Journalism in An Age of Mass Media Globalization
Journalism in An Age of Mass Media Globalization
Journalism in An Age of Mass Media Globalization
Hemant Shah
The growth of global mass media firms has been fueled by a parallel
move toward deregulation and privatization of mass media
organizations. This is most clearly evident in the broadcasting
sector, which in many countries of the world had been maintained
as nonprofit, public service, state supported entities. As the forces of
capitalism and entrepeneurship have emerged as the dominant
model of economic organization, the state has receded as a
regulator of the market place . This development has allowed the
global media giants to enter into partnerships with dozens of
national mass media firms around the world to produce, provide
and/or disseminate news and entertainment to domestic markets.
Advances in satellite broadcasting has secured the presence of the
giant mass media firms in the cultural and information market place
of every region of the world.
Our hope was that local media would then use these ideas for news
stories and send out their own reporters to cover the issues. The
results were disappointing: Local news media were not very
interested, and we did not get extensive cooperation from the
communities. What we learned is that we did not do enough to
prepare and educate the local news media or the communities
about the purposes, goal, and mechanism of the project. However,
the journalism students gained valuable exposure to a different way
of doing journalism as well as valuable experience interacting with
people and communities they otherwise may never meet.
The entire model is not easily applied in the classroom (nor should it
be, given some of its serious shortcomings), but the information
gathering and reporting part of the model fruitfully can be used to
teach students information-gathering techniques other than the
standard journalistic interview, and to convey a sense that reporters
can be connected to the Communities they report without sacrificing
their professionalism. In this project, we first got a local newspaper
to agree that it would run news stories written from the perspectives
we were emphasizing. Then, after MUM representatives briefed
community leaders about the project, a senior journalism honors
student began to assess the community mood and priorities not
through surveys and polls, but through ethnographic methods of
observations and depth interviews (to tap into "grounded knowledge
about" the community). He discussed what issues were at stake in
the community through contact not only with officials but also
community leaders and community centers (to ensure that the
"bottom" of the social and political community hierarchy participates
in the community discussion and deliberations). To help the student
reporter develop a sense that he was part of the community, not a
detached observer of it, he was encouraged to develop social
contacts in the community; make personal visits; and help people
compose and articulate their ideas for letters to the editor, etc.
This project was not completed at the time of this writing. So far the
student reporter has made sustained contact with a local community
center. Members of the community there and the journalism student
are collaborating on developing story ideas, sources, and story
formats for publication in the local newspaper that agreed to
participate in the project.
The most difficult lesson was that some students will resist learning
models of journalism that are different from the prevailing model.
Most American students have accepted the basic principles and
myths of the prevailing model. They have done this probably as a
result of widespread and more general acceptance of capitalism as a
model of social and economic organization. Most students do not
find the concentration of mass media ownership troubling so they do
not see the negative consequences of this trend for diversity of
information and democracy. If they cannot see these problems, they
cannot see they need to alter existing methods and models of
journalistic practice. Thus, teaching alternative models of journalism
must be accompanied by a broader critique of the political economy
of the mass media.
NOTES
1 Although analysts have emphasized various aspects of the
phenomenon, globalization includes the development of a "global
economy of transnational corporations, world markets, and an
integrated 'global factory'. Huge industrial complexes oriented
toward national markets were replaced by smaller facilities scattered
through a variety of countries and producing for a world market.
Satellite broadcasting made it possible for people everywhere to see
events across the world more easily than those in the next town."
(Jeremy Brecher, "The Hierarchies' New World Order-and Ours," in
Global Visions: Beyond the New World Order, Jeremy Brecher, John
Brown Childs, and Jill Cutler, Eds., Boston, MA: South End Press,
1993. See also Roland Robertson, Globalization: Social Theory and
Global Culture, Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992; James Lull, Media
Communication and Culture: A Global Approach, New York: Columbia
University Press, 1995; Mike Featherstone, Ed., Global Culture:
Nationalism, Globalization, and Modernity. London: Sage, 1993;
Benjamin Barber Jihad vs. McWorld. New York: Times Books, 1996).
2 See Marc Raboy and Peter Bruck, Communication For and Against
Democracy, Montreal: Black Rose Press, 1989; John Downing,
Radical Media, Boston: South End Press, 1984; Peter Lewis,
"Alternative Media in a Contemporary Social and Theoretical
Context," pp. 15-19 in Alternative Media, Peter Lewis, Ed., Paris:
UNESCO; Brij Tankha, Ed., Communication and Democracy: Ensuring
Plurality. Montreal: Videazimut, 1996.
6 For a review of this trend around the world see the entire issue of
Journal of Communication 45(4); European trends are discussed in
Miquel de Moragas Spá and Carmelo de Garitaonandía,
Decentralization in the Global Era, London: John Libbey, 1995.
9 See Davis "Buzz" Merritt, Public Journalism and Public Life, Hilldale,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1995; Arthur Charity, Doing Public Journalism,
New York: Guilford Press, 1995.
Hemant Shah
Associate Professor
School of Journalism and Mass Communication
5115 Vilas Hall
University of Wisconsin
Madison, WI 53706
Phone: 608.263.2928
608.263.4898
Fax: 608.262.1361