Critical Media Research, Globalisation Theory and Commercialisation

Journalism and Globalisation: Paradigms, Problems, Prospects

“…Media and journalism scholars more or less agree that journalism can be understood both as expressions of globalisation and as the forces that drive it forward [1][2][3][4][5]. However, due to the breadth and multidimensionality of issues that have been connected to globalisation, it is hard, if not impossible, to give an exhaustive definition of the word and grasp the nature of changes implied for journalism, although attempts have been made in this regard [4,[6][7][8][9].…”

“…Media and journalism scholars more or less agree that journalism can be understood both as expressions of globalisation and as the forces that drive it forward [1][2][3][4][5]. However, due to the breadth and multidimensionality of issues that have been connected to globalisation, it is hard, if not impossible, to give an exhaustive definition of the word and grasp the nature of changes implied for journalism, although attempts have been made in this regard [4,[6][7][8][9]. At the same time, the processes of globalisation have generated a vast literature -ranging from those supporting its prospects in political, economic and cultural life [10,11], through others who are concerned with the realities of globalization [12,13], to authors who proclaim that the implications suggested by the globalisation theories are a "myth" [14].…”

“…Although the notion of globalisation is used so frequently that it engenders a certain amount of weariness, as Ampuja [4] writes, it is of importance in contemporary media and journalism theory. This importance lies in the dual meaning that the term possesses: it is not only used as a descriptive term in discussions about changes in journalism, it has also become a conceptual framework for explaining the changing nature of journalism, news and newswork [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21].…”

“…Since the 1980s and 1990s, the centralised dynamics of change across local boundaries, facilitated by fuzzy concepts of Americanisation or Westernisation, have been criticised by the counterargument that global flows are "multidirectional" and that the simple image of Western political, economic and cultural domination obscures the complexity, reciprocity and unevenness of its interaction between local and global [27][28][29]. Furthermore, Curran and Park [1] warn contemporary scholars that identifying characteristics that cut across the boundaries of geography, culture, language, society, region, race and ethnicity appear as simplistic universalist and uniformist perspectives, which have been overcome in recent investigations on journalism globalization -at least to a degree [1,3,4,15,16].…”

“…In contemporary critical media and journalism studies, different paradigms of globalisation have emerged, which point at various ways of understanding social reality, different approaches to the notion of change, and distinct conceptions of how globalisation works, what its constituent elements are, and what its implications are. From literature review, three paradigms can be identified within media and globalisation discussions [3][4][5]15,30]: media-technological, cultural and political-economic paradigms. Since the boundaries between different approaches to journalism and globalisation are blurred, these paradigms do not exhaust the debate -they represent only the main trends and dynamics.…”