Globalization and Media

Communicational Aspect
Unprecedented Connectivity
New Media and Communication Technologies
 Power of the Media
Dominance of the Image
Lives imagined in relation to the Image
Reality filtered through the Image
 Linguistic Turn in Theory
Nothing other than Image
Mediates our experience of reality
There is no reality only image
 Image dominates our lives
Role of the Imagination
 The image, the imagined, the imaginary - these are all terms that direct
us to something critical and new in global cultural processes: the
imagination as a social practice.
No longer mere fantasy (opium for the masses whose real work is
somewhere else), no longer simple escape (from a world defined
principally by more concrete purposes and structures), no longer elite
pastime (thus not relevant to the lives of ordinary people), and no longer
mere contemplation (irrelevant for new forms of desire and subjectivity),
the imagination has become an organized field of social practices, a
form of work (in the sense of both labor and culturally organized
practice), and a form of negotiation between sites of agency
(individuals) and globally defined fields of possibility.
This unleashing of the imagination links the play of pastiche (in some
settings) to the terror and coercion of states and their competitors. The
imagination is now central to all forms of agency, is itself a social fact,
and is the key component of the new global order.
 New Global Cultural Economy
Complex, overlapping, disjunctive order
Disjunctures to be explored through five
dimensions of global cultural flows
Notion of Scapes
Perspectival Constructs/landscapes
Ethnoscapes, mediascapes,
technoscapes,financescapes and ideoscapes
 These landscapes thus, are the building
blocks of what, extending Benedict
Anderson, I would like to call 'imagined
worlds', that is, the multiple worlds which
are constituted by the historically situated
imaginations of persons and groups spread
around the globe (Appadurai, 1989).
 An important fact of the world we live in today
is that many persons on the globe live in such
imagined 'worlds' and not just in imagined
communities, and thus are able to contest and
sometimes even subvert the 'imagined worlds'
of the official mind and of the entrepreneurial
mentality that surround them.
The suffix scape also allows us to point to the
fluid, irregular shapes of these landscapes,
shapes which characterize international
capital as deeply as they do international
clothing styles.
 Refers to
1.distribution of the electronic capabilities to produce
and disseminate information (newspapers, magazines,
television stations, film production studios, etc.), which
are now available to a growing number of private and
public interests throughout the world
2. the images of the world created by these media
These images of the world involve many complicated
inflections, depending on
1.their mode (documentary or entertainment),
2.their hardware (electronic or pre-electronic),
3.their audience (local, national or transnational)
4.and the interests of those who own and control them
 What is most important about these
mediascapes is that they provide
(especially in television film and cassette
forms) large and complex repertoires of
images, narratives and 'ethnoscapes' to
viewers throughout the world, in which the
world of commodities and the world of
'news' and politics are profoundly mixed.
 What this means is that audiences
throughout the world experience the media
themselves as a complicated and
interconnected repertoire of print,
celluloid, electronic screens and billboards.
 The lines between the 'realistic' and the
fictional landscapes they see are blurred, so
that the further away these audiences are
from the direct experiences of metropolitan
life, the more likely they are to construct
'imagined worlds which are chimerical,
aesthetic, even fantastic objects,
particularly if assessed by the criteria of
some other perspective, some other
'imagined world'.
 'Mediascapes', whether produced by
private or state interests, tend to be image-
centered, narrative-based accounts of
strips of reality, and what they offer to
those who experience and transform them
is a series of elements (such as characters,
plots and textual forms) out of which
scripts can be formed of imagined lives,
their own as well as those of others living in
other places.
 These scripts can and do get disaggregated
into complex sets of metaphors by which
people live (Lakoff and Jbhnson, 1980) as
they help to constitute narratives of the
'other' and proto-narratives of possible
lives, fantasies which could become
prologemena to the desire for acquisition
and movement.
 Satellite Revolution
Anxieties about alien cultural images
invading peoples life-worlds
Reverse Flows
 Emerged in 1959 as a development tool, providing
education and information
DD, the government-run national station, had a
broadcast monopoly until the 1990s
Unregulated hookups to CNN during the Gulf War
Estimated two hundred thousand cablewallahs
(cable-operators) in business
I1991, transnational television arrived with the launch
of Star TV, a satellite network that offered five
channels, including MTV Asia
At least 15 million homes have cable and satellite
(approximately 75 million people)
 Zee TV, created in 1992, rates with many
people as the new family channel
Zee creates programming for what they call
the family vision: 30 percent soaps, 30
percent thrillers, 30 percent sitcoms, 10
 Owned by Viacom in New York, MTV was launched in the United States in
1981 as a twenty-four-hour cable program service presenting a continuous
flow of music videos featuring pop and rock songs
MTV tried to distinguish itself from other channels by being unconventional (e.g.,
using messy sets and poor lighting, having the hosts make on-air mistakes),
focusing on a spontaneous, casual feel
Vee-jays, or VJs (an update from DJs), are MTVs on-air announcers and are
pivotal to providing the desired image of hip irreverence and relaxed informality
MTV invented the self-contained music clip, something that has become
entirely entrenched in Western popular culture
Advertisers borrowed from the MTV video style by imitating its visual techniques
to enhance their commercials
At the same time, the content of MTV video clips
stimulated consumer purchase, particularly in the fashion industry
In the late eighties and nineties, MTV extended its reach further
afield, broadcasting in Latin America, Japan, Australia, Russia, and Asia.
The company has been criticized for attempting to shape a global audience of
youth for transnational advertisers, by enticing viewers to develop their sense of
identity through the acquisition of advertised goods
 MTV started in India as MTV Asia, carried by Star TV
In 1994, it broke from Star, launching out alone as MTV
India
When MTV had first come in, it simply tried to relocate
Western MTV product (e.g., Western pop music) in India
Programming was not convincing
Seen as a cultural invasion
Full-time Western music clearlydid not work
Lyrics were perceived as too ideological
The graphics were thought to be too numerous and too
fast
There was an irreverence, a rebellious quality to the
channel, that was perceived as too Western
 During this time, a crucial event occurred.
Channel V, a strong competitor to MTV for the music video
market, hired Ruby Bhatia, an Indian VJ from Canada, who had
been Miss India-Canada.
Bhatia went on air speaking Hinglish, a mixture of Hindi and
English, to introduce Hindi music clips from Bollywood films.
She came across as very Indian to viewers, and Channel V
became an instant success
Channel V had discovered the key to the successful VJ: good looks,
hipness,and the ability to break into Hindi when cracking a joke
People literally began to leave work early to catch her show
This event was taken to demonstrate that the success of music
television lies in going local
 Channel V had become by far the favorite during this time, but MTV proved extremely agile
at indigenizing
As well, MTV (through its owner Viacom) had the budget for production value (from glossy
promotional ads and glitzy graphics to expensive clothing for its VJs)
MTV had the same budget for Indian shows as it did for the production of its Florida
shows ,which amounted to a substantial amount of money in Mumbai.
Channel V, originally perceived as cutting edge, suddenly had to compete with the influx of
capital its competitor was capable of mustering (it did not have the same budget as
MTV. It began making choices out of fear and soon found itself falling behind.
But beyond the fact of its greater capital, MTVs rise to the top of the market
was dependent on the deftness with which it localized its product.
Cyrus Oshidar, a newly returned nonresident Indian (NRI), was brought in as creative
director, responsible for creating the brandor what MTV stands for Natasha Malhotra
also joined MTV India at this time.
Both of these people claim responsibility for Indianizing MTV and creating a success out of
it in India, making it the third or fourth most popular MTV in the world
 MTV did the light-switch,
The three words at the time were
Indianize, humanize, and humorize.
Creative direction changed completely,
and overnight, MTV staff flipped the whole
channel around