Globalization and privatization have taken the world by storm. The global media system, mainly supported by the US, has branched in all countries and laid the ground for US dominated and controlled global media system. ‘The Global Media’, written by two prominent scholars of today, Edward S. Herman and Robert McChesney, outlines the emergence of the global media system and documents the political, social and technological events, which have led to it’s expansion and progress. The powerful content highlights how global media facilitates global expansion by tracing it to its very roots of origin through a chronicle of events starting from the inception of the global era to its current rise.
The main players in the global media systems are exposed; the 10 largest transnational corporations which took the world by storm when they emerged after the Industrial Revolution in the 20th century. They created linkages and alliances and managed to establish themselves as global enterprises.
These corporations helped US control the films, book publishing agencies, newspapers, and television programs throughout the world. This global dominance of US and Britain made English the universal language of the world.
These include: Hollywood’s expansion of its exports along with the development of movie theatres around the world in the 60s, the flourishing of the book publishing business in the 1970s, emergence of television, the liberalization and privatization of enterprises due to the cross–border expansion of the transnational corporations in the 1980s, the dominancy of three media industries; book publishing, film production and recorded music in the 1990s, expansion of films and multi–screen theatre complexes around the world, and the arrival of the Internet, digitalization of the global TV, establishment of the copyright protection laws and large company ventures in the mid 90s.
‘Global Media’ explains the establishment, working and holdings of the first and second tiers of global media firms, their joint ventures and their steps towards total domination of the world’s media market. In the last chapters of the book, seven brief national and regional case studies have been presented. These studies are of four developed nations, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand and Italy and of three developing nations Brazil, Caribbean and India. These case studies depict how the local media evolved in these countries and what was the impact of US intervention and domination on their media industry. It also sheds light on the arrogance of US domination on Latin American media industry that has led to the implantation of alien cultures and values in other Third World countries.
This book will help the readers analyze the dynamics of media, how it controls emotions like hatred, love and amusement with its tactics, programs and commercialization. It elaborates how the Western culture and the ‘Americanized’ way of living have been ingrained, in the minds of people all around the world. It gives the reader a comprehensive insight of control – from media to mind.
