Globalization, Changing National Policy, and the State

Globalization, Changing National Policy, and the State

Globalization constrains the ways in which the nation-state can direct and support cultural industries, a major force described in Chapter 2. A number of globalizing forces seem to reduce the autonomy of the nation­ state. Major changes in trade regimes are essentially becoming shifts of power toward multilateral governance and regulation. There is a strong replication of global patterns, particularly those of commercial broad­ casting, based on advertising. An underlying shift toward global capital­ ism promotes commercial operation and advertising finance. These tend to push national governments toward opening up or liberalizing com­ petition, as well as privatizing media previously controlled by the state or public corporations, like the BBC. Highly concentrated, large global media firms have operations that penetrate most societies across the

world and compete with national media that are often more under state control. Finally, satellite and cable TV channels and operations belonging to global firms reach directly into most societies in the world, some­ times bypassing state controls or even forcing them to open up terrestrial broadcasting to new stations.

New international trade approaches or regimes are enshrined in power­ ful agencies such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the World Bank (Sinclair, 1 995). These institu­

tions challenge the legitimacy and legality of many of the mechanisms that states had used to protect and subsidize national cultural industries. Global

financial institutions now move stock investments and currency transactions so quickly that states cannot control them (Friedman, 1 999).

New international media conglomerates, for example, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation or Time Warner, also integrate operations in many countries in ways that can often bypass state controls or regulations (Herman

& McChesney, 1 997). They also create operations such as direct satellite broadcast channels or Web sites that are capable of bypassing borders and

controls. They also concentrate production of media in a few Western countries and then spread that content to many countries via the new tech­ nological channels of satellite and cable TV.

94 Chapter 4 Satellites permit single companies or broadcast organizations, for

example, the BBC, to cover the whole Earth, if they can afford and arrange the technology. However, even forms of television that seem likely to be highly global, like satellite pay television, require the cooperation of the

nation-state to collect license fees, advertise, set up dishes, and so on. In perhaps the most spectacular example, Rupert Murdoch discovered that although he could technically broadcast from satellites into China from Hong Kong without the Peoples' Republic of China's (PRC) permission, he

could not build an audience or make money without the PRC's cooperation. Global television companies such as HBO are U.S.-owned but have regional offices that carefully track and comply with national rules on both their con­ tent and the cable and satellite systems that deliver their content to audi­

ences. For example, although HBO would make more money as a premium channel in Taiwan, with separate fees to subscribers (the way it operates in the United States), national Taiwanese regulators require it to be offered as

a basic service channel, paid for as part of an overall fee to cable providers at a much lower price (Spink, personal communication, August 1 7, 2006) .

Deregulation, Liberalization, and Privatization

The push for liberalization and privatization of ownership since the 1 980s represented a change in the international consensus or intellectual and pol­ icy regime about national economic activities and policies. Political economy analysts have correctly pointed out that this is an instance of renewed

predominance of underlying economic policy changes, such as deregula­ tion, which come to affect or even determine media policy changes. Both

multilateral organizations, such as the World Bank and World Trade Organization, and core-country governments, like the United States and Great Britain, have promoted deregulation of industry, including cultural industries. Deregulation often includes liberalized entry of private firms into media, entry of foreign firms, increased concentration of ownership, increased vertical and horizontal - integration of production and distribu­

tion, less protection of national content producers, and less concern about national control of management.

A number of countries have privatized national broadcasters by selling channels to private interests. Privatization has been pushed for a number of reasons, including reducing government's ability to control political con­ tent, acquiring investment capital to start or improve channels, and opening

investment opportunities to powerful international companies.

The privatization of government television has often been promoted as a form of political opening, a movement from more authoritarian controls to

Creating Global, U.S., and Transnational Television Spaces 95

more competitive and open private systems. A striking precedent came when French socialist President Fran\:ois Mitterrand began to liberalize competi­ tion in radio and television by allowing new private networks to enter the market in the 1980s. Mitterrand began privatizing TF-1 , one of the major state networks, because he felt he had been politically disadvantaged by the political control of its newscasts when, as a state enterprise, its news orientation had been controlled by the Gaullist Party, prior to his defeat of them in an election. Interestingly, the process was continued and finalized

by Jacques Chirac of the Gaullist Party, for similar reasons (Brants & Siune, 1 992).

Other parties out of power have similarly pushed to privatize major news channels to reduce control over them by parties in power. This has ranged over several regions and several types of ideological control and rivalry. The Argentine military had taken control of the country's three networks when it took power by coup in 1 976. When the military government collapsed after the Falklands/Malvinas war, the stations were put back in private hands as part of what was called a transition from authoritarianism to the rule of civil society. In several central and eastern European countries, part of the 1 990s transition from Socialist or Communist Party rule was the privatization of television stations and networks. This has been pushed by domestic would-be private broadcasters, reflecting their own commercial interests, as well as by domestic anti-authoritarian political forces wishing to decentralize power and open up civil society. However, U.S. development policy and institutions of public diplomacy have also pushed hard for priva­ tization of media in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Arab world (Hartenberger, 2005; Iskander, 2006).

In some countries, liberalization of competition has primarily served to increase nationally owned and nationally focused television networks. New commercial television networks often turn first to importing globally popu­ lar programs, mostly from the United States but also sometimes including Latin American telenovelas or Bollywood films. Newly privatized operations often do not initially have all the factors discussed in Chapter 3 for begin­ ning or increasing national production. However, they often start producing more national material because it is more popular with audiences and, hence, also more attractive to advertisers, who want the largest possible audience (Straubhaar, 1991). For example, Turkey now has three private networks in addition to the state/public channel, TRT. All four primarily program nationally produced serials, having gradually replaced imported

serials, particularly U.S. soap operas and Latin American telenovelas, which had dominated prime time along with U.S. feature films until a few years ago

(Sengul, 2006).

96 Chapter 4