Essay draft: Media globalization

Multinational and wealthy corporations promote consumerist values through media globalization in the United States, where the local government can intervene by regulating media globalization and collaborating with other states to intervene on a larger scale. The benefits of media globalization may make it difficult to see its consequences, which are often subversive.

Through media globalization, multinational and wealthy corporations constantly threaten freedom of speech and promote consumerist values to the citizens of United States. A majority of all media is owned by a very small percentage of wealthy corporations in the US, which cover the voice of local media with profit-maximizing formulas. Their main interests are profits and to build an audience that is obsessed to a certain lifestyle with artificial wants. The US, which is a wealthy country, has the resources to produce the most media that promotes its consumerist culture to the world (Hickman, 2007). Herman and McChesney (2004) argue that the media is still dominated by US interests and domestic market. Hence, a frightening scenario of cultural homogenization can be foreseen; with a nation giving way to a world dominated by Western values of greed and consumerism (United Nations Development Programme, 2004).

In response to these negative effects, the government in United States can intervene by regulating media globalization. It has individually relinquished much of its direct control over global corporations. Despite the loss of sovereignty, the government still plays a pivotal role because it still maintains formal control and can retrieve collectively what has been ceded. Most societies have therefore developed two methods of governing the media. Firstly, the US regime can regulate the media in the market economy by regulating the interests of people as consumers by preventing market dominance, sustaining competition and ensuring that public resources are allocated fairly. Secondly, the authority can sustain and strengthen the social, cultural and political role of media through the regulation of content. This may involve everything from support for public service media to limits on advertising, expanding public domain information, and the censorship of content based on consumerist values (Siochrú, 2004). The government can therefore alleviate the impact of media globalization by imposing boundaries on the wealthy media corporations.

Another way to ameliorate the negative effects of media globalization is for the US government to collaborate with other states and intervene regionally and internationally. This is because addressing the concerns of media will require global, national and corporate policies that advance human development goals. All cultures share common basic values that are the foundation of global ethics, which is the desire to relieve the suffering and the belief in the basic moral equality of every individual. The core elements of global ethics include equity, human rights and responsibilities, and democracy. Thus, human development aims at expanding an individual’s choices through equitable socio-economic opportunities within a democratic framework that protects liberties. Based on these ethics, states have come together to endorse the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In addition, the UN’s Millennium Declaration, adopted by the full membership of the General Assembly in 2000, recommitted itself to human rights, fundamental freedoms and respect for equal rights to all without distinction (United Nations Development Programme, 2004). Additionally, in 1995, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) put forward some significant proposals regarding media, raising the idea of a tax on the use of media, with the proceeds to be utilized for non-commercial programming for international distribution, and questioning the growing concentration of media ownership (Siochrú, 2004). Hence, the US governments can legislate the protection of human rights and liberties and to systemize the use of media.  

Through media globalization, multinational and wealthy corporations promote values of greed in the United States, where the local government can intervene by regulating media globalization and cooperating with other nations to mediate internationally. In the face of rapid media globalization and its widespread effects, one needs to reconsider whether economic development and social advancement have to mean the adoption of prevailing Western values.

References

Herman, E.S., & McChesney, R.W. (2004). The Global Media – the New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism. London: Continuum

Hickman, Mary. (2007). The effects of media globalization. Radford University. Retrieved from http://www.radford.edu/mahickman/portfolio/The Effects of Media Globalization.doc

Siochrú, S.O. (2004, May). Social consequences of the globalization of the media and communication sector: some strategic considerations. Paper presented at the International Labour Office Conference, Geneva. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228176793_Social_Consequences_of_the_Globalization_of_the_Media_and_Communication_Sector_Some_Strategic_Considerations/file/9c960519f6fad3d9fe.pdf

United Nations Development Programme. (2004). Human Development Report 2004 (Information series No. 5). New York: United Nations Development Programme.