below, a portion of the unfinished lecture from 9 september and attached, the

lecture for 16 september, Globalization, Culture and the Media

I.

Further Examples of Global Inequalities

A. Food Supply. UN Statistics show high rates of children and

adults living at close to starvation levels and high infant mortality
and vulnerability to illness because of mother's undernourishment.
Yet world food supplies are increasing.
B. Virtually all surplus food is produced within industrialized
societies. US, Canada, Europe have large excesses in food
capacity compared to Asia and South America who do not produce
enough for their own needs. But in FW, the government regularly
pays farmers to keep some of the land idle or to store food which
cannot find buyers in the world market.
C. These excesses should ideally go to the TW as foreign aid. But
aid is political. Who gets it depends on politics. EG, In the early
1970s, the US was engaged in a war in Vietnam and Cambodia
and so much foreign aid was going there. But on the other side of
the globe, Chile was also then in dire need of aid. But since Chile
was then governed by the socialists, the US did not give the
country any aid.
Another example of aid and politics: The British government gave
aid in excess of 234 million pounds to help the Malaysian
government build a large dam, which it was argued would provide
hydro-electric power to a rural province. But this project was in fact
linked to the purchase of British weapons by the Malaysian
government. In effect the dam was built by British taxpayer money
but only in return for substantial purchases of military equipment.
Most aid is associated with trade, often trade of military equipment,

much of it propping up corrupt military and autocratic regimes in the

TW.
D. Transnational Corporations or TNC activities have expanded.
E.g., agribusiness in TW may provide some employment, but the
bulk of production is geared towards FW (Dole, Del Monte). Local
agriculture is also undermined by these TNCs by means of
monopolies. These activities show links with the local ruling class
has shaped patterns of development
II.
Global inequality is now not simply about countries or
nation-states but also about TNCs. Many of these economic units
are bigger than TW countries. EG, Mitsubishi, General Motors,
Reynolds-Nabisco, Cargill have bigger incomes than GNPs of such
countries as Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and even a country
as large as Brazil. (GNPs in 1990s)
A. So TNCs are larger than countries. They are Oligopolies; their
size, colossal. Their scope of operations are staggering. And
contrary to appearances most of the investments of TNCs are
within industrialized or FW countries. 3/4 of foreign direct
investment is carried on between FW countries, e.g., Japan in US,
US in Europe, and these TNCs have administrative and production
systems integrated worldwide.
B. This is not to say that TNC investment in TW is not extensive.
In fact, national economies in the TW are dominated by a limited
number of very large companies; and so is the world economy.
These are the conglomerates-straddling many different businesses,
EG, Reynolds-Nabisco: tobacco, food, wearables; the sogososha in
Japan.
C.

Why have the TNCs grown so?

1. Expansion and accumulation of capitalism. Capitalists need to

expand and accumulate to broaden their scope of operation. So
companies go international. Capital is internationalized in search of
more profitable investments and markets.
2. Expansion overseas: to take advantage of cheap labor and
absence of unions. We have very good examples right here in the
Philippines of this type of expansion in the microchip industry and in
garments.
3. TNCs establish subsidiaries in other countries to gain tax
advantages by spreading their profits between them.
4. TNCs are able to internalize numerous transactions that are
otherwise sources of uncertainty. E.G., integrating plants and
services avoids dependence on other companies for raw materials
and services. As in a food and beverage conglomerate going into
packaging and packing services.
D. Economic Growth has been made possible by transportation
and communication technologies. EG., satellites, advances in
computer technology.
E.G., Financial service markets have used technology to dramatic
effect. Throughout the 1980s and into the 90s, stock markets in
London, NY, HK, Frankfurt and Tokyo utilized developments in
computer technology to facilitate massive growths in trading
capacity and overall efficiency. The move away from trading in
paper shares or paper currency to electronic transactions has
meant that many more dealings can take place. Linking in satellite
communications with these very fast computer systems has had
profound effects that shape our lives; stock market computers in
several countries are in direct contact all hours of the day.(These
linkages have also been responsible for the spread of the crisis of
2008-).

There is now a truly global financial system in place and these

kinds of transactions are largely beyond the control of national
governments (with the exception of the US). The growth of the
worldwide financial service industries has supported the
development of the transnational capitalist class, who are reliant
upon the global operation of capitalism.
International communication via computers and satellites have
further facilitated the ability of capital to flow from one country to
another. So, just as flows of capital have meant the relocation of
manufacturing from one part of the globe to another, benefits have
been drawn back into the west. E.G., In Britain, many pension
funds hold stocks and shares in global markets so that the fate of
the manufacturing industry in Taiwan or Korea may have an effect
on the living standards of present and future pensioners in Britain.
E. TNCs have created an international division of labor (IDOL).
The TW becomes a source of natural resources, raw materials and
cheap labor. EG., Brazil and the Amazon Forest; call centers in Asia
F. TNCs have also created an international economic integration.
E.G., automobile industry with companies and subsidiaries,
welding together, so to speak, a diversity of plants and companies,
operating in different areas of the world within a single
administrative framework. (E.g., Engines made in Canada, Auto
frames in US, Electronic Components in Japan, Electric equipment
in Europe and you have a Lexus!)
But in the case of the FW-TW tie up, as with the TNCs which have
developed their economic potential by utilizing productive
capacities and technologies originally developed in the West, the
usual case is the outdated production line and older models are
given new lease of life in a TW country, were labor intensive
assembly-line methods are still the rule. The FW country like Japan

in the meantime develops its products at the higher end of the

global market. So competitiveness is really selective and at different
levels
G. Because of the international division of labor the overall rates
of manufacturing have gone up in the TW at the same time that
higher rates of unemployment (from being released from
manufacturing) have occurred in FW. We have yet to see the long
term implications of this development in terms of relocation of
industrial activities (manufacturing being the primary source of
surplus value).
But these transfers are not exclusively FW to TW. Eastern Europe,
the poorer Europe, has also felt these transfers. E.G., In the 1980s,
the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher in Britain decided that
free market principles were to be applied to the British coal
industry; in other words, British coal was to be determined by the
world price of coal. If British miners could produce coal at world
market prices, pits would stay open, if not, they would close.
Foreign Coal, particularly that from Poland, was cheaper and led
many users of coal to switch suppliers. This reduction in demand
led to the decimation of the British coal industry which was once a
central part of British life and certainly was one of the key workingclass industries. Coal mining communities faced economic ruin,
social upheaval and increasing deprivation. The community culture,
tradition and political outlook developed over generations
was simply wiped away. (Remember the movie Full Monty?)
However, the negative effect of such process contrasted with the
positive effects in coal mining communities in Poland as pits
expanded and miners were employed. Today, several years later it
is Polish mining that is in trouble.
III.

Non-State Actors in Globalization

A. The UN-- site of the resolution and also non-resolution of global

conflicts. But the way the UN has behaved recently shows the
power of the US. E.G., the Gulf War then and Afghanistan and Iraq
today. However the UN has been useful as a social services
organization. And can sometimes be effective as collective power of
the TW (the Group of 77)
B. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund: the
global money lenders have played a leading role in the opening up
of the TW market. How?
1. The WB and IMF in tandem impose conditionalities in
exchange for loans. Conditionalities attached to Structural
Adjustment Programs (SAP) are really geared to restructuring the
economy. How? By diverting resources away from sectors serving
mainly domestic needs and towards export development in order to
generate foreign exchange and improve the balance of payments
(Imports vs. exports).
2. SAPS consisted mainly of economic liberalization (or opening
up the economy to global forces ) and austerity (or belt-tightening)
measures. These austerity measures meant cutbacks in
government expenditures especially in social services (such as
health, education and farm subsidies), freezes in wage increases
and hiring. The poor are hardest hit, especially women as a group.
E.G., In Zimbabwe (presently nearing collapse), during the drought
years of 1988-1993, the government was forced to adopt stringent
economic policies of the WB and IMF. The SAP placed far greater
emphasis on agricultural production for export than agriculture for
self-sufficiency. Subsidies to village communities were cut, welfare
policies abandoned and educational changes introduced for school
children. Zimbabwe was forced to spend hard-earned foreign
currency importing maize, the staple of the diet, and a produce
once exported to neighboring countries. The emphasis placed upon

the acceptance of western ideas, economic systems and cultural

values has been to the detriment of many people of the TW.
C. Trade Agreements such as those embodied in the World Trade
Organization which monitors GATT, APEC. These trade
agreements are directed at global economic liberalization.
Agreements geared towards deregulation of markets and prices,
privatization of enterprise. This means the retreat of the state and
the liberalization of trade, i.e., the untrammeled rule of the market .
So that the TW not only has to gear its production toward the
demands of the world economy but that TW products now have to
compete with FW products. An example of the disastrous effect of
liberalization is the case of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia is a small African country where the specter of famine
looms. But it is not facing this reality with basic crop agriculture, it is
facing it with flowers. Not the kind of flowers you can eat, no, but
roses, carnations and chrysanthemums. The country has joined
Third World competition to supply fresh flowers to western decor
lovers in Europe. . . Flower growing is the most polluting form of
agriculture known to humans. Nobody will buy a bloom that has
been half eaten by bugs. So every hectare must be fed 10 tons of
fertilizer and pesticides every year; the soil must be biologically
dead. The cruelest cut is that this takes money out of the TW. The
growers earn only 10% of the wholesale price of every flower; the
other 90% is made by air freight and trucking firms in the West,
wholesale dealers and the ever expanding flower auctions in
Holland.
D. Will globalization increase global welfare? No! Because the
playing field is not level. E.g., it is like a local carenderia competing
with the Conservatory at Manila Peninsula.
The argument that globalization raises international living standards
rests on the assumption that the international labor market is

effectively finite (limited) and hence that labor eventually will

recover to bargain from strength, which is not true. The fact is the
international labor pool is infinite (no limits) and the bargaining
power of labor is the lowest it has been in a century. The political
and social implications of this have only begun to be appreciated.
E. Thus at recent international meetings there has been an
increasing realization among some business leaders that
globalization has dehumanized societies and fostered wider
inequality between rich and poor because of the irresponsible
worship of the market.(e.g., Joseph Stiglitz) The unregulated
market capitalism is destructive of culture and values of civilization.
A few capitalists now realize this as they see concrete results in
their own countries: much unemployment and political social unrest
in Europe (high unemployment figures), US (downsizing, lay-offs)
and Korea (violent reaction to recent labor legislation which led to
downscaling). Massive protests among western working class with
riots and demonstrations insites of internatinal meetings: Seattle,
Geneva, Milan, Davos; many of them also protesting in behalf of
the TW.
IV.

The Effect of globalization on the Environment

A. The environment is not a lifestyle issue in the TW. Not a matter

simply of recycling or air pollution or water pollution, as it is in the
FW. The environment is not simply a problem of how resources are
used at the end of the production line--i.e., after resources are
consumed.
B. In the TW, the problem is at the start of the production chain,
with the source of the resources--forests, fishing grounds, fertile
lands.
C. Capitalist incursions have resulted in the degradation of the
environment. Destructive mining and logging operations have

resulted in deforestation and loss of fertile soil. The use of

pesticides and fertilizers have created imbalances in the plant and
animal genetic resources. Fishing operations such as dynamite
fishing and cyanide fishing, have destroyed coral reefs which are
habitats of fish as well as natural breakwater against storm surges.
All of these are effects and consequences of corporate plunder,
both of local ruling classes and world bourgeoisie.
D. Land and resources are simply factors of production to
corporations. But for the poor, all this scenery is functional. It is their
lifeline.
E. For TW therefore it is a matter of saving land, trees, forest, fish
life for personal and community survival.
F. But the environmental problem is also a matter of the unequal
distribution of waste--of toxic chemical and organic wastes. The FW
finds ways of dumping its wastes on the TW.
G. The FW also looks for ways of relocating polluting phases of
production. E.g., use of space by building golf courses which
means polluting the environment with pesticide use and taking
space from low-income housing. Kawasaki steel sintering plant: the
most polluting phase in the production of steel is relocated here
because of strict anti-pollution laws in Japan.
H. FW consumption affects TW survival: what they eat and how
they live affect what we eat and how we live; our rainforests affect
their air and their wastes and their consumption affect our farms,
our homes and our lives.
V.

Culture and globalization

A. But in the modern global world , it is not only knowledge,

finance and manufacturing that know no national boundaries now.

There is also crime. Just as capital or manufacturing can flow easily

from one country to another, so too can global tides such as drugs,
criminality and terrorism, flow from one part of the world to the
next.
B. Globalization also means that local conditions have less and
less importance than at any time in the past. There is the potential
weakening of national autonomy and the further strengthening of
supra-national bodies such as the IMF or APEC (Asia Pacific
Economic Cooperation).
VI.

State and Globalization

TNCs deal with states depending on the strength of the state: they
bully them or they adopt flexibility and compromise towards national
governments. (More on this in another lecture).
Inequality Lecture 14 -l5
Global Inequality, Culture, and the Media
I.

The Importance of Media in our Everyday Life

A. To understand day to day media use, it is necessary to take the
whole ensemble of intersecting and overlapping media
provision into consideration. Audiences or consumers piece
together the contents of radio, television, newspapers and so
on. As a rule, media texts and messages are not used
completely or with full concentration. We read parts of a sports
or movie review, skim through magazines and zap from
channel to channel when we don't like what's on TV.
Furthermore, media use, being an integrated part of the
routines and rituals of everyday life, is constantly interrelated
with other activities such a talking, eating, doing housework,
doing homework. In other words, media use is not private,

individual process, but a collective, social process; a Walkman

notwithstanding.
B. Exposure to and consumption of media products--whether via
TV, films, radio, newspapers, books, the Internet--has become
an integral part of the daily lives of an increasing number of
people in the TW and the majority of the FW. The media
occupy a considerable portion of our working and leisure time,
and provide us to a considerable extent with other people's
pictures of social reality.
C. These can be the principal leisure activity such as films, TV.
We organize our social world around TV, it is missed when
unavailable and is a source of information and ideas widely
regarded as authoritative and trustworthy. Or this can be radio,
that user-friendly medium, which by its portable and accessible
nature is so well integrated into everyday routines; a sort of
soundtrack for many chores, housework, homework, driving
the car. Radio also provides personal experience, often meeting
the needs of diverse listeners for feelings of group identity and
companionship, especially for women, at home, alone, during
the day. Or this can be print, where we sometimes see the
potential for political agitation or for maintaining the status
quo.
D. Given these high levels of exposures, the media constitute
potentially strategic socialization agencies, strategic
transmitters of culture, tastes and preferences.
E. The media are central in the provision of ideas and images,
which people use to interpret and understand a great deal of
their everyday experience. More specifically they represent an
institutionalized channel for the distribution of social
knowledge and therefore a potentially powerful instrument of

social control or social critique, for sustaining or challenging

the status quo.
F. In other words, media are in competition. with family, school
and peers in shaping people's perceptions.
II.

Media as Providers of "Experience" and "Knowledge"

A. Modern societies are characterized not by homogeneity and
integration but by social differentiation and segregation. The
world has become much larger and more fragmented for most
of us, no longer encompassed or measured solely by the
immediate community we live in.
B. But this larger world is normally not directly experienced by
us, despite our mobility. The media provide us with much
indirect experience of this world beyond our own experience.
C. Thus while previously through networks of direct interpersonal
communication limited by time and space, we participated in
what is called a "situated culture", now we have increasingly
learned to live not only in our situated culture but also in a
culture of mediation, whereby specialized agencies, the press,
film, cinema, radio and TV, the internet, cell phones and
texting, supply and cultivate larger-scale forms of
communication; mediating new and other forms of culture into
the situation. "Our" immediate world co-exists with the
mediated world out there."
D. In this way media have become steadily more influential in
defining "reality," in encouraging a common image of society.
A consensus image of what reality is and the nature of
deviation from it. They present to us what "everyone else" out
there believes.

E. The rate and scale of technological changes are also important

aspects of the mediation of culture; as yesterday's
technological miracle becomes today's obsolete contraption,
we begin to grasp how rapidly our lives become transformed
by media technologies.
The important question is who has access to these technologies.
The instant and immediate nature of telecommunications and
broadcasting have played a major role in the modernization of
many societies; they are essential elements in the creation of
mass society and the globalization of culture and for many
people represent the most significant link with social reality.
(E.G., CNN coverage of the Gulf War, essentially a viewing:
War! Live! Via Satellite! A review of the coverage revealed that
"live" transmissions from reporters in Baghdad where in fact
based on information gained via telephone links to New York
and London where foreign correspondents and government
officials had much more idea of what was going on). Who was
interpreting the war? Who had access to that information? Who
had cable? Or more basically, who had TV? How did war affect
these people?
In the War on Afghanistan these issues are again highlighted
especially with conflicting coverage of American media and
the Arabic station, Al Jazeera.
And here at home: the coverage (or more accurately, the
propaganda) of the elites EDSA Dos activities as compared to
the non coverage of the working class and poors EDSA Tres
(not newsworthy).
F. Media, therefore, is not a neutral provider of information
III.

Media and the Construction of Reality and Consensus

A. Media do not simply provide information and reflect a social

world. Rather they structure reality for us; not simply
increasing our knowledge of the world but helping us to "make
sense" of it.
B. More fundamentally, media is one major means by which we
construct an understanding of the lives, values, and practices of
others, and how we acquire a sense of how the whole of "social
reality" hangs together. Media provide us with frameworks or
guidelines for interpreting social reality, encouraging certain
lines of thinking and perception, discouraging others. So media
view society through a selective framework. The coverage of
the media (and the contrasting editorials, especially) of the
CODE-NGO anomaly.
C. In so doing, media appear to rely on an apparently prevailing
consensus, but one in which they have played a part
constructing so they use a consensus image of society and help
to reproduce it. So media assume that the majority of members
of society are in agreement on norms, values and ideas. Like
having a common stock of knowledge, values, attitudes, etc.
A very good example of this is the dominant image of the Third
World that is projected in the First World. "This image is one in
which war, poverty, famine, disaster and drought are either
natural disasters or self-inflicted wounds which visit TW
societies on occasion. These disasters or social upheavals are
often explained in terms of the general inefficiency or even
corruption common to TW societies or because of their lack of
rational values or scientific or professional processes of
management.
Such views are not uncommon and often condition the way that
the FW see and relate to the TW. The Band AID concert in the

UK or the USA for Africa concert to raise money for the

starving people of Ethiopia in the 1980s or the Oxfam appeals
in the 1990s for help in Somalia or Rwanda appear to deny the
FW and the West any part in creating such situations.
Charitable appeals ask the FW citizens to respond in
humanitarian ways, but while they are generally hugely
successful in terms of raising money they do little to prevent
those problems reoccurring. FW attention to such disasters is
often brought about by media coverage, including media
appeals by the rich and famous on behalf of charities. Such
appeals are intended to prick consciences of the FW and then
ease them by credit card payments over the telephone.
D. The consequences of this consensus image of society: assumes
that people have roughly the same economic and political
interests and that people roughly have an equal share of power.
As George Bush would say on his war on terror, You are
either with us or against us (or somos o no somos)
E. So, according to the media, there exist no fundamental
conflicts of interests between groups, and that there are
legitimate institutionalized means for resolving conflicts that
occur; and members of society enjoy equality before the law
and equal access to decision-making opportunities.
F. Any activity beyond this institutionalized resolution is not
permissible and perpetrators are less credible. So more critical
attention or no attention at all is paid to so-called rabblerousers: they are peripheral, fanatical, fads, terrorists. On the
other hand, spokespersons expressing legitimate opinions are
less likely to be questioned. (E.G., strikes, shutdowns, dissent
are seen as threats to law and order, strikes and demonstrations
are fragmented and incoherent).

G. Media say they merely reflect. Or as one media owner said,

"television does not make the times, it only follows them."
This statement assumes public opinion is not determined by
some actors and institutions rather than others. In fact the
opportunity to influence the production of ideas is unequally
distributed. The influence of media owners and advertisers is
paramount in media production. Therefore, media is not just
market-driven, and so exaggerating the power of the customer.
Media are not giving what the audience wants. Media
owners have always sought to intervene in media production
to further their own economic and political interests as well as
those of others whom they support. (E.G., TV Stations ABSCBN and GMA 7 , in support of the anti-Marcos forces and
again of the EDSA Dos forces and not televising the EDSA
Tres; Channel 9 and 13, sequestered channels, only carry the
government line). Also look at the coverage in the Philippine
press on the sex abuse scandal of Roman Catholic priests in the
UShardly anything because of the pressure of the Church in
the Philippine press to bury the scandal.) And advertising is a
multibillion dollar business placing it in a strong position to
influence the content of media.
H. Thus the production of meaning and the exercise of power in
media by big business means the increasing control exerted
over cultural production by large corporations and the failure
of governments to regulate such development This means, as
well, that the selection and promotion of particularly cultural
forms and discourses are determined by economic interests
rather than cultural factors.
E.G., the Americanization of Philippine TV, like the
Americanization of Philippine leadership (Gloria is Georgia
Girl or Uncle Sams girl; Ramos was an Amboy because of
the dominance of the US in our economy and the over all

dominance of the US in media and communications

technology).
E.g., In the US the coverage of the war on terror is an
example of business and state collusion. In the US, its enemies
are terrorists; but in other parts of the world, these same
terrorists are called freedom fighters. E.g., the Palestinians
in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
I. And it is also not accurate to see media consumption as a
matter of free choice of the audience and its ability to impose
its own interpretation on cultural texts. For in fact there are
material and cultural barriers to free and equal access to media
and its products. Media consumption is differentiated by social
class, age, race and gender. To liberal feminists, media
organizations are a male, mediocre, middle-aged, and middleclass broadcasting boys' club, fronted by women with pleasing
personalities.
J. A critical media, critical of the status quo, are exceptional, not
routine
K. E.G., News doesn't merely happen. It is made a socially
manufactured product. These are not the only events that
happen in a day, but media defines what is news. And it is not a
random "agenda-setting"; it is a systematic product of a
number of forces. (Again the example of EDSA Dos and
EDSA Tres: what is news and what is not: 300,000 elites vs.
1.5-3 million masa)
IV.

Constraints on Media News

A. While the frameworks of perception of what is and is not news
is partly internally generated through news gathering
procedures and technical restrictions and "news values", the

process of what these organizations call "agenda-setting", there

is a hierarchy of credibility in terms of structures of in
interpretation--powerful/high status people are consulted for
definitions of reality.
B. And media being big business as it is, there is a fundamental
material constraint in the patterns of ownership and control.
While media is to some extent market driven audience-led
(e.g., by market shares and advertising revenue), Media is
unlikely to offer radical solutions to social inequality or
frameworks at odds with the dominant value system.
C. Increasingly, however, media now is not a mere component of
capitalist society. The press has been integrated into the core
sectors of financial and industrial capital and furthermore, it is
now a part of commercial conglomerates. So media is part of a
wider range of enterprises such as record sales, paperback
books, cinema, newspapers, radio and TV. There is a steady
concentration of control. There has progressively been an
increasing interrelation of different sectors of the media (ABSCBN: TV, radio, newspapers, movies, telephone; Ted Turner: ,
videos, radio, cinemas, TV.)
D. Diversification and conglomeration are ways of maintaining
and expanding profit potential. How? By spin offs: a popular
film has a spin off into a book or vice versa, and records, TV
(making of, behind the scenes, coming attractions, animation),
fashion, merchandise (e.g. Batman and Robin, Jurassic).
Disney has perfected this.
E. So now, something like ABC news which is a press entity, by
becoming part of Disney, is bound to be depoliticized,
commercialized and integrated into the economic and political
core of society; a medium which began its life as a potential
force for political agitation and social change (as many news

organizations had their start) has become a part of the

entertainment industry
F. What is occurring here is that through takeover of their rivals,
conglomerates have expanded via a process of horizontal
integration to establish their dominance in particular areas of
the media, E.G., publication, or TV. While through the process
of vertical integration companies have extended their
operations into media distribution as well as production. (E.G.
SONY, an electronics giant, bought into Columbia to have
greater control over media consumption. So now they own the
territory, the hardware, the software and the talent. )
V.

Important Implications on the Nature and Pattern of Media

Ownership
A. The goal of maximum profit and the need to maintain
advertising revenues increase the likelihood that media will
find the "lowest common denominator" at which to direct
output. This type of outcome not only ignores substantive
issues but also ignores the needs and opinions of minority
groups.
B. This limits the range and diversity of views and opinions. So
again in this manner the ownership and control of the means to
mental production also becomes increasingly concentrated.

VI. Media, Politics and the Economy

A. Often Media are the prime contributor in the creation of
"devils around whom "moral panics" take root, increasing the
likelihood of something/someone being noticed. (E.G., Ethnic
crime, skinheads, leftists mean trouble)

B. But often pride of place is given by media to reporting

industrial relations and economic affairs. EG, strikes are
portrayed unfavorably. Strikes cause economic problems,
inconvenience. Strikers or even demonstrators are described in
such language as militants, or if women, frazzled feminists.
News of these sort are presented within a set of consensual
assumptions about relations between capital and labor. So
strikes are disruptive. The state is seen as a neutral overseer,
disinterested, and only working for the "public or the common
good."
C. Strikes are seen as shortsighted, greedy with dubious political
motives rather than as arising from the structure of inequality
within capitalist society-- as a legitimate expression of a
fundamental conflict of interest between labor and capital.
D. So strikes are "bad news", and union leaders are always asked
to provide justification. As a matter of routine, Media assume
the correctness of management.
E. Strikes for wage increases are "bad news" because according to
Media they cause inflation. So trade unions are irresponsible.
Therefore "policies for solution of inflation"--a fundamental
economic problem--is to control wage increases.
VII. What of Media Imperialism?
A. The production and diffusion of media have penetrated the
TW. A global culture empire has been established and TW
countries are especially vulnerable because they lack the
resources with which to maintain their own cultural
independence.

B. The World Information Order is controlled by the West,

particularly the US, which means inevitably the predominance
of the FW outlook.
C. Global Inequality in the telecommunications technology will
likely become more pronounced in the future: more powerful
than colonization. It is neo-colonialism--an extension of the
geo-political web. Media have the power to penetrate more
deeply into a "receiving" culture than any previous
manifestation of Western technology. Results: havoc and the
intensification of social contradiction within TW societies and
often a response of Viruses..
D. American TNCs in communication practically rule the world
in the transmission and creation of news and they are doing the
production and distribution of TV programs, movies,
advertisements, music and other forms of electronic
communication as well as electronic channels. 9/10 of all
records held in data bases throughout the world are accessible
to the US government or other organizations in the US.
VIII. Some Conclusions on the Media
A. So the content of media is organized around particular
solutions and explanations. In this sense the ideological
character of the media resides in their creating and reinforcing
acceptance of dominant social and political values, which take
as given and accord legitimacy to the social-political and
economic status quo. In so doing, it constitutes a mechanism of
social control in society
B. As one sociologist said. "any section of society enjoying
special privileges, whether marginal or otherwise, produces its
own mythology, the function of the myth being to give
sanction to the possession of the exclusive privilege.

C. This aspect of mythology-making also accounts for the

differences in the use of media by social class, gender, race and
age
D. Nonetheless, the convictions of people are not something
simply manipulated by capitalists or put into the minds of the
masses by them, but rather they flow from the exigencies of
everyday life under capitalism. The subordinate classes in
capitalism hold the values and political ideas that they do as a
consequence of both trying to survive and of attempting to
enjoy themselves, within capitalism. The desire to consume
various material and cultural products Put on sale by capitalism
are constructed by ideological mechanisms, especially by the
mass media. This is the concept of HEGEMONY at work.
(Hegemony: when those in power seek to establish "moral and
philosophical leadership" over the mass of the population by
winning their active consent.)
This media transmitted ideology establishes itself through two
processes of mediation--technological and social.
1. Technological mediation refers to the power of the
media to influence human consciousness on behalf of
the consumer society. Advertising is the classic example
of this: selling capitalism's biggest and brightest and
most current products and the political-economiccultural infrastructure that goes along with them. But
media personnel are not coerced or manipulated into
deliberately misrepresenting social reality; they have
become socialized into accepting the values and
techniques of their profession and to a large degree
believe in what they are doing and that they are giving
the customers what they want.

2. Social mediation emphasizes the active involvement of

people in the hegemonic process. If we are duped by the
system, we are partly responsible by virtue of our
participation in the language and image systems which
have been created by the media. In our everyday
interaction with one another we give credibility to and
reinforce "media transmitted ideology" by referring to
its content and using its codes and incorporating its
messages into our social discourse. The admission that
ordinary people have a part to play in creating and
reaffirming their culture raises the possibility that the
audience may also reinterpret, resist or reject the
preferred messages of those responsible for media
production and thus undermine the ideological control
of those in power. (EDSA Tres against Big Media) And
in fact some television producers around the world have
managed to preserve their local identities against the
threat of cultural imperialism and global
homogenization.
E. What are the consequences of technological developments and
the instant availability of information and entertainment? There
are two opinions on this.
1. The "Neophiliacs" on the one hand, see that we are
moving towards a bright new post-industrial future: (the
Information Society) where the whole world is at our
fingertips thanks to such things as the Internet and
WWW. Interactive communications will increase the
opportunities for democratic participation ; and
education while authoritarian national governments
struggle to control the flow of information (E.G.,
China). Customer choice becomes paramount as
demand is stimulated and satisfied by a range of
specialized channels and services.

2. The "cultural pessimists" on the other hand point to the

inevitable decline of quality broadcasting and the
damage done to cultural standards by the new forms of
communication. Concentration of media ownership, the
globalization of culture and the distortion of political
power represent the unwelcome side of the new, mediasaturated order. We run the risk of creating a world
where the principle of universal access to information is
sacrificed in the interests of diversity of production and
consumer choice. The end results may be a divisive
fragmentation based on access to the skills and
technology required to travel the information
superhighway or to experience cyberspace. As the poor
and ill-educated are excluded from these skills and
technology, they will become an unplugged,
disenfranchised underclass" falling further behind the
technological elite

F. The potential of the media for political influence and control

has also been widely recognized. It is not an accident that in
times of political upheaval the fiercest battles are often for the
control of the radio or television stations as warring factions
seek to establish ideological as well as military victory (EDSA
1986)
G. In periods of political stability, the media also play a major role
in establishing and maintaining social order and political
control . During the Marcos dictatorship the regime
deliberately suppressed freedom of expression through official
censorship while at the same time seeking to establish
ideological hegemony through orchestrated propaganda
campaigns.

H. As to the relationship between media and violence. The studies

show that the extent to which media affect attitudes and
behavior is contentious. While it is clear that people will be
influenced by what they read, see, and hear, evidence on
whether the media directly determine specific forms of
behavior--whether watching violence causes children to behave
violently, for instance, is inconclusive. This is also the case
with what is called pornography. So for some children, under
some conditions, some TV is harmful. For some others it may
be beneficial. But for most children under most conditions,
most television is neither particularly harmful nor particularly
beneficial.