【Fudan Journalism and Communication Translation Library】International Communication: Inheritance and Change (Third Edition)
By Daya Kishan Tusu
Translated by Hu Chunyang and Yao Duoyi
Published by Fudan University Press in January 2022
Over the past 20 years, this book has taken the world by storm. Every 10 years, Professor Tu Su will make a major revision of the latest phenomena in the field of international communication, integrating global information. Presented to the reader is the third edition of this book, which focuses on the history and development of international communication, the reverse flow of global media, media and communication in the digital age, etc., and adds new cases to reflect the emerging trends of international communication. The depth of vision, rigorous logic, and rich cases ensure the uniqueness of this book: as long as it is related to international communication, this book is an indispensable milestone.
>> book excerpt
Global media reverse flow
The globalization of Western media has become a major influence in shaping media culture in the world, and there is a trend to enhance the influence of Western culture. But this chapter examines how media product streams have become more complex, rather than just one-way. As we've seen in previous chapters, the impact of U.S. media in global communications is far-reaching: U.S. companies have global communications infrastructure (from satellites to telecommunications hubs to cyberspace) and multiple networks and production facilities. As a result of the growing global mobile Internet system, which allows content to be immediately disseminated around the world, the global media landscape is still in the process of transformation, and the traditional dominance of Western media, especially the American media, is being challenged, mainly from the availability of media in non-Western countries, such as English-language television news provided by Russia [Russia Today] and China [China International Television (CGTN)]." Entertainment programming in India [Bollywood], Brazil [Telenovelas] and South Africa [infortainment and entertainment]. As mobile communication technologies and content converge through the multilingual Internet, this flow of challenges to traditional hegemony (China International Television launched the African service, Russia Today implemented the so-called "information weaponization", which are excellent examples) is growing and is increasingly attracting the attention of Western capital. As more people become more interconnected, the influence of content from non-Western countries in the media space is growing. And, as such media become globalized, they may come up with an alternative narrative about globalization. The use of media content from major non-Western countries complicates discourse about international media, requiring new paradigms and theoretical frameworks to explain this changed reality.
Over the past 20 years, Media World has witnessed the growth of media content from most parts of the world, from Japanese animation to Korean and Indian films, from Latin American soap operas to Turkish TV dramas and soap operas, to Arabic, Chinese and Russian news, in increasing languages and genres. Digital technology and the availability of satellite and submarine cable networks have enabled the development of regional broadcasting in countries of the South, such as the Pan-Arab Middle East Broadcasting Centre (MBC), al Jazeera, or phoenix satellite television in Chinese, which has grown with the expansion of the global media Greater China, which includes the world's largest diaspora. As UNESCO's World Culture Report, released in 2009, points out: "There is no doubt that globalization, as a 'window to the world', plays an integrated role, primarily to the benefit of powerful international conglomerates; ”
The growing prominence of so-called "subaltern flows" suggests that world power structures are changing, such as the emergence of the BRICS bloc. This coincides with the relative decline of the Western economy to complement, if not challenge, U.S. hegemony in media and communications.
The term "BRIC" is taken from the initials of the English names of Brazil, Russia, India and China, and has now entered international dictionaries. Goldman Sachs Group Director Jim O'Neill coined the term in 2001 to refer to the four most rapidly growing emerging markets of the time. 10 years later, South Africa joined at the invitation of China and BRIC became BRICS. Although the BRICS countries have operated as a formal organization since 2006 and have held annual summits every year since 2009, the brics' communication power has been largely ignored by Western academics, in part due to difficulties caused by different political systems and socio-cultural norms, and the large and diverse countries within the organization at different stages of development. Despite recent setbacks in economic growth in some BRICS countries, notably Brazil and South Africa, the international influence of the BRICS countries in media and communication is likely to continue to expand as mobile communication technology merges with deeper multilingual Internet content, which will be discussed in the next chapter.
Media in the BRICS countries (TV news from Russia and China and entertainment from India, Brazil and South Africa) are increasingly becoming an important part of the global media landscape. Exported to more than 100 countries, Brazil's television novels are particularly popular in the Portuguese-speaking world, where they continue to dominate the media system. South Africa's pan-African networks, such as M-Net television and the South African Newspaper Group (NASPERS), have a pivotal presence on the continent. However, media exchanges within the BRICS countries remain very low, with only a few exceptions. In 2014, China established the BRICS New Development Bank in Shanghai and launched a number of other important global initiatives from the non-Western. China is also one of the most important new players in the global media scene.
Author: Daya Kishan Tusu
Edit: Jin Jiuchao