Political economy of international communication (CMNS 444)

This is the undated version of a course taught previously. This course will look at emerging issues in International Political Economy of Communication (IPEC) through both the lens of a predicted ‘Global Power Shift’ from West to East and through application to the global entertainment industries. Students will follow one of these two tracks through the semester. Over the course of the semester we will be looking for connections between specific areas of focus of international political economy (IPE), with the rise of Asia and the global entertainment industries. An underlying question for the course is: how is the global shift in power back to Asia from the West reflected in, and is likely to affect, the global entertainment industries? We will also explore the proposition that just as Hollywood provided the US with the soft power to become an imperial power, so too will the entertainment industry be important to China as a rising global power [see Nye (2008) reading]. Different approaches will be taken in the course to thinking about the relationship between communication structures, entertainment and the changing structures of power globally. Analytical frameworks considered will include liberal, historical materialist, and socio-spatial approaches to IPEC, along with cultural imperialism. Among the broader topics explored will be the historical context for the re-emergence of China as a dominant power, the impact of the on-going global financial crisis and changing international financial structures, as well as the role and structure of the entertainment industries globally, along with the impact that power structures have had on the global entertainment industries. Specific class topics may shift during the semester to respond to any significant events that occur with global political economic implications.

2013

Tanner Mirrlees A critical cultural materialist introduction to the study of global entertainment media. In Global Entertainment Media, Tanner Mirrlees undertakes an analysis of the ownership, production, distribution, marketing, exhibition and consumption of global films and television shows, with an eye to political economy and cultural studies. Among other topics, Mirrlees examines: Paradigms of global entertainment media such as cultural imperialism and cultural globalization. The business of entertainment media: the structure of capitalist culture/creative industries (financers, producers, distributors and exhibitors) and trends in the global political economy of entertainment media. The "governance" of global entertainment media: state and inter-state media and cultural policies and regulations that govern the production, distribution and exhibition of entertainment media and enable or impede its cross-border flow. The new international division of cultural labor (NICL): the cross-border production of entertainment by cultural workers in asymmetrically interdependent media capitals, and economic and cultural concerns surrounding runaway productions and co-productions. The economic motivations and textual design features of globally popular entertainment forms such as blockbuster event films, TV formats, glocalized lifestyle brands and synergistic media. The cross-cultural reception and effects of TV shows and films. The World Wide Web, digitization and convergence culture. "Mirrlees explains in clear and lively language how the most popular and ubiquitous movies, TV formats, and brands are made and consumed―and he also explains why this matters. In a world where media continue to increase their hold on resources and their place in our lives, Global Entertainment Media is a must-read for media activists and students of culture." ―John McCullough, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Film, York University "Comprehensive and tactically plain-spoken, Dr. Mirrlees’s cultural-economic study maps out the complex networks of production, consumption, and regulation that structure today’s culture industry, and offers a key for unlocking its meanings and functions in a neoliberal age dominated by neo-imperial corporations. In the process, this teachable text provides a primer―ideal for undergraduates―on key ‘macro’ concepts in media and cultural studies, like discourse, globalization, intellectual property, and postcolonialism." ―Mark A. McCutcheon, Assistant Professor of Literary Studies, Athabasca University "Mirrlees presents a meticulously well researched, original, and insightful overview of an expansive field. Global Entertainment Media surveys a complex and ever-changing global media landscape, navigating the terrain with great clarity and authority. Mirrlees’s methodological approach, his deft theoretical analysis, and his wide-ranging and up-to-date use of examples and case studies make this a foundational work that brings global media studies scholarship firmly into the twenty-first century." ―Ian Reilly, Assistant Professor, Department of Communication Studies, Mount Saint Vincent University

2019

Pacific Affairs, 2014

This article explores the global-local interplay by analyzing the changing role of the Chinese state and its evolving cultural policy during its engagement with global Hollywood from 1994 to 2012. It further investigates the impact of the state policy on the formation of a domestic film industry. Drawing on both English-and Chinese-language sources and combining both primary and secondary empirical data, the article examines local strategies and resistance toward global Hollywood, and argues for the Chinese state's adaptive and negotiation capability that serves to reverse the power relationship in international communication. The state employs a strategy of taking advantage of Hollywood resources to build the domestic film industry in order to promote Chinese soft power. Therefore, by weaving both market forces and global capital into the state mechanism, the Chinese state effectively reinforces its authoritarian power.

SpringerPlus, 2013

This paper aims to investigate the media industry in Asia, with reference to international standards of media tools, instruments, content, and coverage. We have also explored factors that may further improve Asian media. We have used an empirical approach. Our findings revealed that the media in Asian significantly contribute to expanding cultural knowledge and the exchange of multilateral dialogues. However, they do not look after the interests of minorities or non-dominating communities. Although the media should be a virtual ambassador, they often provoke hostilities within regions. Governments own most media outlets in the developing nations in Asia, and so the media rely on government backing and are subject to restrictions. International and national regulations connected to media freedom or constraints should be explored to protect Asian societies. The practical implications of these negative aspects are that the Asian media does not help the plights of minorities or minimize the fear of war in the region. The universal lesson of brotherhood among humanity for all colors and races should be preached by the media. In this paper, we have concentrated on how Asian media influence cultural expansion, the exchange of multilateral dialogues, the interests of minorities, aggression between nations, and generate income for common citizens.

Premised on the fact that there are different globalizations going on today, this comprehensive study successfully integrates structural and symbolic analyses of communications and media policy in the conflicted spaces of the nation-state, trans-nation, and sub-nation. Chakravartty & Sarikakis’s remarkably systematic approach to media policy, technology, content, and civil society formation, fills in crucial details left behind by grand theory, including progressive postcolonial theory of global communication. In doing so, the book re-energizes the hackneyed field of international media studies and transforms it. John Nguyet Erni, City University of Hong Kong Media Policy and Globalization combines careful scholarship with a clear, accessible style that creatively integrates some of the best elements of critical theory. The book marks an important step in the development of media policy scholarship because it skilfully integrates political economic and cultural studies perspectives. It does an especially good job of placing research on state and gender theory into the centre of policy analysis. Vincent Mosco, Queen’s University, author of The Digital Sublime Media Policy and Globalization serves up an ambitious, readable, and concise synthesis of how the messy world-system of communication policy is described and pondered in the communications and media studies discipline. Global Media and Communication In addition to its well-structured analyses, the book is written in an easy, accessible manner and offers rich empirical material and useful case studies for teaching purposes. Cees J. Hamelink, Amsterdam/Brisbane, Publizistik This book presents many rich clues for us to look further at on-going policy debates. Those clues point us toward inclusion of a variety of national, non-national, international, regional, and civil players as well as their organic connections. For any researcher, graduate student, or upper-division undergraduate student interested in global media debate today, this book provides not only the most up-to-date references, but also a fresh way to look at multiple-level analytical levels of analysis. Atsushi Tajima, SUNY , Global Media Journal The ideas and explanation in this book are a very welcome antidote to the dominant discourse of the virtues of the market, new technologies and competition. The proponents of technological determinism have for the past 10 years asserted that greater audiovisual delivery capacity will automatically deliver diversity and pluralism and have sought to roll back virtually all audiovisual regulation. The authors describe well the valid political, social, economic and particularly cultural questions which demand an answer if the public interest is to be served in communications policy and the regulation which should flow from it. The authors rightly underline that the screen, large or small, is central to our democratic, creative, cultural and social life and that policy makers should give greater space to the views of civil society and parliamentarians interested in advancing the public interest. Rare is the attention paid to the realities of the digital divide as played out across the globe which provides important information for campaigners for greater technological redistribution and cultural diversity worldwide. Carole Tongue, Visiting Professor, University of the Arts, London, Former MEP spokesperson on public service broadcasting

This course will explore the emerging issues in Political Economy of International Communication through the lens of the debated ‘Global Power Shift’ from West to East. We will begin by critically assessing how the communications and entertainment industries are deeply integrated with the historical foundations of the ‘world systems’ and the neoliberal transformations of global economic and political forces. We will focus on the deeper relationship between communications, cultures, and changing structures of soft and hard power, especially with the rise of the BRICS economies and the most recent expansion of the China’s Belt and Road Initiative/New Silk Road. The second part of the course will pay particular attention to how various media and entertainment enterprises, such as global television and film industries, as well as digital communications platforms, tactics, and infrastructures, such as algorithmic media, disinformation, and next-generation internet technologies, along with their business models, are profoundly reshaped, contested and renegotiated through geopolitical reordering, regional forces and local resistances. Students will chart the terrain of transformations and produce case studies combining insights from the both parts of the course. This is a senior-level seminar, so it is expected that all students will be prepared to participate in the discussions/activities that will take place each week. Learning Objectives By the end of this course, students should be able to demonstrate an understanding of the following: • Key concepts and theories in international political economy of communication. • Contemporary issues and debates in international political economy of communication. • Application of theories and concepts to contemporary issues. Required Books Srnicek, Nick (2016) Platform Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. (ISBN-13: 9781509504879). Dyer-Witheford, Nick and Svitlana Matviyenko (2019) Cyberwar and Revolution: Digital Subterfuge in Global Capitalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (ISBN 978-1-5179-0411-1) (available online through the library website) The rest of reading materials will be available through the Canvas site: https://canvas.sfu.ca/courses/47432 Supplementary materials are will be posted on Canvas and Course Facebook group CMNS444@SFU

Journal of Transcultural Communication

In the past decades, there has been a considerable academic debate in global communication and cognate disciplines on China's role in power shifts in both economic and political terms. This multi-faced book edited by Gabriele Balbi, Fei Jiang, and Giuseppe Richeri presents a series of chapters on China and the Global Media Landscape: Remapping and Remapped. These chapters are written by great minds in the field of communication who are connoisseurs of the Chinese media. While the editors and contributors do refer to America, Europe, and Africa's media landscape and communication practice, the focus of this book is mainly on Chinese and its "going-out" strategies. These scholars have broadly argued on how Chinese media has transformed the global communication landscape. It is equally significant to highlight this issue, the editors elucidated, because most Western scholars have focused solely on the censorship and conservativeness of China and they have overlooked how China's media has transformed the international media scene. The book's fundamental premise is twofold. To begin with, the editors explained, the book aimed to analyse the ways in which the Chinese media's "going-out" strategies are remapping the global media landscape and, correspondingly, the book illustrated how Chinese media is remapped by American, European, and Asian media and politics (p. 1). Equally, the editors clearly distinguished the two main concepts, the core aspects of this book, namely, remapping and remapped. Initially, they elaborated that remapping, in the context of this book, is the ability of Chinese main actors to impose themselves on the international scene so as to become a point of reference on both economic, political, social, and cultural fronts. On the other hand, remapped referred to how the Chinese media industry continues to be inspired and shaped by transnational media companies. China and the Global Media Landscape: Remapping and Remapped, as a book, is both readable and intellectually engaging. The editors invite readers to have an open mind about the critical analysis of Chinese media and how it is remapping the

This article addresses the importance of cultural industries for the strengthening of the soft power of the rising powers and it seeks to understand how the cultural industries allow rising powers to shape the structures of their international environment. More specifically, studying the cases of People’s Republic of China and of the movie industry, my article focuses on the current evolution of the relationship between the Chinese authorities and the film industry, as well as on the development of the domestic film market. I further aim to draw up an inventory of China’s role within the global governance of cultural industries. Finally, I aim to highlight the global cultural competition that China faces, emphasizing the practices of the US administration and Hollywood. I argue that even if China is the current centre of gravity within the world economy, it still has a long way to go in order to shape the distribution of resources within the global governance of cultural industries and to play a crucial role in the international battle of cultural symbols.

This article addresses the importance of cultural industries for the strengthening of the soft power of the rising powers and it seeks to understand how the cultural industries allow rising powers to shape the structures of their international environment. More specifically, studying the cases of People’s Republic of China and of the movie industry, my article focuses on the current evolution of the relationship between the Chinese authorities and the film industry, as well as on the development of the domestic film market. I further aim to draw up an inventory of China’s role within the global governance of cultural industries. Finally, I aim to highlight the global cultural competition that China faces, emphasizing the practices of the US administration and Hollywood. I argue that even if China is the current centre of gravity within the world economy, it still has a long way to go in order to shape the distribution of resources within the global governance of cultural industries and to play a crucial role in the international battle of cultural symbols.