topic 7 - Critical reflection 1

The documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares (Part 3 - Shadow in the Cave)" by Adam Curtis was shown in class on Monday. How do you relate the information given to you in the documentary to the theory of Media Imperialism that we talked about in lecture?

What is Media imperialism?

The Media Imperialism debate started in the early 1970s when developing countries began to criticise the control developed countries held over the media. The site for this conflict was UNESCO where the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO) movement developed. Supported by the McBride report, "Many Voices, One World", countries such as India, Indonesia, and Egypt argued that the large media companies should have limited access to developing countries. This argument was one of the reasons for the United States, United Kingdom, and Singapore leaving UNESCO.

Later during the 1980s and 1990s, as multinational media conglomerates grow larger and more powerful many believe that it will become increasingly difficult for small, local media outlets to survive. A new type of imperialism will thus occur, making many nations subsidiary to the media products of some of the most powerful countries or companies. Significant writers and thinkers in this area include Ben Bagdikian, Noam Chomsky, Edward S. Herman, Armand Mattelart and Robert McChesney.

The United States' corporate media coverage of events has been seen to limit the freedom of the press. Integrity can be lost among media giants. This combined with the control and flow of information reduces the fairness and accuracy of news stories. American news networks like CNN also often have large international staffs, and produce specialized regional programming for many nations.

Media Imperialism is not always an international occurrence, however. When a single company or corporation controls all the media in a country, this too is a form of Media Imperialism. Nations such as Italy and Canada are often accused of possessing an Imperial media structure, based on the fact that much of their media is controlled by one corporation or owner.

A media source which ignores and/or censors important issues and events severely damages freedom of information. Many modern tabloid, twenty-four hour news channels and other mainstream media sources have increasingly been criticized for not conforming to general standards of journalistic integrity.

*taken from www.wikipedia.com*

What is "Imperialism"?

Imperialism has two meanings, one describing an action and the other describing an attitude. Most commonly it is understood in relation to Empire building, as the expansion of a nation's authority by territorial conquest establishing economic and political powers in other territories or nations ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism

• a policy of extending your rule over foreign countries
• a political orientation that advocates imperial interests
• any instance of aggressive extension of authority
  wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Media Imperialism defined through class lecture slides.

The idea that powerful and wealthy countries can exercise economic, cultural and social control over others through control of media industries.

Media imperialism is a theory stating that smaller countries are losing their identity due to the force-feeding of media from larger nations. It can be equated to small community shops closing down due to large superstores moving in, taking over and having a monopoly. As the larger media corporations begin to take over, smaller media companies are either being forced out or swallowed up.