A World of Negative International Reporting

Much is wrong in the realm of international reporting. We have the dropping number of international correspondents, general disinterest in foreign affairs and widespread interference of special interests in reporting accurately about international topics. It seems like international stories just aren't as important.

However, there is more (to use a bit of a play on words) bad news...the over-arching theme in existing international reporting is most often framed in a negative light.

Hafez is our champion of this - our bearer of bad news, if you will. He asserts what is called the "conflict perspective" in international reporting. Essentially, Hafez utilizes the Foreign News study and MacBride Report to bring statistical validity to the notion that news coverage of international topics is overwhelmingly negative and insulates a consistent image of a "chaotic, distant foreign world".

These sentiments are echoed in the other readings as well. The Powers and El-Nawawy article highlighting the efforts of Al-Jazeera English as a uniting media force in the Middle East and elsewhere seems to also take their findings with a grain of salt. They note that although those who watch Al-Jazeera eventually gain a more well-rounded perspective and will eventually make more open-minded decisions, seeing these results happen are very far off.

A look at any news network will further support Hafez's findings. The top international stories from the BBC, CNN and GlobalPost are all about Western sanctions on Iran, the resignation of the Cabinet in Egypt and Chinese ships infiltrating the South China Sea.

These are prime examples because they demonstrate many of the notions discussed in our readings. First, they represent international topics that are all tied back to political or economic interests of superpowers, which gives these topics precedent over other, perhaps softer news topics around the world. Second, this supports the former notions of Steven Livingston, who surmised that post-Cold War world would emerge as a "clash of civilizations," particularly between the Western and Islamic regions. All of these stories demonstrate geo-regional powers flexing their muscles on a global scale, two of the three involving the Islamic region.

I think it is unfortunate that international reporting must be this way. I feel like there is a lot of writing out there that focuses upon culturally stimulating and very educational aspects of different countries, even those that the U.S. may be in opposition with. If journalism is really supposed to be the fourth estate and serve as an intermediary between states to communicate objectively and accurately in the best fashion possible, then there is sadly work to be done.

I would agree with the notion that there needs to be some cultural tweaking from region to region as reporting needs to adhere to the norms of certain societies, but I feel like there is a way to express opposing views without using hot-button language, sensational stories and letting only the most extreme talking heads on air. What is needed is intellectual, level-headed discourse media that examines international topics of all kinds, not just conflict, and that takes into full account the special interests of all parties involved: states, people and the media organizations themselves.

Now that's fair and balanced, isn't it?

Can A Decentralized Global Justice Movement Work?

Jeffrey Juris' article "Networked Social Movements: Global Movements for Global Justice" brings up a theme we've discussed in class on multiple occasions: decentralization. In his argument, Juris describes social movements of the modern day as reliant upon information communication technologies (ICTs) to effectively rally activists around the world for one particular cause. Juris notes that these transnational advocacy networks (which he actually refers to as global justice movements) have been revolutionary in the way connections are bridged via network-based technologies like list-servs, social sites and wiki-type open source software.

The crux of transnational activism, according to Juris, is that using networks decentralizes the process, yet communicates the message over a farther distance to a greater number of people, resulting in mass worldwide protests like the one against the World Trade Organization in 1999 in Seattle and subsequent anti-corporate protests, many of which take place at the same time as major economic forums or summits to gain more attention.

Juris cites many protests in the early Millennium, but perhaps the most current and (to be honest) blatant example of a worldwide anti-corporate global justice movement would be more fitting. I wonder what that could be? Oh, that's right. That whole Occupy thing.

Occupy is everywhere nowadays, with protests in nearly all US cities and many more across the globe including Rome, Brisbane, Paris and Cape Town. It seems to follow Juris' notion of a decentralized movement, gaining steam through networks of like-minded citizens around the world working together in a horizontal and autonomous fashion where there is no clear authority figure, just a "power of the people" so to speak. For some fascinating news on how this is happening in real time, check out an article about how Occupy is starting the Free Network Foundation to provide decentralize peer-to-peer Internet for the movement.

It all sounds idyllic, right? Concerned activists around the world join forces of their own volition and create a united front against global corporate control. Well, I'm afraid the success of the Occupy movement, or of any decentralized movement, will depend upon its ability to change from a decentralized state to a more organized, identifiable state.

I'll invoke the early sociological work of Herbert Blumer, who first identified the four stages of social movements: Emergence, Coalescence, Bureaucratization and Decline. If we look at the Occupy movement, we can see that it is somewhere between Emergence and Coalescence. In Emergence, there is no defined leadership of a movement and there are no clear goals, simply a rising sense of unrest. In Coalescence the movement begins occurring on a mass scale as more realize they are unhappy. However, in this stage there are some critical transformations, such as the election or appointment of leadership throughout the movement as well as a refining of what exact goals the movement is attempting to attain and exactly what targets they should be protesting against.

These are steps the Occupy movement hasn't reached, and according to Blumer many movements do not fully complete Coalescence before they fizzle out. I can make an inference and say that if the Occupy movement does not alter its decentralized global justice popularity and turn it into something more tangible it may suffer the consequences.

I understand what Juris is saying. It is very revolutionary that ICTs allow transnational networks to form and enabled globally united groups of people. However, I think when the information and communication processes speed up, the time we expect action and progress does as well. Is it really possible in the month or so the Occupy movement has really picked up steam that they could change their tactics enough to get all of its rabble-rousers to agree on points of change as well as leaders before the media fire dies? Will the decentralized nature of the Occupy movement even be able to change, as its supporters note its network approach to be one of its best traits?

I look forward to watching further coverage to see if Occupy goes by the wayside or puts on a different hat in order to stay afloat.

The TV Format Marketplace

Most people don’t realize how international TV truly is. Until the last week, I didn’t realize the overlaps that exist between the programming in different countries. I knew that there were a few shows with multiple national versions, like X Factor and So You Think You Can Dance. But I had always thought those were exceptions, not norms. In fact, it is very common for shows to be sold either as the original production, with or without dubbing, or as a format. A format is the premise of a show that can then be remade to adapt to another culture or country.

The other surprising thing to me is that the US doesn’t really dominate this business. Although the ownership of the global media system is increasingly based in the US, it seems the US is not the biggest player in the TV format game. The UK easily wins that title, according to the Format Recognition and Protection Association, FRAPA. They released a report in 2009 that showed that the UK led in the number of formats exported, followed by the US and then the Netherlands. I was also surprised by how many show formats the US imports, which was 67 between 2006 and 2008.

Reality TV, competition shows and game shows are the easiest and cheapest to adapt, and so are the most common types of shows to be sold as formats. But according to FRAPA, the sale of telenovelas and dramas are increasing. Some popular shows the US has gotten from the UK include Hell’s Kitchen, the Office, Dancing with the Stars, Trading Spaces, American Idol, Prime Suspect, All in the Family, Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, What Not to Wear, Whose Line Is it Anyway and Wife Swap.

There’s even a conference where programs and formats are bought and sold, called MIPTV. According to a Guardian article, they literally trade in television shows to market them in new countries. A director of global TV distribution for one of the companies, ITV Studios, Tobi de Graaff is quoted in the Guardian as saying, "Take what's successful about the show but don't ignore that you are dealing with different cultures and make the right twists to make it feel extremely home-grown and natural." 

And sometimes a show does that very well and succeeds and other times it doesn’t. For instance, Skins is a very popular British show about a group of teens and deals with controversial and racy topics. MTV used the format and remade it as a US show and it completely flopped. For me watching it, it just didn’t make sense and was too outrageous and obviously most Americans would agree, since it was quickly canceled.

A British show I loved is My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. It features members of the Irish Traveller community during big events such as weddings and First Communions. It’s fascinating because everything is so over the top and it also portrays some of the most interesting aspects of their culture like the young age of brides at the weddings and the relationship between men and women. It was a huge success in the UK and it was also broadcast in the US and did extremely well here. When it was rebroadcast in the US in its original format, it was on TLC and TLC was advertising to find US gypsy families for a US version of My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. I personally hope it happens because I loved watching the first series of this guilty pleasure, but it would also be really interesting to see if that kind of show can make the transition and appeal to a mass audience like the original. 

Is GlobalPost a New Model for Global Media? A Critical Approach

It can be safely stated that the "global media system" - a worldwide network of interconnected news flows - is not as cosmopolitan as its idyllic definition makes it out to be.

As Daya Thussu originally noted, 24/7 news cycles facilitated by the likes of CNN or the BBC do not work. Yes, they may be accessed simultaneously by all people around the world, but they do not automatically constitute a new and improved global public sphere where we have some heightened understanding or knowledge of foreign locales. If anything, we have learned that global media has, in a way, siphoned off certain groups while others may get over-exposure and this is all at the hands of those who own the global media system, a mere five corporations that control 90 percent of the content flowing throughout the world. Some of the disastrous side effects include spiral of silence on smaller, less competitive media organizations and an ever-widening corporate interest in what is news.

What is a media-consumer to do?

Enter GlobalPost, a Boston-based news organization that prides itself on bringing back international news reportage, this time coming from foreign journalists themselves. According to GlobalPost's mission statement, the organization does not send American journalists to the far reaches of the world to report. Instead, they hire those who have significant experience who are already located within foreign countries that can grasp the news of their various regions and effectively report it to the United States. Seems like an internationally-focused model, right? The answer: maybe.

This could be stretched to be seen as a mild form of contra-flow, which Thussu defines as the smaller, yet still present flow of media coming into the United States from foreign countries. However, there are some crucial flaws to making this connection. First, GlobalPost expressly states that they train their foreign journalists to write and report for an American audience, not a global one. Unfortunately this rings true with Robert McChesney's notion of mainstream media upholding the views of the status quo (in this case American media corporations), and thereby negates GlobalPost as a news source sought after internationally.

Second, GlobalPost's practices do not meld with Thussu's call for geo-cultural media, where the content being produced is "by the people, for the people," meaning those of certain cultural background produce content for diasporic communities of that same background, regardless of location. If the organization were to encourage their writers to contribute content as they would in their own countries, perhaps this outlet would have a different effect in the global media sphere, however, it is not in the business and economic interest of GlobalPost to do so, given their audience.

So while what GlobalPost is doing is novel in its intentions, it does not serve the true purpose of being considered "global media". In this day and age, I am unsure of US-based examples of what global media would be, as it seems the more diverse views we receive from abroad, the better picture we can thereby paint.

Localization, Glocalisation

The world’s media system is becoming increasingly global and there is no way to deny that. According to Robert McChesney, eight transnational corporations control a large majority of the global media system. But in a strange way, the global media system has led to more local media cropping up. Local entrepreneurs have seen opportunities to provide programming in their local languages, especially when a lot of the content the TNCs provide is not in the local language. Then, furthering the cycle, the TNCs start to provide more content in the local language because they now have to compete with the local products. And although the content provided by the TNCs is often higher quality because they have the budget to create higher quality material, in many places the content provided in the local language will always prevail.

Companies are trying to find more and more ways to localize their content. According to McChesney, in Asia, Time Warner uses local musicians to do a song used for the promotional campaigns of their movies. They’ve found that this increases interest in movies that are otherwise completely Western. Lots of international channels are also trying to mix English language programming with programming that is in local languages or at least dubbed into local languages.

One of the best formats for dubbing is animation, because the dubbing doesn’t tend to look so obvious. McChesney mentioned that Cartoon Network is dubbed into many languages, even for small countries, like the Netherlands. It also makes sense that animation, which is usually children’s programming, is dubbed because children often don’t learn much English until they are school-age. Dora the Explorer is a great example. In the US, Dora speaks mostly English and teaches a few Spanish words. In the Netherlands, Dora speaks mostly Dutch and teaches a few English words.

I also found it interesting to see what Dutch adults preferred to watch on T.V. They overall liked to watch Dutch programming the best. While many young people do watch the U.S. show, Jersey Shore, even more watch the Dutch version of Jersey Shore, Oh Oh Cherso, where eight young Dutch adults party and hook up in a Dutch vacation town in Greece. 

cast of Oh Oh Cherso 

They also love watching their Dutch versions of reality shows like So You Think You Can Dance, X Factor Nederland, and Benelux’s Next Top Model. There are some American shows that are popular, particularly Glee, Grey’s Anatomy and Modern Family. But those shows are never dubbed since the Netherlands is such an educated country and almost all adults speak English. Besides the fact that most people seem to prefer local content, another reason I think many of the Dutch adults watch Dutch programming more than imported American or English content is that American and English shows are always at least a few months behind and a lot of young Dutch adults just watch them online when they premiere in the US or UK, instead of waiting months for them to be on Dutch T.V.

I think the experience of observing a European country’s television habits really helped me to understand the importance of localization. And it leads me to think McChesney cannot not be completely right in believing that the media has become completely globalized. While it was disturbing to see I could watch marathons of Keeping Up with the Kardashians (which I did, by the way, watch anyway!), it is refreshing for me to recognize how much I learned about the Dutch culture just by watching television, meaning that at least in the Netherlands, local content was alive and thriving.