The twentieth century has witnessed the most paradigm shifts in the field of media and communication. The Anglo-American dominance of global news is much talked about owing to its duopolistic sustenance. Up till 1918, the Americans and the British were equal in terms of world news, after which the Americans were leading with the British following close behind [Tunstall 2008: 57]. The rationale for this Anglo-American domination of the world news comes from a multiple sources. The news market was on the rise throughout this century due to massive spread of Globalisation- leading to ‘privatisation’ (or ‘deregulation’ in US terms) further leading to the creation of giant media companies (Reuters, Associated Press, Agence France Presse) and later, conglomerates like News Corporation and Time Warner in the 1980s. The emergence of English as the global media language added to the already long list of strengthening factors of this duopoly. The same list included concentrated ownership of capital, first mover advantage in the global news market, relatively free press due to democratic leadership in both the countries, relative financial ‘transparency’, proximity to banking and financial industries, cross-employment in media firms, vertical integration of American companies, packaging information and entertainment together, ‘commodification’ of news, and many more causal variables.
The expansionary nature of capitalism has branched out into Globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. The widespread acceptance of ‘global corporate ideology’ [Herman and McChesney, 1997] has led to the ‘commodification’ of news. Inarguably latest technology both hardware and software) and the input financial capital rest and can be utilised relatively freely mainly in these two countries.
As a first-mover advantage in the news market and as the originator of modern journalism, the Anglo-American hegemony enjoyed a wide-scale readership and viewership. Foreign news for television is extremely dear to collect so it was easier for these countries to incur this cost than other less economically developed countries, an idea supported by Jeremy Tunstall (2008). This development also produced some of the best professionals, journalists and technicians in this field. The reason for this was also partly because both America and Britain were democracies without military, communist or Nazi influence on their governments [Tunstall and Machin, 1999]. This contributed to a relatively free press in both the countries. It was ‘assumed’ that the news which would be printed/ broadcasted by these firms would be after a careful scrutiny of issues and substantial amount of democratic debates- the concept of non-partisan news [Tunstall and Machin, 1999]. The notion of public service is still perceived to be relevant when it comes to mega-corps like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). There were other global players in this field namely Japan, France and other European nations but none of those enjoyed a mass audience comparable to the number of Anglo-American news consumers. The political influence across this duopoly is still rampant but the allegiance is less compared to other democratic or non-democratic countries like China, India, Pakistan, Italy, Germany, et al [Tunstall and Machin, 1999].
The geo-politics of news has for long been centered around London as it is centrally located and is the biggest media hub [Jarrah 2008]. The genesis of elite journalism including political coverage and financial news information was in Britain. Even now, the most powerful news component in terms of revenue generation is the financial information. The News Corporation (U.S.) owns the most widely read The Wall Street Journal followed by The Financial Times and The Economist (both from Britain).
The proximity of Anglo-American news media to banking and financial industries (media-finance intimacy) strengthened their dominance because the loans and financial input capital was made easily available and they were able to offset any foreign competition and deter new entrants. In other words, they still remained a duopoly and this nature of market discouraged the formation of any other genuine/ serious global news media players. Sustaining this argument is the figure of annual sales revenue for News Corporation in 2002- a staggering US$ 29,014 million [Sparks, 2007: 172].
The concept of ‘free flow of information’ has marked a new epoch. This has led to a larger role of World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the propagation and endorsement of Anglo-American domination of global news [Sparks, 2007: 184]. One can argue that if the dependency theory is put to work in this regard, we can see that the ‘peripheral’ countries still consider the Anglo-American news media model as a path they themselves need to follow and try to associate themselves with the larger aforementioned conglomerates in order to survive in the global market. Following is an excerpt to support this simple argument.
“Central to dependency theory was the view that transnational corporations (TNCs), most based in the north, exercise control, with the support of their respective governments, over the developing countries by setting the terms for global trade – dominating markets, resources, production, and labour. Development for these countries was shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the ‘peripheral’ nations in a position of dependence- in other words, to make conditions suitable for ‘dependent development’.”
- (Thussu 2003: 61)
The dependency theory also raises an interesting observation which is central to the theme of Anglo-American supremacy of world news- emergence of English as the lingua franca [Seidlhofer, 2005] and [Thussu, 2003: 181]. Be it television broadcasting or newspapers, for more than half of the international audience this is the language of world news. The United Nations (UN) also uses English language for its administrative purposes. English (origin: Britain) is ‘allegedly’ the character of neo-colonialism, a model which is noticeably associated with Britain and United States and clearly they have an advantage in this regard in terms of readability by the audiences worldwide.
English language allows for further combination of packaging ‘news’ with ‘entertainment’- the concept of ‘infotainment’ [Thussu, 1998] which is propagated all over the world on Anglo-American insistence. These giant media conglomerates are vertically integrated (mainly American media organizations) [Thussu, 1998: 64], facilitating these mergers so that the audience base is increased and to force mass-scale dumping of ‘embroidered’ or ‘fabricated’ news by “stressing the positives and concealing the negatives” and at the same time as ‘flag carriers’ of objective and commercial choices of the news audience [Tunstall, 2008: 59]. The commercial advertisement industry sprouted, as a largely non-partisan activity to generate revenue [Tunstall and Machin, 1999: 74]. Observably, there persisted some amount of political agenda and sometimes it was just to disseminate Anglo-American culture among the news readers of the world as a sign of power declaration and the celebration of their economic prosperity. These advertising agencies also claimed to have played an instrumental role in maintaining an emphasis on “‘financial transparency’ across the media” [Tunstall and Machin, 1999: 75]- one of the reasons why these Anglo-American companies were perceived to be more ‘credible’ in the global news arena.
Another fresh argument is offered by Tunstall and Machin (1999) that “there is a tendency to employ each others’ citizens among the American and British news players. For example, London-based Reuters employs numerous Americans. Britain also seemed to be the only foreign country from which American media would accept foreign news.” Given such a setting, one can safely say that this duopoly is very strong and it is difficult for other news media firms of a different nationality to be accepted as a ‘reliable’ source of global news.
Conclusion
Having enumerated the probable causal variables of the Anglo-American domination of the world news, we can evidently say that this duopoly is leading to a global news homogenisation. There is uniformity in the pattern of news worldwide due to the replication of a ‘successful’ model exhibited by the West. The positive aspects being that they have induced competition and have contributed to evolution of national media across nations. They have been trendsetters in terms of obtaining and presenting information. Due to this highly professional attitude, in the contemporary world, news is not as selective and ‘biased’ as it used to be. They have strong networks across the world and their journalists are well-paid and well-skilled.
On the other hand, the profit-making tendency of these capitalist mega-corps has paved way for a “news retail explosion” [Paterson, Christopher in Sreberny- Mohammadi et al, 1997: 152]. The ‘fabrication’ of news in the crucial events, for example, information concerning war or pre-war times and many more, is carried by the international news players to set the ‘global news agenda’ [Thussu 2003: 163]. This is sometimes an engineered process made possible by the manipulation of the kind of visuals or pictures shown, the news stories told through their media to fit a political or commercial schema. For example- “coverage of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia” [Paterson, Christopher in Sreberny- Mohammadi et al, 1997: 149] or the recent ‘liberation’ of Libya from its ‘ruthless’ dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The Third World nations are still dependent on these global news sources of the West to gain vital information and a “vertical flow does characterise the structure of international communication” [Meyer, 1988] showing traces of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The Anglo-American hegemony is also apparent in the news culture of ‘sensationalism’ or the use of ‘tabloids’, glorifying violence and similar elements in order to grab the attention of a wider audience, replacing the traditional form of news which aimed at providing political, financial, sports and other important events throughout the world. New and innovative ways to alter or ‘break’ this duopoly would be beneficial in order to preserve the diversity, sanctity and credibility of international news media.
The expansionary nature of capitalism has branched out into Globalisation, liberalisation and privatisation. The widespread acceptance of ‘global corporate ideology’ [Herman and McChesney, 1997] has led to the ‘commodification’ of news. Inarguably latest technology both hardware and software) and the input financial capital rest and can be utilised relatively freely mainly in these two countries.
As a first-mover advantage in the news market and as the originator of modern journalism, the Anglo-American hegemony enjoyed a wide-scale readership and viewership. Foreign news for television is extremely dear to collect so it was easier for these countries to incur this cost than other less economically developed countries, an idea supported by Jeremy Tunstall (2008). This development also produced some of the best professionals, journalists and technicians in this field. The reason for this was also partly because both America and Britain were democracies without military, communist or Nazi influence on their governments [Tunstall and Machin, 1999]. This contributed to a relatively free press in both the countries. It was ‘assumed’ that the news which would be printed/ broadcasted by these firms would be after a careful scrutiny of issues and substantial amount of democratic debates- the concept of non-partisan news [Tunstall and Machin, 1999]. The notion of public service is still perceived to be relevant when it comes to mega-corps like the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). There were other global players in this field namely Japan, France and other European nations but none of those enjoyed a mass audience comparable to the number of Anglo-American news consumers. The political influence across this duopoly is still rampant but the allegiance is less compared to other democratic or non-democratic countries like China, India, Pakistan, Italy, Germany, et al [Tunstall and Machin, 1999].
The geo-politics of news has for long been centered around London as it is centrally located and is the biggest media hub [Jarrah 2008]. The genesis of elite journalism including political coverage and financial news information was in Britain. Even now, the most powerful news component in terms of revenue generation is the financial information. The News Corporation (U.S.) owns the most widely read The Wall Street Journal followed by The Financial Times and The Economist (both from Britain).
The proximity of Anglo-American news media to banking and financial industries (media-finance intimacy) strengthened their dominance because the loans and financial input capital was made easily available and they were able to offset any foreign competition and deter new entrants. In other words, they still remained a duopoly and this nature of market discouraged the formation of any other genuine/ serious global news media players. Sustaining this argument is the figure of annual sales revenue for News Corporation in 2002- a staggering US$ 29,014 million [Sparks, 2007: 172].
The concept of ‘free flow of information’ has marked a new epoch. This has led to a larger role of World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the propagation and endorsement of Anglo-American domination of global news [Sparks, 2007: 184]. One can argue that if the dependency theory is put to work in this regard, we can see that the ‘peripheral’ countries still consider the Anglo-American news media model as a path they themselves need to follow and try to associate themselves with the larger aforementioned conglomerates in order to survive in the global market. Following is an excerpt to support this simple argument.
“Central to dependency theory was the view that transnational corporations (TNCs), most based in the north, exercise control, with the support of their respective governments, over the developing countries by setting the terms for global trade – dominating markets, resources, production, and labour. Development for these countries was shaped in a way to strengthen the dominance of the developed nations and to maintain the ‘peripheral’ nations in a position of dependence- in other words, to make conditions suitable for ‘dependent development’.”
- (Thussu 2003: 61)
The dependency theory also raises an interesting observation which is central to the theme of Anglo-American supremacy of world news- emergence of English as the lingua franca [Seidlhofer, 2005] and [Thussu, 2003: 181]. Be it television broadcasting or newspapers, for more than half of the international audience this is the language of world news. The United Nations (UN) also uses English language for its administrative purposes. English (origin: Britain) is ‘allegedly’ the character of neo-colonialism, a model which is noticeably associated with Britain and United States and clearly they have an advantage in this regard in terms of readability by the audiences worldwide.
English language allows for further combination of packaging ‘news’ with ‘entertainment’- the concept of ‘infotainment’ [Thussu, 1998] which is propagated all over the world on Anglo-American insistence. These giant media conglomerates are vertically integrated (mainly American media organizations) [Thussu, 1998: 64], facilitating these mergers so that the audience base is increased and to force mass-scale dumping of ‘embroidered’ or ‘fabricated’ news by “stressing the positives and concealing the negatives” and at the same time as ‘flag carriers’ of objective and commercial choices of the news audience [Tunstall, 2008: 59]. The commercial advertisement industry sprouted, as a largely non-partisan activity to generate revenue [Tunstall and Machin, 1999: 74]. Observably, there persisted some amount of political agenda and sometimes it was just to disseminate Anglo-American culture among the news readers of the world as a sign of power declaration and the celebration of their economic prosperity. These advertising agencies also claimed to have played an instrumental role in maintaining an emphasis on “‘financial transparency’ across the media” [Tunstall and Machin, 1999: 75]- one of the reasons why these Anglo-American companies were perceived to be more ‘credible’ in the global news arena.
Another fresh argument is offered by Tunstall and Machin (1999) that “there is a tendency to employ each others’ citizens among the American and British news players. For example, London-based Reuters employs numerous Americans. Britain also seemed to be the only foreign country from which American media would accept foreign news.” Given such a setting, one can safely say that this duopoly is very strong and it is difficult for other news media firms of a different nationality to be accepted as a ‘reliable’ source of global news.
Conclusion
Having enumerated the probable causal variables of the Anglo-American domination of the world news, we can evidently say that this duopoly is leading to a global news homogenisation. There is uniformity in the pattern of news worldwide due to the replication of a ‘successful’ model exhibited by the West. The positive aspects being that they have induced competition and have contributed to evolution of national media across nations. They have been trendsetters in terms of obtaining and presenting information. Due to this highly professional attitude, in the contemporary world, news is not as selective and ‘biased’ as it used to be. They have strong networks across the world and their journalists are well-paid and well-skilled.
On the other hand, the profit-making tendency of these capitalist mega-corps has paved way for a “news retail explosion” [Paterson, Christopher in Sreberny- Mohammadi et al, 1997: 152]. The ‘fabrication’ of news in the crucial events, for example, information concerning war or pre-war times and many more, is carried by the international news players to set the ‘global news agenda’ [Thussu 2003: 163]. This is sometimes an engineered process made possible by the manipulation of the kind of visuals or pictures shown, the news stories told through their media to fit a political or commercial schema. For example- “coverage of the civil war in the former Yugoslavia” [Paterson, Christopher in Sreberny- Mohammadi et al, 1997: 149] or the recent ‘liberation’ of Libya from its ‘ruthless’ dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
The Third World nations are still dependent on these global news sources of the West to gain vital information and a “vertical flow does characterise the structure of international communication” [Meyer, 1988] showing traces of imperialism and neo-colonialism.
The Anglo-American hegemony is also apparent in the news culture of ‘sensationalism’ or the use of ‘tabloids’, glorifying violence and similar elements in order to grab the attention of a wider audience, replacing the traditional form of news which aimed at providing political, financial, sports and other important events throughout the world. New and innovative ways to alter or ‘break’ this duopoly would be beneficial in order to preserve the diversity, sanctity and credibility of international news media.
______________________________________________
References on request
References on request
Please can I get the references? Thanks in advance.
ReplyDeleteReferences
Delete1. Ginneken, Jaap V. (2005) Understanding Global News: A Critical Introduction, London, California, New Delhi: Sage Publications Ltd.
2. Herman, Edward S. and McChesney, Robert W. (1997) The Global Media: the new missionaries of corporate capitalism, London and Washington: Cassell
3. Jarrah, Najm (2008) The Rise and Decline of London as the Pan-Arab Media Hub [http://www.arabmediasociety.com/articles/downloads/20080114223217_AMS4_Najm_Jarrah.pdf]
4. Meyer, William H. (1988) Transnational Media and Third World Development: The Structure and Impact of Imperialism, United States of America: Greenwood Press, Inc.
5. Paterson, Christopher (1997)in Media in Global Context: A Reader, New York: Arnold (Hodder Headline Group)
6. Seidlhofer, Barbara (2005) English as a lingua franca, ELT journal 59/4: Oxford University Press [http://eltj.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/4/339.full.pdf]
7. Sparks, Collin (2007) Globalization, Development and the Mass Media, Los Angeles, London, London, New Delhi, Singapore: Sage Publications
8. Thussu, Daya K. (1998) Electronic Empires: Global Media and Local Resistance, Great Britain: Arnold (Hodder Headline Group)
9. Thussu, Daya K. (2003) International Communication: Continuity and change, London: Hodder Headline Group
10. Tunstall, Jeremy (2008) The Media were American: U.S. Mass Media in Decline, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press Inc.
11. Tunstall, Jeremy and Machin, David (1999) The Anglo-American Media Connection, New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
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