In Charles Ess’s article, the argument is made based on some assumptions of “The Electronic Global Village” including cosmopolitanism, universal democracy, peace and prosperity. The author individually examined each of these assumptions; and pointed out that the electronic global village may undermine the regional culture and result in ethnical problems. The electronic global village has Western origins and it is more legitimated in Western traditions. Thus, the author argues, it is a form of ethnocentrism which leads Western people to believe their culture is more superior and advance. The universal democracy is also idealistic since some information that circulating on line such as pornography and hedonism are contradicted to certain cultural values and even against law in certain states. Therefore, the cross-cultural issue is a barrier to the development of global electronic society.
In Ronald V. Bettig’s article, the author discussed the development of cyberspace through political economic view. Basically, there are three structural tendencies dominated the evolution of communications. The first tendency is the centralization in communication markets. In capitalist view, the mergers and acquisitions among media companies actually resulted in creating some monopolistic corporations. The state can control the media through managing these companies. Then, the intellectual property rights could constrain the multi-media industry since intellectual information and products owners are able to control the media interaction. Thirdly, the development of information and cultural products became more commercialized than before. The value of information and cultural goods could determine the development of the media market which directly influenced the cyberspace.
In my opinion, I’m familiar with the idea of media commercialization. Many corporations within the industry made huge profits based on their development. Also, there are still many new ventures try to enter the industry since they have seen the growth value in information and communication. Otherwise, in capitalist view, if the media industry is not profitable there will not be so many investors interest in.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I share your ideas regarding the profitability of the media industry and its investors. While Ess' article focuses on the U.S., I think the same ideas relate to Canadian media magnates as well. I think Canadian corporations have definitely seen the growth value in information and communication, so much as to bring the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to create policies in 2008 to restrict cross-media ownership and prevent monopoly in the industry i.e. no party can control over 45% of tv audiences, no one can control over two local tv stations or a local newspaper in the same market etc.
ReplyDelete- Katrina Rozal