Lecture - Globalisation, Sustainability and the Media

Socialist: The process of the transformation of a local/regional phenomena into a global one through economic, technological, sociocultural and political forces.
Capitalist: Elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders and the increasing integrated and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result.

McDonaldization (George Ritzer): The idea that describes the wide-ranging sociocultural processes that allow the principles of an American fast-food restaurant to begin to dominate other sections of national and global economies.

Marshall McLuhan - Understanding the Media (1960's)
Discusses the idea that electrical technology is an extension of our body because of how it allows us to see and hear what is happening elsewhere, which reduces the idea of space and time, increasing human empathy and sympathy. This would lead to a "global village" where people and businesses would work together and share responsibility.

What has actually happened is Cultural Imperialism, which is the rise of a homogenous culture based around New York, Hollywood, London, Paris and Milan. The media could be thought of a system that spreads the evidence of the successes of western culture.

Schiller suggests that the dominance of a US driven commercial media forces a US broadcasting model onto the rest of the world, even though not all of the world can afford it.

Chomsky - Manufacturing Consent (1998)
Discusses the idea that the news is propaganda for American capitalism which is causing people to buy into Americanism being the ideal way of life. He says that there are filters which get rid of critical messages, these filters are;

• Ownership - Most people who have access to what is broadcasted in the media are controlled by one of a small bunch of people or companies such as Rupert Murdoch.
• Funding - Adverts provide funding for the media. Anything that would be published or broadcasted that has a message that goes against any of the adverts that it uses will be stopped.
• Sourcing - The news is only as accurate as your access to the source, which will be limited accordingly to reduce the quantity of negative reports.
• Flak - Whenever a challenging idea arises, organised groups of people and companies will aggressively challenge it publicly to pressure the public into not buying into the idea.
• Ideology - Creating and "us and them" scenario (often against Islam) makes us blind to our own problems.