics, or politics. Mass media certainly are an important component of our "Technological Society". Modern history is in part the history of the development of mass media technology.
McLuhan described the changes brought about by the shift in emphasis from Print to Electronic media as the greatest historical transformation of the 20th century: an Evolutionary leap for the human species, a move from one environment into another -- like the transition, millions of years ago, from the sea to the land.
The invention of Print technology in the 16th century led to an emphasis on logical, repeatable, linear thinking; it also provided the medium for individual expression and public debate. Now, electronic media, in McLuhan's view, are creating a new environment. By making world events immediate, the electronic media create a "Global Village", a community as intimate as a Stone Age village. The communal awareness of tribal culture is recreated by advanced technology. McLuhan was concerned that the individualistic, print-based, critical awareness of Western democracy might be replaced by uncritical mass conformity.
McLuhan recognized that the world's media, both news and entertainment, are still controlled by the colonial powers, primarily the United States. News is never passively reported; in his words: "The news is created every day."
Differences Between Media
The Media also differ in how information is presented. Compare for the moment TV News and Newspapers. The written text of an average TV news broadcast amounts to less that one column of a newspaper. The events of the day are largely portrayed by video footage, often stock footage, edited into mini dramas. The TV viewer receives impressions of events. Unlike in Print media, the point-of-view, the ideological background to the news, remains hidden. Each picture may say a thousand words but, unlike words, the pictures do not stimulate critical thought - which is the basis of Democracy. Seeing is believing.
Obviously these presentations must conform to the rules of public taste and censorship. The claim is sometimes made that they must conform to corporate interests and government policies. For example, union leaders are often portrayed on the street surrounded by rowdy picketers while management are interviewed sitting calmly at their desks. The first portrayal gives the impression of wildness and irrationality; the second of paternal reason and responsibility.
Newspapers on the other hand primarily use words (and photos, charts, etc.). Words have the quasi-magical power of expressing propositions about how the world should be: they can convey ideas and express values. If we are at all a critical reader, the point of view of an editorial or article becomes readily apparent. ("AH HA", we say, "I know where he is coming from.") Until the advent of the Internet, real political discussion and debate take place largely in the papers. It is no coincidence that political pamphlets and books such as The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine were instruments of the political revolutions that led to modern Democracy. But this was in the Age of Print. Some claim that for a society to function as a Democracy, it must first be literate.
Declarations of Rights, Constitutions, Legal Codes, Contracts, Moral Codes, Bibles, Political Platforms are all expressed in Print. When Print literacy declines, does Democracy also inevitably decline? Or have almost-instant opinion polls (impossible without electronic communication media), by influencing political decisions, created a new and better form of Democracy?
Gwyn Dyer in his TV documentary series The Human Race claims that as TV spreads into the Less Developed Countries, so does the desire for Democracy. There is no keeping the population in the dark any more. They want a say in things.
TV documentaries do convey political ideas. In them, spoken word and visuals work together to convert minds to ideas and causes. As well, televised debates between leaders play a crucial role in the modern election process -- but in them, a leader's manner and style is perhaps as important as what he or she says. The presentation is as much drama as debate. TV does seem to have a distinct bias for impressions over ideas.
One advantage that newspapers still have over TV (and radio) is that the sequence is flexible: you can, for example, flip right to the sports page: you do not have to wait until the news is over. News on the Web takes the form of hypertext where the order is also flexible.
In summary, each media offers different advantages. Print will remain essential for critical analysis of events. To my mind, live TV coverage of important events is TV at its best.
Who Creates The News?
Every day the news media give us a passing glimpse of history. What kind of view do we get?
History, it has been said, is "control of the past", and, as it turns out, there is no single history of the world. We also say, "The winners get to write the history." but this is not necessarily true; ancestral memory is not easily erased. Consider Canadian history as portrayed by our school texts. The histories given in English Canada and in Quebec are different indeed. And the Natives have yet another history.
I have seen our "official past" change in my own lifetime. Throughout the 50's and 60's the American media described the Chinese Communist occupation of Tibet as an "invasion". It was portrayed as an imperialist expansion: an obvious land and resources grab. Then since Detente with China beginning in the 70's and 80's, the American networks shifted their stance to line up with government policy. They began to portray Tibet as an historically integral part of China. Much of the rest of the world do not see it this way. For example, the Dalai Lama won the Nobel Peace prize in 1989 for his continued efforts to recreate a free Tibet. In 1990, our Minister of External Affairs has refused to meet with the Dalai Lama: Canada too now has extensive economic ties with a Chinese regime (for example, we sell them our nuclear Candu reactors) that has shown little respect for human rights.
I have learned to take the International News with a grain of salt.
The power of the media in forming public opinion is undeniable. There is no doubt that our present day world-view is derived from the media. (Let's face it: most discussions of world issues involve people repeating what they have read in the newspapers, seen on television, or heard on radio.) Studies have shown that those of us who rely on the media for our vision of the Less Developed Countries, rather than on travel and first hand experience, tend to greatly overestimate the amount of violence, catastrophe, and danger. Why is the distant world portrayed this way? Why are good news, say, about successes in the Less Developed Countries not reported. Does this reflect the interests of the viewing audience? Is it because only bad news sells (so-called "disaster journalism")? Could it somehow be in the interests of the corporate/government establishment to portray the world in this way? (Don't complain: look how badly off they are.)
Then there is the news that we never see or hear about. Case in point: The overthrow of the US-supported Shah of Iran came as a surprise to the American public. They knew nothing of his policies. The deaths of thousands in anti-government riots leading up to the takeover went largely unreported. They knew nothing about his attempts to stifle Islam and re-establish the ancient Zoroastrian religion of the Persian Empire. (He had himself crowned King of Persia at the ancient site of Persepolis, the capital in 300 B.C.) They knew nothing about the "SAVAK" the brutally repressive secret police. He was anti-communist and pro-american, so he was okay, period.
When the joint effort of Islamic Fundamentalists and Marxists overthrew the Shah, the Americans immediately froze the Iranian Assets in their banks; few of us knew that this theft-on-a-large-scale was what the "Hostage Crisis" was about. The Iranians wanted their money back as a ransom -- but this never made the news. When the Islamic Fundamentalist succeeded in crushing the Marxists, the portrayal of the emerging leadership as irrational maniacs began. By the time anti-Ayatollah graffiti appeared, the media has done its work. And of course, the demonization process worked both ways: in Iran, America became "The Great Satan".
We have observed the same demonization process with Iraq's Saddaam Hussein and Panama's General Noriega; they became demons when they ceased to be allies.
Likewise, in the 80's, the victories of Cuban-supported forces in Angola never showed up on the screens of Americans. And in fact, many events and conflicts go unreported. Our media are, above all, selective.
The power of rhetoric, using language to advantage, is a powerful tool of governments. Noam Chomsky, in his Massey Lecture at Queen's University in 1989, went so far as to say that when an American President speaks of a "Democracy" he really means a country that conforms to the neoliberal economic policies of the United States. Thus the dictator President Marcos of the Phillipines was hailed as a democratic leader -- as have been numerous Latin American military dictators. The word Democracy itself, by repeated use in this way, is losing its original meaning.
On a global scale it is the former colonial powers who continue to dominate the news media. USA, Britain, France, and Germany rule the air waves -- roughly in that order. They run the News Services (The American Associated Press and UPI, the British Reuters, the French AFP, and the German DPA) that provide over 90% of the international news; they decide what their citizens and most of the rest of the world are to see and hear. They have continued in their colonial role of spreading European and American civilization.
These News agencies provide news so cheaply that competition is almost unthinkable: in fact, they are run as non-profit organizations. They are essentially government-sponsored propaganda organizations. During WWII, the director of Reuters quite naturally assumed the role of Director of Propaganda. In wartime, strategic and security considerations often prelude unbiased reportage: as the saying goes, In war the first victim is truth. In peacetime, news is still biased by national interests, though less so.
The News Services produce a version of what is happening in the world and create its on-going "history". They are the players in a game now called The Geopolitics of Information. Our own Canadian news (event selection and interpretation) is drawn mainly from the CP (the Canadian Press), an independent cooperative of journalists, and from the US and British News Services.
The US government itself often relies somewhat on the News Agencies for overseas information. Thus it informs its Foreign Policy with its own propaganda machine: a closed loop. (After Sadaam Hussein had his country's communication system knocked out in the first minute of the Gulf War, he too had to watch CNN to find out what was going on.)
Consider the example of Surinam Independence. This decolonialization story was not deemed newsworthy enough to be reported by Associated Press and UPI. These two American News Services have strong influence over foreign news in Latin America. Thus the story did not appear in any Latin American Newspapers, not even in those of Surinam's South American neighbours. More recently, the 1997 election in El Salvador of the Leftist FMLN, a political offshoot of the rebel faction of the recent Civil War, went unreported.
The global entertainment media are also dominated by the Americans -- with Britain placing a distant second. The "Cold War" of the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's was in part a propaganda war: a war won as much by diffusion of entertainment as anything else. Entertainment, like news information, is not ideologically neutral. Japan provided the cheap electronics and the US the ideology in the form of programming content. The main weapons were radio, and video and cassette tapes. This is combination with the Debt Bomb has brought Eastern Europe and now Russia "on side".
The Americans have learnt some lessons the hard way. The Vietnam War has been called "The First World TV War". Unedited live broadcast was allowed. (One mother saw her son shot by a sniper while she was having breakfast.) The raw and vivid images from Vietnam helped fuel the Anti-War Movement, a factor in the American defeat. In contrast, no reporters or cameras were permitted during the Grenada or Panama invasions. (The Cubans were building a Tourist Airport in Grenada and threatening to cut in on the tourist trade. Noriega wanted the Americans to honour their Panama Canal agreement and return it to Panama as promised in the original treaty.) There was virtually no follow-up reportage to the invasions. Since Vietnam. there have been no Anti-War Movements: no appreciable dissent. The Russian invasion of Afghanistan (equally unenlightened) got more on-the-scene coverage.
The Gulf War (the "Second TV War") brought geopolitics, military strategy, and warfare into our homes once again, now in colour, but carefully controlled. The outcome of the War was entirely predictable. If it did not seem so at first, perhaps that was part of the way in which it was staged. Except for their Chemical Weapons, the Iraqis had a 60's style war machine - no match for smart bombs, cruise missiles, computer coordinated assaults, etc. With total dominance of the air right from the start, the Coalition made a spectacle out of it. It was quite a show, wasn't it?
The Print medium is also subject to controls, both government and corporate. Media ownership has tended toward monopolies. In Canada, Conrad Black, one man with a definite Right wing agenda, owns Southam News Services and over half of all Canadian newspapers. Inevitably, he influences what gets printed and what is editorial policy.
Electronic Colonialism
"Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated."
The Borg
In Canada, we have become leaders in some aspects of communications technology, notably TV satellites, but have left much up to others. This is largely economics: we can buy expensive, ready-made American and British entertainment productions for about one fifth of the development cost. About three quarters of our media content is imported from the States. We produce only 4% of films seen in Canada and 17% of books read. However, we do produce for television, both entertainment and documentaries; we are now the world's second largest exporter of TV content after the US.
On the positive side we get cheap, state-of-the-art entertainment; on the negative side we are in danger of losing whatever cultural independence and uniqueness we have left. Our children are exposed to role models somewhat different from those of our society. Many Canadians still refuse to recognize entertainment as quality unless it is foreign. All this has created a vicious circle for the Canadian entertainment industry. Like most of the rest of the world, we know more about American culture than we do about our own. Most of us know more about the history of the universe as portrayed in Star Trek than the history of Canada. The cultural assault on the LDC's has been more disruptive. Where did the male populations of Asia and the Middle East ever get the idea that Western Women are promiscuous? (The only Western film I found to be available in Peshawar, Pakistan was The Seven Sins of Sexy Susan.)
American and Canadian Foreign Aid, which falls under the category of "Development" consists of, in part, the creating of a communications infrastructure in the Third World. The cultural products that these nations subsequently import (cheaply) help insure ideological and cultural control by the First World. This has been called "Electronic Colonialism".
The major thrust of multinational expansion has been the creation of consumer goods industries overseas. Advertising, which is created worldwide by a handful of multinational agencies, also has an impact. In the LDC's this means that billions of dollars are spent on creating an alien consumer culture for the wealthy -- instead of on agriculture, education and medical services for the poor. The use of national wealth to advertise tobacco, cosmetics, and soft drinks when basic human needs such as water, food, clothing, and shelter have not been met, is morally questionable.
Many entertainment programs, even supposedly fictional ones like Baywatch or Melrose Place, are based on life in the real world. but "the real world" here means life in America. Feedback about viewers tastes in America are maintained by the system of ratings. These can be crucial to the survival of a program. What the rest of the world might think is irrelevant. Citizens of the LDC's often see themselves portrayed as stereotypes (fanatics, terrorists, etc.)
Thus Foreign Control of the mass media in the LDC's is a crucial issue. Cultural commodities influence values, attitudes, aspirations, political sensibilities, and a view of the world. For many cultures, especially for Moslem, Buddhist, Hindu and even Communist cultures, the moral and social background of American entertainment products differs markedly from their own. So too does the level of affluence portrayed. Exposing individuals to conflicting moral principles and images of unattainable wealth create what psychologists call cognitive dissonance (the stress created by clashing ideas and sharp cutting contrasts). This can be extremely disruptive to a society. When a country imports most of its cultural products, it no longer exercises control over its self-image.
Interestingly enough, until Glasnost (openness), the Russian news media concentrated on American poverty-amid-wealth, unemployment, poor social services, and racial prejudices. That is what showed up on their screens.
Canada is a net importer of entertainment products: 80% of our music, 83% of print materials, 96% of films. Most of the revenues derived from these media materials go straight out of the country. Were it not for our abundance of raw materials that help create our trade surplus, we would likely be in worse financial shape.
However, here in Canada the problems of foreign cultural control are not as acute as in other parts of the world; our mainstream culture has never been so different from American culture in the first place. It is only if we place a positive value on developing and nurturing a distinctive culture of our own that foreign control is viewed as a problem. If so, then the small size of the Canadian market helps make a good case for government assistance in the development of Canadian entertainment programming content.
Public broadcasting or viewer-sponsored media is probably the only way Canadians or Americans will ever get decent social commentary, children's programming without ads, programs of interest to cultural minorities, programs of interest to the elderly or the handicapped, unbiased news about environment or global issues, or in fact any programming of real intellectual and educational interest. Would a TV Network or a newspaper report fairly on an environmental disaster perpetrated by a corporation that is a major advertiser?
Because many mainstream radio and TV stations are funded by advertisers, there is a natural restriction on, or bias against, any programming critical of the conformist and consumer lifestyle. Programming depicting the environmental consequences of consumerism are not as likely to be found on commercial stations. Such programming will only exist on government and viewer sponsored networks such as CBC, TVO, and PBS.
Working against a unique Canadian Culture are the forces of Free Trade and the Media giant's desire to reap the largest possible profits from their capital investments in cultural products. This they can do most efficiently by controlling the market. For example, the small size of the Canadian film industry does not reflect a lack of creative powers in this country; it simply reflects the fact that the American entertainment industry own and operate virtually all the theater chains. Again, given the nature of the marketplace, perhaps nothing short of government "interference" will ensure that more Canadian films get shown.
McLuhan described media as extensions of our senses and ultimately of our minds. To the extent that nations allow foreign corporations to obtain control over the news and entertainment media they have "leased out" our eyes, ears, and brains. This, it seems, is price of joining the Global Village.
Freedom and The Media
Theoretically, our ideology is one of tolerance, freedom of expression, and freedom of information. In practice, it is strongly conformist and consumer-based (monetary value is our greatest value). Through the Media, in the words of Noam Chomsky, the corporate establishment "manufactures consent."
McLuhan's fear was that Western culture, through the power (and the very nature) of its own electronic mass media, is tending to undermine its own basis for democratic society: freedom of thought. It is tending to recreate the uncritical primitive mind of tribal and totalitarian culture. Is this theory accurate?
In his book 1984 George Orwell described a society in which a dictator named Big Brother maintained ideological control by constantly monitoring the activities of citizens. In the living room of every house was an electronic eye, a screen similar to that of a TV. Orwell had Stalin's Russia as a model, but his book has proved to be prophetic in many ways. He was right about how the superpowers would rewrite history to suit existing geopolitical alignments. He was right that these governments would use high technology to undergo surveillance on individuals. He was right about Newspeak, government influence over news reporting. But as for a surveillance device in every home, in this case he guessed wrong. Perhaps it is not necessary to have a TV that watches every citizen: it is enough to have every citizen watch TV. (98% of the population has a TV.)
Is Big Brother watching you, or are you watching Big Brother?
In Canada, the Federal government is the largest single advertiser in the commercial networks, and it runs its own CBC Network. Through the CRTC (the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), it regulates on media issues regarding content and use of technology. The potential for significant control, or dominating influence, is already there. Sometimes this is not too subtle. For example, during the Meech Lake issue of 1990, the CBC strongly supported the Accord. CBC Radio News described the obstruction of the Accord by Elijah Harper in the Manitoba Legislature as the "efforts of one man" when, in fact, he had the support of Natives across Canada.
However, one feature of modern, many-channel TV is variety which does seem to make the claim of absolute control by one Big Brother seem somewhat far-fetched. Only News programming seems to be effectively controlled, and now the World Wide Web offers ample alternatives.
The "Free Flow of Information"
What multinational entertainment and advertising does do is create is a sameness of tastes in speech and dress: a global style that steamrolls regional and cultural differences. America has been called the "melting pot" of world culture, and the amalgam of nationalities and races that has resulted is now becoming the world's culture, perhaps for the very reason that it is a cultural mix to start with.
And, while the Media giants are paving the world with a uniform visual culture, English is becoming the world's language. Here in Canada, our regional differences and Old World roots are disappearing -- like our various accents. Hence Quebec's concerted attempt to preserve its language, an expression of distinct culture. Actually, Quebec has succeeded in using TV to portray French speaking culture by creating its own programming and drawing on that of the world's Francophonie -- while not stopping the flow of the American programming. What Quebecers are less likely to watch is programming from English Canada, the other "Solitude".
The situation in the LDC's must be viewed somewhat differently. One aspect of neoliberalism, the philosophy by which global market should be free of regulation, is the "Free Flow of Information", the right to forcefully market cultural products anywhere in the world. As we have seen, this flow of news, advertising, and entertainment, can swamp attempts at national expression by developing nations. UNESCO, the United Nations Education, Science, and Culture Organization, declared back in 1976, in the MacBride Report, that Nations should have the right to control their own Media by enforcing licencing. In particular, developing nations should be given the chance to develop media content to foster their national cultures. The American response was to withdraw from UNESCO on the grounds that such licencing means censorship. Britain (merely) threatened to do the same. The rest, as they say, is history.
The Emergence of the Internet and Democracy
The Internet has grown exponentially from a communications system for military and scientific purposes to a full-fledged multimedium of information, education, and entertainment. The "backbone" of the system has been sold by the U.S. government to a consortium of communications giants; however, because it is a distributed network and not a top-down system, it has, so far, resisted central forces of control, ownership, or censorship whether by nations or by multinational corporations. If Microsoft's Bill Gates is correct, it will continue to expand in size and bandwidth, and it will come to pervade our lives. The industry is aiming at a billion linked computers, a global brain.
The Internet differs from other media in the increased amount of personal control the user has in selecting content and in responding interactively. As a medium for distance education it is unprecedented. As a medium for discussion and conferencing, whether in real time or asynchronously, it has no equal. It has, in this early stage, fostered a renaissance of political and philosophical expression by way of the written word. As such it may be reviving the "critical attitude" thought to be essential for democracy.
The bulk of Web sites are found in G7 countries, but the rest of the world is making its presence known. It is, at least potentially, an open forum for all nations.
As a purveyor of news, unlike other media, it has become home not only to the existing News giants such as The New York Times or CNN but to alternative news and commentary.
Advertising has arrived but it is not as disruptive as on TV or radio. Ad images do slow down page loading somewhat, but that is about it.
By linking NGO's (non government organizations, such as relief agencies) and advocacy groups in common cause, the Internet has the potential to be, along with the UN, a democratic force and a global counterbalance to extreme neoliberalism.
Suggested Reading:
Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies CBC Enterprises, 1989 (Massey Lectures).
McLuhan, Marshal. War and Peace in the Global Village, New York: Bantam Books, 1968.
UNESCO, Commission for the Study of Communication Problems (MacBride Commission), 1978.
Greg Forbes, Applied Arts
© Copyright 1997 St. Lawrence College
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