Abstract
What is media imperialism? The editors of Media Imperialism: Continuity and Change start their introduction to the book by providing a brief history of the term. They explain that the term came into fashion in the 1960s and 1970s, and that it was principally applied to the media power and influence of the United States and was deployed in studies of the considerable influence of US-based media corporations in and on the media systems and cultures of other countries, especially those in the global South. (p. 1)
The focus has subsequently extended to other countries, including ‘older empires’ (p. 1). Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Tanner Mirrlees urge scholars of media imperialism to adopt more of a global outlook by paying ‘more and closer attention to the intermingling of the economics of media corporations with the geopolitics of states, as well as to the global coordination and clash of propaganda campaigns and information operations’ (p. 2). They argue that they are in favour of a holistic approach to the study of media imperialism. Boyd-Barrett and Mirrlees also come up with five reasons for ‘revisiting and reinvigorating the media-imperialism concept’: (1) the ‘return’ of the United States and its allies to a more ‘explicitly aggressive (they would argue “defensive”) military interventions in the affairs of other countries’ (p. 3); (2) The fact that the ‘long-predicted decline of the United States (and its closest allies) as the globe’s central empire’ and the potential ‘displacement of a US-led global media sphere by a China- or BRICS-led media bloc’ (p. 3) has not yet materialized; (3) The growing evidence of surveillance, cyberwarfare, persuasion and propaganda by state agencies often in cooperation with media organizations; (4) Boyd-Barrett and Mirrlees also make two highly arguable claims: that the concept of imperialism has ‘greater explanatory power’ than that of globalization, and they also seem to imply that audiences are not really that active because ‘the existence of active TV viewers never negated the existence of media imperialism; in the digital age, social media interaction is integral to and compelled by platform imperialism’s business model’ (p. 4); 5. The extent to which ‘studies of media and cultural imperialism matter to the future of the world’ because ‘this tradition is a critical alternative to ignorance about or complacency with the status quo’ (p. 4). The edited volume is split into six main parts with 21 chapters in total. Part I, ‘Contextualising and Conceptualising Empire and Media Imperialism’ consists of three chapters providing a history of the concept of media imperialism and offering a (re)conceptualization of the term. Part II, ‘News, War and Propaganda’, includes four chapters on the topic with a focus on ‘escalating tensions and information warfare from 2000 onward between United States-NATO and Russia (and Russian ally Syria)’ (p. 5). Part III, ‘Hollywood, War, and Militainment’ consists of four chapters ‘on the relationships tying together the US security state, major media corporations, and militarized entertainment products’ (p. 6). Part IV, ‘The Internet, Social Media, and Platform Imperialism’, also includes four chapters dealing with the alleged process of platformization or platform imperialism, predominantly US-centric but also acknowledging the role of China. Part V, ‘Development Communication, Global Divides, and Cultural Imperialism’, comprises three chapters on development communication, including the New World Information and Communication Order, and women’s empowerment projects in global development. The final part, ‘Rising Media Empires: the Case of China’, includes two chapters on China ‘as an emerging cultural imperialist’ (p. 8). The concluding chapter is also very closely focused on China, but in it, Tanner Mirrlees argues that the BRICS ‘are very different countries, and they are not a united bloc against the United States, and even if they were, they would not yet come close to matching it’ (p. 8). All in all, this is a thought-provoking collection, which will indeed be of interest to ‘upper-level undergraduates, postgraduates, and research communities across a wide range of disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities’ (blurb).