Asymmetrical Interdependence and World Television It seems more theoretically sensible to place nations on a continuum between

fairly complete dependence on global actors, systems, and products, which is still true for some of the world's smallest and poorest nations, and the

relatively dominant but still interdependent positions of the United States, Japan, and the major European nations. It seems clear that there are many

gradations in between, not just three categories of periphery, semiperiphery and core, as Wallerstein ( 1 976) argued. As I argued in Chapter 1, this situ ation can be viewed as gradations in asymmetrical interdependence between

nations, cultures, and organizations such as companies. In this analysis, I try to go further to look at the interdependencies and mutual bounding of structural factors, such as economics, technology, and culture. Receiving, borrowing, and adapting foreign models tends to perpet uate asymmetrical interdependence. For example, even if Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, or Brazil prospers in television exports using an adaptation of the U.S. commercial network production model, their development is still some

what conditioned by the lasting effects of that model. However, the interde pendence aspect of the term is quite real, too. All of those countries adapt and change the model in different ways. They even use their several adapted

versions of the commercial television model to successfully substitute for and compete with U.S. exports, particularly within cultural-linguistic mar kets, where their versions of a given genre will often be more appealing. Their adaptations of the soap opera, the drama, the music video, and the variety show are more popular than the original U.S. prototypes (Sinclair, 1 999).

There are limits on many of these globalizing forces. Many nations resist trade regimes, and a number have obtained specific exemptions for cultural products such as film and television. Global patterns of television are often adapted and hybridized, recalling that new global forces undergo hybridiza tion with local cultures just as older precolonial and colonial forces did. Global capitalism is itself hybridized by cultural forces and regulated into adaptation by many nation-states, which fight to retain this power. Several states have worked hard to control seemingly difficult-to-control technolo gies such as satellite television (Chan, 1 994) and the Internet (Kalathil & Boas, 2001 ), most notably China, with some success. Admittedly, nation states vary enormously in their interest in and ability to exercise such con trols, but quite a few attempt control and, to varying degrees, succeed.

Chapter 4 Highly concentrated global media firms are also frequently contested

successfully in national and regional markets by local media firms, although the latter also tend to be highly concentrated, even monopolistic. Serious questions about the exercise of political power remain, even when content is produced by a national commercial quasi-monopoly, such as Televisa in Mexico, rather than by the United States or other industrialized nation exporters. U.S. hegemony over television exports has been increasing con

tested by national, regional, and even global producers in a number of other countries. Many of the apparently global satellite and cable television chan

nels have been localized or hybridized into something quite different than what their global owners or partners originally intended. Furthermore, many

of the most successful satellite and cable channels are now regionally or nationally controlled, sometimes in partnership with global media giants,

often not.

Increasing Complexity

The Technology of Creating Global and National Television Spaces

Asymmetrical Interdependence and World Television It seems more theoretically sensible to place nations on a continuum between