Transnational Television For many aspects of television in the world, transnational is a more current

and appropriate level of analysis than global, per se (Chalaby, 2005c). As a term, transnational has a merit over international in that actors are not con

fined to the nation-state or to nationally institutionalized organizations; they may range from individuals to various (non}profitable, transnationally con nected organizations and groups, and the conception of culture implied

is not limited to a national framework. As Hannerz ( 1 996, p. 6) argued, the term transnational is "more humble, and often a more adequate label for

phenonema which can be of quite variable scale and distribution" than the term global, which sounds too all-inclusive and decontextualized. Moreover, the term transnational

draws attention in a more locally contextualized manner to the interconnec tions and asymmetries that are promoted by the multidirectional flow of infor mation and images, and by the ongoing cultural mixing and infiltration of these messages; it effectively disregards nationally demarcated boundaries both

from above and below, the most important of which are capital, people, and

media/images. (Iwabuchi 2002, p. 1 7) Chalaby (2005a) points out that the late 20th century produced many

phenomena that were indeed globalizing. Satellite and optical fiber networks permitted companies and services to obtain global reach. Some television channels, such as CNN, became global in scope. Large integrated corporate empires such as Murdoch's News Corporation pushed for global reach,

Chapter 4 especially in advertising, where local firms partnered extensively with 1 0 or

so dominant global firms.

However, some globalizing firms also pulled back, as SBC sold off overseas telecommunications acquisitions that had proved to be less profitable than expected or as Vivendi's board pulled out of its recent media empire amid multibillion-dollar losses in 2002. In response to a situation in which global organizations and strategies are not always most profitable, some global firms are decentralizing to become more diverse and regionalized, segmented, and adapted to various circumstances, more transnational than global (Chalaby, 2005a). MTV's diverse adaptations and partnerships around the world repre sent the transnationalization of what still is a global brand but now is struc tured as a "transnational network of local channels" (Chalaby, 2005c, p. 3 1 ).

Chalaby (2005b) argued that globalization from the central economies of the world continues but is now supplemented, perhaps supplanted in some areas, by a push into transnational activity by many firms and institutions

that were not part of the dominant global firms. These new players often come from major developing country producers such as Zee TV in India (Thussu, 2005), Future TV in Lebanon (Kraidy, 2006), Al-Jazeera in Qatar (El-Nawawy & Iskandar, 2003 ), Channel News Asia in Singapore, or TVB in Hong Kong (Chan, 1 996).

Audiences are also increasingly transnational. Diasporas of people from China, various African cultures, India, and Pakistan, among others around the world, now serve as audiences for producers from "home. " However, as

Sinclair and Cunningham (2000) pointed out, old distinctions between home countries of origin and new home countries of immigration are increasingly

tenuous, as people circulate back and forth and create hybrid identities that bridge the two multilayered identities that include both in parallel.

Transnationalization points out the salience of forces that cross borders, but it also makes clear that borders persist. The use of transnational still

strongly implies that in many areas, national borders exist to be crossed. Some writers, such as Nederveen Pieterse (2004), have provocatively asserted that in the long run, borders are difficult to maintain against the natural

flow of culture across them. Clearly, the strength of national borders varies

a great deal. Some countries, such as Canada, China, and France, work very hard at protecting and promoting national culture, with policies empow ered to place barriers of tariffs, quotas, and other protections on cultural goods that might cross their borders (Grantham, 2000) . Other countries have no policy at all about cultural sovereignty or the protection of national culture. Some countries, such as Brazil and Mexico, rely on strong internal cultural industries to displace cultural imports, rather than resorting to formal barriers.

Creating Global, U.S., and Transnational Television Spaces 1 07 Conceptualizing transnationalism presents a challenge. Some transna

tional television operations are governments or national broadcasters that primarily think of migrant or diaspora audiences who want to watch televi

sion from back home. Others are truly global institutions like the BBC, which have to think globally, transnationally, regionally, and nationally to reach all those they wish to reach. In between are various others. Translocal

broadcasters often originally wanted to use transnational satellite technol ogy to break into a home market that restricted new commercial competi

tors, such as India or Turkey. Of the many types of transnational broadcasters, few have truly global reach. Chalaby (2005a) described four types of transnational broadcasters in Europe: ethnic channels, multiterritory operations, pan-European (or more broadly, regional) channels, and networks. Globally or transnationally

owned and targeted channels or programs often have to be localized to be effective. This localization process is described more in Chapter 6.

Geocultural or Cultural-Linguistic Regions lwabuchi (2002) argued for thinking of globalization as decentered.

Instead of thinking of a globalization centered on the experience of the industrialized West, he added other centers of global power, such as Japan.

One can see the development of geocultural regions or transnational cul tural-linguistic markets that are less than global but more than national,

based on both geography and cultural-linguistic identity groupings. These supranational cultural-linguistic regions are perhaps more crucial to many television viewers than globalization per se (Sinclair et al., 1 996). Cultural

linguistic and geocultural television markets are typically unified by lan guage (even though different accents and dialects may divide countries

somewhat). Beyond language, however, such markets are also defined by history, religion, ethnicity (in some cases), and culture in several ways: ( 1 ) shared identity, gestures, and nonverbal communication; (2) ideas of

what is considered funny or serious or even sacred; (3) clothing styles; (4) living patterns; and (5) climate influences and other relationships with the environment. Indian movies are popular in the Arab world for such similarities; Brazilian telenovelas (evening serials or soaps) dubbed into Spanish are more popular than the American Dallas or Dynasty because of such similarities (Straubhaar & Viscasillas, 1991). Iwabuchi ( 1 997) showed that Taiwanese

young people see Japanese television and music as culturally proximate, sharing a sense of "Asian modernity," despite the language difference between Japanese and Chinese.

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Chapter 4

As an example of the role of cultural elements beyond language in this process, Chadha and Kavoori (2000) noted that even Asian audiences in countries where substantial minorities speak English, such as Hong Kong,

India, and the Philippines, still prefer local television dramas to imported television dramas. They attributed this to the fact that Asian programs show similar lifestyles, norms, and sentiments.

In geocultural regions, such as Latin America, Asia, or the Middle East, regional cultural industries have been selling to regional cultural markets, based on language, religion, ethnicity, colonial heritage, historical roots, and

so on, for hundreds of years. In Latin America, Asia, and the Middle East, hundreds of millions of people regularly watch regionally produced soap

operas, comedies, and variety shows-far more than watch the truly global channels, such as CNN, Discovery, HBO, or MTV. These dynamics have resulted in many types of media development, resulting in a series of rela tionships that stretch across a continuum from rather complete dependency to dominant interdependence (even the United States has discovered that it is not independent) . This range of relationships can be called a form of asym metrical interdependence.

Sometimes, regional cultural industry is led by demand, when geocultural conditions permit markets to develop around shared cultural conditions in multiple cultures and countries. Sometimes, governments pursue them by trade agreements and other policy initiatives (Galperin, 1999). In 1 989, the European Union Directive on Broadcasting set some rules to consolidate the single European Audiovisual Space. Their intention was to create a European market for "television without frontiers."

Aspects of shared history often draw countries together in cultural linguistic markets. Media programmers or marketers can take such com monalties and consciously try to synthesize a cultural-linguistic market out of common elements, glossing over significant differences. For example, broadcasters and marketers in the United States have attempted to con struct a pan-ethnic Hispanic audience to create a broader Latino market that would economically justify production of programming and generate broader potential sales. Rodriguez ( 1 999) remarked, "This conceptualiza

tion of ethnicity ignores or submerges structural variables such as race and class, represented in differing U.S. immigration histories" (p. xx). As she further noted, this construction of a pan-ethnic Latino audience (submerg ing racial identities ranging from indigenous, black, or European to various

combinations) has been consciously related to the creation of a broader Latin American market: "Latino panethnicity has been broadened in the

construction of panamericanism, the notion that the U.S. Hispanic market is one segment-albeit the wealthiest segment-of a hemispheric market

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

that embraces Spanish speakers in North, Central, and South America" (Rodriguez, 1 999, p. xx) .

Transnational Television For many aspects of television in the world, transnational is a more current