below, a portion of the unfinished lecture from 9 september and attached, the lecture for 16 september, Globalization, Culture and the Media

I.                  Further Examples of Global Inequalities A.   Food Supply. UN Statistics show high rates of children and adults living at close to starvation levels and high infant mortality and vulnerability to illness because of mother's undernourishment. Yet world food supplies are increasing. B.    Virtually all surplus food is produced within industrialized societies. US, Canada, Europe have large excesses in food capacity compared to Asia and South America who do not produce enough for their own needs. But in FW, the government regularly pays farmers to keep some of the land idle or to store food which cannot find buyers in the world market. C.    These excesses should ideally go to the TW as foreign aid. But aid is political. Who gets it depends on politics. EG, In the early 1970s, the US was engaged in a war in Vietnam and Cambodia and so much foreign aid was going there. But on the other side of the globe, Chile was also then in dire need of aid. But since Chile was then governed by the socialists, the US did not give the country any aid. Another example of aid and politics: The British government gave aid in excess of 234 million pounds to help the Malaysian government build a large dam, which it was argued would provide hydro-electric power to a rural province. But this project was in fact linked to the purchase of British weapons by the Malaysian government. In effect the dam was built by British taxpayer money but only in return for substantial purchases of military equipment. Most aid is associated with trade, often trade of military equipment,

much of it propping up corrupt military and autocratic regimes in the TW. D.   Transnational Corporations or TNC activities have expanded. E.g., agribusiness in TW may provide some employment, but the bulk of production is geared towards FW (Dole, Del Monte). Local agriculture is also undermined by these TNCs by means of monopolies. These activities show links with the local ruling class has shaped patterns of development II.               Global inequality is now not simply about countries or nation-states but also about TNCs. Many of these economic units are bigger than TW countries. EG, Mitsubishi, General Motors, Reynolds-Nabisco, Cargill have bigger incomes than GNPs of  such countries as Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, and even a country as large as Brazil.  (GNPs in 1990s) A.   So TNCs are larger than countries. They are Oligopolies; their size, colossal. Their scope of operations are staggering. And contrary to appearances most of the investments of TNCs are within industrialized or FW countries. 3/4 of foreign direct investment is carried on between FW countries, e.g., Japan in US, US in Europe, and these TNCs have administrative and production systems integrated worldwide. B.    This is not to say that TNC investment in TW is not extensive. In fact, national economies in the TW are dominated by a limited number of very large companies; and so is the world economy. These are the conglomerates-straddling many different businesses, EG, Reynolds-Nabisco: tobacco, food, wearables; the sogososha in Japan. C.    Why have the TNCs grown so? 

1.    Expansion and accumulation of capitalism. Capitalists need to expand and accumulate to broaden their scope of operation. So companies go international. Capital is internationalized in search of more profitable investments and markets. 2.    Expansion overseas: to take advantage of cheap labor and absence of unions. We have very good examples right here in the Philippines of this type of expansion in the microchip industry and in garments. 3.    TNCs establish subsidiaries in other countries to gain tax advantages by spreading their profits between them. 4.    TNCs are able to internalize numerous transactions  that are otherwise sources of uncertainty. E.G., integrating plants and services avoids dependence on other companies for raw materials and services. As in a food and beverage conglomerate going into packaging and packing services. D.   Economic Growth has been made possible by transportation and communication technologies. EG., satellites, advances in computer technology. E.G., Financial service markets have used technology to dramatic effect. Throughout the 1980s and into the 90s, stock markets in London, NY, HK, Frankfurt and Tokyo utilized developments in computer technology to facilitate massive growths in trading capacity and overall efficiency. The move away from trading in paper shares or paper currency to electronic transactions has meant that many more dealings can take place. Linking in satellite communications with these very fast computer systems has had profound effects that shape our lives; stock market computers in several countries are in direct contact all hours of the day.(These linkages have also been responsible for the spread of  the crisis of 2008-).

 There is now a truly global financial system in place and these kinds of transactions are largely beyond the control of national governments (with the exception of the US). The growth of the worldwide financial service industries has supported the development of the transnational capitalist class, who are reliant upon the global operation of capitalism. International communication via computers and satellites have further facilitated the ability of capital to flow from one country to another. So, just as flows of capital have meant the relocation of manufacturing from one part of the globe to another, benefits have been drawn back into the west. E.G., In Britain, many pension funds hold stocks and shares in global markets so that the fate of the manufacturing industry in Taiwan or Korea may have an effect on the living standards of present and future pensioners in Britain. E.    TNCs have created an international division of labor (IDOL). The TW becomes a source of natural resources, raw materials and cheap labor. EG., Brazil and the Amazon Forest; call centers in Asia F.     TNCs have also created an international economic integration. E.G., automobile industry with companies and subsidiaries, welding together, so to speak, a diversity of plants and companies, operating in different areas of the world within a single administrative framework. (E.g., Engines made in Canada, Auto frames in US, Electronic Components in Japan, Electric equipment in Europe and you have a Lexus!) But in the case of the FW-TW tie up, as with the TNCs which have developed their economic potential by utilizing productive capacities and technologies originally developed in the West, the usual case is the outdated production line and older models are given new lease of life in a TW country, were labor intensive

assembly-line methods are still the rule. The FW country like Japan in the meantime develops its products at the higher end of the global market. So competitiveness is really selective and at different levels G.   Because of the international division of labor the overall rates of manufacturing have gone up in the TW at the same time that higher rates of unemployment (from being released from manufacturing) have occurred in FW. We have yet to see the long term implications of this development in terms of relocation of industrial activities (manufacturing being the primary source of surplus value). But these transfers are not exclusively FW to TW. Eastern Europe, the poorer Europe, has also felt these transfers. E.G., In the 1980s, the Tory government of Margaret Thatcher in  Britain decided that free market principles were to be applied to the British coal industry; in other words, British coal was to be determined by the world price of coal. If British miners could produce coal at world market prices, pits would stay open, if not, they would close. Foreign Coal, particularly that from Poland, was cheaper and led many users of coal to switch suppliers. This reduction in demand led to the decimation of the British coal industry which was once a central part of British life and certainly was one of the key working-class industries. Coal mining communities faced economic ruin, social upheaval and increasing deprivation. The community culture, tradition and political outlook developed over generations was  simply wiped away. (Remember the movie “Full Monty?”) However, the negative effect of such process contrasted with the positive effects in coal mining communities in Poland as pits expanded and miners were employed.  Today, several years later it is Polish mining that is in trouble.  III.           Non-State Actors in Globalization 

A.   The UN-- site of the resolution and also non-resolution of global conflicts. But the way the UN has behaved recently shows the power of the US. E.G., the Gulf War then and Afghanistan and Iraq today. However the UN has been useful as a social services organization. And can sometimes be effective as collective power of the TW (the Group of 77) B.    The World  Bank and the International Monetary Fund: the global money lenders have played a leading role in the opening up of the TW market. How? 1.    The WB and IMF in tandem impose conditionalities in exchange for loans. Conditionalities attached to Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) are really geared to restructuring the economy. How? By diverting resources away from sectors serving mainly domestic needs and towards export development in order to generate foreign exchange and improve the balance of payments (Imports vs. exports). 2.    SAPS consisted mainly of economic liberalization (or opening up the economy to global forces ) and austerity (or belt-tightening) measures. These austerity measures meant cutbacks in government expenditures especially in social services (such as health, education and farm subsidies), freezes in wage increases and hiring. The poor are hardest hit, especially women as a group. E.G., In Zimbabwe (presently nearing collapse), during the drought years of 1988-1993, the government was forced to adopt stringent economic policies of the WB and IMF. The SAP placed far greater emphasis on agricultural production for export than agriculture for self-sufficiency. Subsidies to village communities were cut, welfare policies abandoned and educational changes introduced for school children. Zimbabwe was forced to spend hard-earned foreign currency  importing maize, the staple of the diet, and a produce once exported to neighboring countries. The emphasis placed upon

the acceptance of western ideas, economic systems and cultural values has been to the detriment of many people of the TW. C.    Trade Agreements such as those embodied in the World Trade Organization which monitors GATT, APEC. These trade agreements are directed at global economic liberalization. Agreements geared towards deregulation  of markets and prices, privatization of enterprise. This means the retreat of the state and the liberalization of trade, i.e., the untrammeled rule of the market . So that the TW not only has to gear its production toward the demands of the world economy but that TW products now have to compete with FW products. An example of the disastrous effect of liberalization is the case of Ethiopia. Ethiopia is a small African country where the specter of famine looms. But it is not facing this reality with basic crop agriculture, it is facing it with flowers. Not the kind of flowers you can eat, no, but roses, carnations and chrysanthemums. The country has joined Third World competition to supply fresh flowers to  western decor lovers in Europe. . . Flower growing is the most polluting form of agriculture known to humans. Nobody will buy a bloom that has been half eaten by bugs. So every hectare must be fed 10 tons of fertilizer and pesticides every year; the soil must be biologically dead.  The cruelest cut is that this takes money out of the TW. The growers earn only 10% of the wholesale price of every flower; the other 90% is made by air freight and trucking firms in the West, wholesale dealers and the ever expanding flower auctions in Holland. D.   Will globalization increase global welfare? No! Because the playing field is not level. E.g., it is like a local carenderia  competing with the Conservatory at Manila Peninsula. The argument that globalization raises international living standards rests on the assumption that the international labor market is

effectively finite (limited) and hence that labor eventually will recover to bargain from strength, which is not true. The fact is the international labor pool is infinite (no limits) and the bargaining power of labor is the lowest it has been in a century. The political and social implications of this have only begun to be appreciated. E.    Thus at recent international  meetings there has been an increasing realization among some business leaders that globalization has dehumanized societies and fostered wider inequality between rich and poor because of the irresponsible worship of the market.(e.g., Joseph Stiglitz) The unregulated market capitalism is destructive of culture and values of civilization. A few capitalists now realize this as they see concrete results in their own countries: much unemployment and political social unrest in Europe (high unemployment figures), US (downsizing, lay-offs) and Korea (violent reaction to recent labor legislation which led to downscaling). Massive protests among western working class with riots and demonstrations insites of internatinal meetings: Seattle, Geneva, Milan, Davos; many of them also protesting in behalf of the TW. IV.           The Effect of globalization on the Environment A.   The environment is not a lifestyle issue in the TW. Not a matter simply of recycling or air pollution or water pollution, as it is in the FW. The environment is not simply a problem of how resources are used at the end of the production line--i.e., after resources are consumed. B.    In the TW, the problem is at the start of the production chain, with the source of the resources--forests, fishing grounds, fertile lands. C.    Capitalist incursions have resulted in the degradation of the environment. Destructive mining and logging operations have

resulted in deforestation and loss of fertile soil. The use of pesticides and fertilizers have created imbalances in the plant and animal genetic resources. Fishing operations such as dynamite fishing and cyanide fishing, have destroyed coral reefs which are habitats of fish as well as natural breakwater against storm surges. All of these are effects and consequences of corporate plunder, both of local ruling classes and world bourgeoisie. D.   Land and resources are simply factors of production to corporations. But for the poor, all this scenery is functional. It is their lifeline. E.    For TW therefore it is a matter of saving land, trees, forest, fish life for personal and community survival. F.     But the environmental problem is also a matter of the unequal distribution of waste--of toxic chemical and organic wastes. The FW finds ways of dumping its wastes on the TW. G.   The FW also looks for ways of relocating polluting phases of production. E.g., use of space by building golf courses – which means polluting the environment with pesticide use and taking space from low-income housing. Kawasaki steel sintering plant: the most polluting phase in the production of steel is relocated here because of strict anti-pollution laws in Japan. H.   FW consumption affects TW survival: what they eat and how they live affect what we eat and how we live; our rainforests affect their air and their wastes and their consumption affect our farms, our homes and our lives. V.              Culture and globalization A.   But in the modern global world , it is not only knowledge, finance and manufacturing that know no national boundaries now.

There is also crime. Just as capital or manufacturing can flow easily from one country to another, so too can global tides such as drugs, criminality and “terrorism”,  flow from one part of the world to the next. B.    Globalization also means that local conditions have less and less importance than at any time in the past. There is the potential weakening of national autonomy and the further strengthening of supra-national bodies such as the IMF or APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation). VI.           State and Globalization TNCs deal with states depending on the strength of the state: they bully them or they adopt flexibility and compromise towards national governments. (More on this in another lecture). Inequality Lecture 14 -l5

Global Inequality, Culture, and the Media

I. The Importance of Media in our Everyday Life

A. “To understand day to day media use, it is necessary to take the whole ensemble of intersecting and overlapping media provision into consideration. Audiences or consumers piece together the contents of radio, television, newspapers and so on. As a rule, media texts and messages are not used completely or with full concentration. We read parts of a sports or movie review, skim through magazines and zap from channel to channel when we don't like what's on TV. Furthermore, media use, being an integrated part of the routines and rituals of everyday life, is constantly interrelated with other activities such a talking, eating, doing housework, doing homework. In other words, media use is not private,

individual process, but a collective, social process; a Walkman notwithstanding.”

B. Exposure to and consumption of media products--whether via TV, films, radio, newspapers, books, the Internet--has become an integral part of the daily lives of an increasing number of people in the TW and the majority of the FW. The media occupy a considerable portion of our working and leisure time, and provide us to a considerable extent with other people's pictures of social reality.

C. These can be the principal leisure activity such as films, TV. We organize our social world around TV, it is missed when unavailable and is a source of information and ideas widely regarded as authoritative and trustworthy. Or this can be radio, that user-friendly medium, which by its portable and accessible nature is so well integrated into everyday routines; a sort of soundtrack for many chores, housework, homework, driving the car. Radio also provides personal experience, often meeting the needs of diverse listeners for feelings of group identity and companionship, especially for women, at home, alone, during the day. Or this can be print, where we sometimes see the potential for political agitation or for maintaining the status quo.

D. Given these high levels of exposures, the media constitute potentially strategic socialization agencies, strategic transmitters of culture, tastes and preferences.

E. The media are central in the provision of ideas and images, which people use to interpret and understand a great deal of their everyday experience. More specifically they represent an institutionalized channel for the distribution of social knowledge and therefore a potentially powerful instrument of

social control or social critique, for sustaining or challenging the status quo.

F. In other words, media are in competition. with family, school and peers in shaping people's perceptions.

II. Media as Providers of "Experience" and "Knowledge"

A. Modern societies are characterized not by homogeneity and integration but by social differentiation and segregation. The world has become much larger and more fragmented for most of us, no longer encompassed or measured solely by the immediate community we live in.

B. But this larger world is normally not directly experienced by us, despite our mobility. The media provide us with much indirect experience of this world beyond our own experience.

C. Thus while previously through networks of direct interpersonal communication limited by time and space, we participated in what is called a "situated culture", now we have increasingly learned to live not only in our situated culture but also in a culture of mediation, whereby specialized agencies, the press, film, cinema, radio and TV, the internet, cell phones and texting, supply and cultivate larger-scale forms of communication; mediating new and other forms of culture into the situation. "Our" immediate world co-exists with the mediated “world out there."

D. In this way media have become steadily more influential in defining "reality," in encouraging a common image of society. A consensus image of what reality is and the nature of deviation from it. They present to us what "everyone else" out there believes.

E. The rate and scale of technological changes are also important aspects of the mediation of culture; as yesterday's technological miracle becomes today's obsolete contraption, we begin to grasp how rapidly our lives become transformed by media technologies.

The important question is who has access to these technologies. The instant and immediate nature of telecommunications and broadcasting have played a major role in the modernization of many societies; they are essential elements in the creation of mass society and the globalization of culture and for many people represent the most significant link with social reality. (E.G., CNN coverage of the Gulf War, essentially a viewing: War! Live! Via Satellite! A review of the coverage revealed that "live" transmissions from reporters in Baghdad where in fact based on information gained via telephone links to New York and London where foreign correspondents and government officials had much more idea of what was going on). Who was interpreting the war? Who had access to that information? Who had cable? Or more basically, who had TV? How did war affect these people?

In the War on Afghanistan these issues are again highlighted especially with conflicting coverage of American media and the Arabic station, “Al Jazeera.”

And here at home: the coverage (or more accurately, the propaganda) of the elite’s EDSA Dos activities as compared to the non coverage of the working class and poor’s EDSA Tres (“not newsworthy”).

F. Media, therefore, is not a neutral provider of information

III. Media and the Construction of Reality and Consensus

A. Media do not simply provide information and reflect a social world. Rather they structure reality for us; not simply increasing our knowledge of the world but helping us to "make sense" of it.

B. More fundamentally, media is one major means by which we construct an understanding of the lives, values, and practices of others, and how we acquire a sense of how the whole of "social reality" hangs together. Media provide us with frameworks or guidelines for interpreting social reality, encouraging certain lines of thinking and perception, discouraging others. So media view society through a selective framework. The coverage of the media (and the contrasting editorials, especially) of the CODE-NGO anomaly.

C. In so doing, media appear to rely on an apparently prevailing consensus, but one in which they have played a part constructing so they use a consensus image of society and help to reproduce it. So media assume that the majority of members of society are in agreement on norms, values and ideas. Like having a common stock of knowledge, values, attitudes, etc.

A very good example of this is the dominant image of the Third World that is projected in the First World. "This image is one in which war, poverty, famine, disaster and drought are either natural disasters or self-inflicted wounds which visit TW societies on occasion. These disasters or social upheavals are often explained in terms of the general inefficiency or even corruption common to TW societies or because of their lack of rational values or scientific or professional processes of management.

Such views are not uncommon and often condition the way that the FW see and relate to the TW. The Band AID concert in the

UK or the USA for Africa concert to raise money for the starving people of Ethiopia in the 1980s or the Oxfam appeals in the 1990s for help in Somalia or Rwanda appear to deny the FW and the West any part in creating such situations. Charitable appeals ask the FW citizens to respond in humanitarian ways, but while they are generally hugely successful in terms of raising money they do little to prevent those problems reoccurring. FW attention to such disasters is often brought about by media coverage, including media appeals by the rich and famous on behalf of charities. Such appeals are intended to prick consciences of the FW and then ease them by credit card payments over the telephone.

D. The consequences of this consensus image of society: assumes that people have roughly the same economic and political interests and that people roughly have an equal share of power. As George Bush would say on his war on terror, “You are either with us or against us” (or “somos o no somos”)

E. So, according to the media, there exist no fundamental conflicts of interests between groups, and that there are legitimate institutionalized means for resolving conflicts that occur; and members of society enjoy equality before the law and equal access to decision-making opportunities.

F. Any activity beyond this institutionalized resolution is not permissible and perpetrators are less credible. So more critical attention or no attention at all is paid to so-called rabble-rousers: they are peripheral, fanatical, fads, terrorists. On the other hand, spokespersons expressing legitimate opinions are less likely to be questioned. (E.G., strikes, shutdowns, dissent are seen as threats to law and order, strikes and demonstrations are fragmented and incoherent).

G. Media say they merely reflect. Or as one media owner said, "television does not make the times, it only follows them." This statement assumes public opinion is not determined by some actors and institutions rather than others. In fact the opportunity to influence the production of ideas is unequally distributed. The influence of media owners and advertisers is paramount in media production. Therefore, media is not just market-driven, and so exaggerating the power of the customer. Media are not giving “what the audience wants.” Media owners have always sought to intervene in media production to further their own economic and political interests as well as those of others whom they support. (E.G., TV Stations ABS-CBN and GMA 7 , in support of the anti-Marcos forces and again of the EDSA Dos forces and not televising the EDSA Tres; Channel 9 and 13, sequestered channels, only carry the government line). Also look at the coverage in the Philippine press on the sex abuse scandal of Roman Catholic priests in the US—hardly anything because of the pressure of the Church in the Philippine press to bury the scandal.) And advertising is a multibillion dollar business placing it in a strong position to influence the content of media.

H. Thus the production of meaning and the exercise of power in media by big business means the increasing control exerted over cultural production by large corporations and the failure of governments to regulate such development This means, as well, that the selection and promotion of particularly cultural forms and discourses are determined by economic interests rather than cultural factors.

E.G., the Americanization of Philippine TV, like the Americanization of Philippine leadership (Gloria is Georgia Girl or Uncle Sam’s girl; Ramos was an “Amboy” because of the dominance of the US in our economy and the over all

dominance of the US in media and communications technology).

E.g., In the US the coverage of the “war on terror” is an example of business and state collusion. In the US, its enemies are terrorists; but in other parts of the world, these same terrorists are called “freedom fighters.” E.g., the Palestinians in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

I. And it is also not accurate to see media consumption as a matter of free choice of the audience and its ability to impose its own interpretation on cultural texts. For in fact there are material and cultural barriers to free and equal access to media and its products. Media consumption is differentiated by social class, age, race and gender. To liberal feminists, media organizations are a male, mediocre, middle-aged, and middle-class broadcasting boys' club, fronted by women with pleasing personalities.

J. A critical media, critical of the status quo, are exceptional, not routine

K. E.G., News doesn't merely happen. It is made a socially manufactured product. These are not the only events that happen in a day, but media defines what is news. And it is not a random "agenda-setting"; it is a systematic product of a number of forces. (Again the example of EDSA Dos and EDSA Tres: what is news and what is not: 300,000 elites vs. 1.5-3 million masa)

IV. Constraints on Media News

A. While the frameworks of perception of what is and is not news is partly internally generated through news gathering procedures and technical restrictions and "news values", the

process of what these organizations call "agenda-setting", there is a hierarchy of credibility in terms of structures of in interpretation--powerful/high status people are consulted for definitions of reality.

B. And media being big business as it is, there is a fundamental material constraint in the patterns of ownership and control. While media is to some extent market driven audience-led (e.g., by market shares and advertising revenue), Media is unlikely to offer radical solutions to social inequality or frameworks at odds with the dominant value system.

C. Increasingly, however, media now is not a mere component of capitalist society. The press has been integrated into the core sectors of financial and industrial capital and furthermore, it is now a part of commercial conglomerates. So media is part of a wider range of enterprises such as record sales, paperback books, cinema, newspapers, radio and TV. There is a steady concentration of control. There has progressively been an increasing interrelation of different sectors of the media (ABS-CBN: TV, radio, newspapers, movies, telephone; Ted Turner: , videos, radio, cinemas, TV.)

D. Diversification and conglomeration are ways of maintaining and expanding profit potential. How? By spin offs: a popular film has a spin off into a book or vice versa, and records, TV (making of, behind the scenes, coming attractions, animation), fashion, merchandise (e.g. Batman and Robin, Jurassic). Disney has perfected this.

E. So now, something like ABC news which is a press entity, by becoming part of Disney, is bound to be depoliticized, commercialized and integrated into the economic and political core of society; a medium which began its life as a potential force for political agitation and social change (as many news

organizations had their start) has become a part of the entertainment industry

F. What is occurring here is that through takeover of their rivals, conglomerates have expanded via a process of horizontal integration to establish their dominance in particular areas of the media, E.G., publication, or TV. While through the process of vertical integration companies have extended their operations into media distribution as well as production. (E.G. SONY, an electronics giant, bought into Columbia to have greater control over media consumption. So now they own the territory, the hardware, the software and the talent. )

V. Important Implications on the Nature and Pattern of Media Ownership

A. The goal of maximum profit and the need to maintain advertising revenues increase the likelihood that media will find the "lowest common denominator" at which to direct output. This type of outcome not only ignores substantive issues but also ignores the needs and opinions of minority groups.

B. This limits the range and diversity of views and opinions. So again in this manner the ownership and control of the means to mental production also becomes increasingly concentrated.

VI. Media, Politics and the Economy

A. Often Media are the prime contributor in the creation of "devils” around whom "moral panics" take root, increasing the likelihood of something/someone being noticed. (E.G., Ethnic crime, skinheads, leftists mean trouble)

B. But often pride of place is given by media to reporting industrial relations and economic affairs. EG, strikes are portrayed unfavorably. Strikes cause economic problems, inconvenience. Strikers or even demonstrators are described in such language as militants, or if women, “frazzled feminists”. News of these sort are presented within a set of consensual assumptions about relations between capital and labor. So strikes are disruptive. The state is seen as a neutral overseer, disinterested, and only working for the "public or the common good."

C. Strikes are seen as shortsighted, greedy with dubious political motives rather than as arising from the structure of inequality within capitalist society-- as a legitimate expression of a fundamental conflict of interest between labor and capital.

D. So strikes are "bad news", and union leaders are always asked to provide justification. As a matter of routine, Media assume the correctness of management.

E. Strikes for wage increases are "bad news" because according to Media they cause inflation. So trade unions are irresponsible. Therefore "policies for solution of inflation"--a fundamental economic problem--is to control wage increases.

VII. What of Media Imperialism?

A. The production and diffusion of media have penetrated the TW. A global culture empire has been established and TW countries are especially vulnerable because they lack the resources with which to maintain their own cultural independence.

B. The World Information Order is controlled by the West, particularly the US, which means inevitably the predominance of the FW outlook.

C. Global Inequality in the telecommunications technology will likely become more pronounced in the future: more powerful than colonization. It is neo-colonialism--an extension of the geo-political web. Media have the power to penetrate more deeply into a "receiving" culture than any previous manifestation of Western technology. Results: havoc and the intensification of social contradiction within TW societies and often a response of “Viruses.”.

D. American TNCs in communication practically rule the world in the transmission and creation of news and they are doing the production and distribution of TV programs, movies, advertisements, music and other forms of electronic communication as well as electronic channels. 9/10 of all records held in data bases throughout the world are accessible to the US government or other organizations in the US.

VIII. Some Conclusions on the Media

A. So the content of media is organized around particular solutions and explanations. In this sense the ideological character of the media resides in their creating and reinforcing acceptance of dominant social and political values, which take as given and accord legitimacy to the social-political and economic status quo. In so doing, it constitutes a mechanism of social control in society

B. As one sociologist said. "any section of society enjoying special privileges, whether marginal or otherwise, produces its own mythology, the function of the myth being to give sanction to the possession of the exclusive privilege. “

C. This aspect of mythology-making also accounts for the differences in the use of media by social class, gender, race and age

D. Nonetheless, the convictions of people are not something simply manipulated by capitalists or put into the minds of the masses by them, but rather they flow from the exigencies of everyday life under capitalism. The subordinate classes in capitalism hold the values and political ideas that they do as a consequence of both trying to survive and of attempting to enjoy themselves, within capitalism. The desire to consume various material and cultural products Put on sale by capitalism are constructed by ideological mechanisms, especially by the mass media. This is the concept of HEGEMONY at work. (Hegemony: when those in power seek to establish "moral and philosophical leadership" over the mass of the population by winning their active consent.)

This media transmitted ideology establishes itself through two processes of mediation--technological and social.

1. Technological mediation refers to the power of the media to influence human consciousness on behalf of the consumer society. Advertising is the classic example of this: selling capitalism's biggest and brightest and most current products and the political-economic-cultural infrastructure that goes along with them. But media personnel are not coerced or manipulated into deliberately misrepresenting social reality; they have become socialized into accepting the values and techniques of their profession and to a large degree believe in what they are doing and that they are giving the customers what they want.

2. Social mediation emphasizes the active involvement of people in the hegemonic process. If we are duped by the system, we are partly responsible by virtue of our participation in the language and image systems which have been created by the media. In our everyday interaction with one another we give credibility to and reinforce "media transmitted ideology" by referring to its content and using its codes and incorporating its messages into our social discourse. The admission that ordinary people have a part to play in creating and reaffirming their culture raises the possibility that the audience may also reinterpret, resist or reject the preferred messages of those responsible for media production and thus undermine the ideological control of those in power. (EDSA Tres against Big Media) And in fact some television producers around the world have managed to preserve their local identities against the threat of cultural imperialism and global homogenization.

E. What are the consequences of technological developments and the instant availability of information and entertainment? There are two opinions on this.

1. The "Neophiliacs" on the one hand, see that we are moving towards a bright new post-industrial future: (the Information Society) where the whole world is at our fingertips thanks to such things as the Internet and WWW. Interactive communications will increase the opportunities for democratic participation ; and education while authoritarian national governments struggle to control the flow of information (E.G., China). Customer choice becomes paramount as demand is stimulated and satisfied by a range of specialized channels and services.

2. The "cultural pessimists" on the other hand point to the inevitable decline of quality broadcasting and the damage done to cultural standards by the new forms of communication. Concentration of media ownership, the globalization of culture and the distortion of political power represent the unwelcome side of the new, media-saturated order. We run the risk of creating a world where the principle of universal access to information is sacrificed in the interests of diversity of production and consumer choice. The end results may be a divisive fragmentation based on access to the skills and technology required to travel the information superhighway or to experience cyberspace. As the poor and ill-educated are excluded from these skills and technology, they will become an “unplugged, disenfranchised underclass" falling further behind the technological elite

F. The potential of the media for political influence and control has also been widely recognized. It is not an accident that in times of political upheaval the fiercest battles are often for the control of the radio or television stations as warring factions seek to establish ideological as well as military victory (EDSA 1986)

G. In periods of political stability, the media also play a major role in establishing and maintaining social order and political control . During the Marcos dictatorship the regime deliberately suppressed freedom of expression through official censorship while at the same time seeking to establish ideological hegemony through orchestrated propaganda campaigns.

H. As to the relationship between media and violence. The studies show that the extent to which media affect attitudes and behavior is contentious. While it is clear that people will be influenced by what they read, see, and hear, evidence on whether the media directly determine specific forms of behavior--whether watching violence causes children to behave violently, for instance, is inconclusive. This is also the case with what is called pornography. So for some children, under some conditions, some TV is harmful. For some others it may be beneficial. But for most children under most conditions, most television is neither particularly harmful nor particularly beneficial.