New Patterns of Flow and Rethinking International Mediascapes: The Influence of Stuart Cunningham on Theories of Television's Travels

Stuart Cunningham contributed to important publications that advanced thinking about transnational media flows, much of which remains relevant a quarter of a century later. This essay explores Cunningham's collaborations with Elizabeth Jacka and John Sinclair in ‘Australian Television and International Mediascapes' and ‘New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral View’ to explore the prescient and productive theoretical innovations these books offered the field.

Contested Sovereignties: States, Media Platforms, Peoples, and the Regulation of Media Content and Big Data in the Networked Society

This article examines the legal and normative foundations of media content regulation in the borderless networked society. We explore the extent to which internet undertakings should be subject to state regulation, in light of Canada’s ongoing debates and legislative reform. We bring a cross-disciplinary perspective (from the subject fields of law; communications studies, in particular McLuhan’s now classic probes; international relations; and technology studies) to enable both policy and language analysis. We apply the concept of sovereignty to states (national cultural and digital sovereignty), media platforms (transnational sovereignty), and citizens (autonomy and personal data sovereignty) to examine the competing dynamics and interests that need to be considered and mediated. While there is growing awareness of the tensions between state and transnational media platform powers, the relationship between media content regulation and the collection of viewers’ personal data is relatively less explored. We analyse how future media content regulation needs to fully account for personal data extraction practices by transnational platforms and other media content undertakings. We posit national cultural sovereignty—a constant unfinished process and framework connecting the local to the global—as the enduring force and justification of media content regulation in Canada. The exercise of state sovereignty may be applied not so much to secure strict territorial borders and centralized power over citizens but to act as a mediating power to promote and protect citizens’ individual and collective interests, locally and globally.

Media Globalization Specificity and Contradictions to Diversification of Western Media

The issues of media concentration have currently been quite often the topic of public discussion and the subject of study of many analysts and publicists. The fact that the processes of concentration in recent decades are beginning to acquire a global character is first of all evidenced by the creation of large transnational media corporations, which are already showing a desire for international domination in a particular area of the media business. In addition, media owners from developed countries are actively expanding into the information markets of developing countries. Given the global impact of information technology on the entire socio-economic space, it seems necessary to define the concept of information globalization, to assess the scale of information shifts in the modern media economy. The relevance of this study is due to the need for a scientific understanding of concentration and diversification as forms of organizing media business in the context of globalization. Researchers identify globalization, convergence, glocalization, demassification, and diversification as the main trends characterizing the development of modern mass media.The purpose of this article is to characterize the processes of globalization in the communication industry that have influenced changes in the structure of the media market to describe the models of diversification and mutual integration of holding media.The theoretical and methodological basis of the work was formed by conceptual provisions, recommendations, and conclusions presented in the fundamental scientific works of domestic researchers on history, theory, typology, research methods of the Russian media industry (E. L. Vartanova, S. M. Gurevich, E. Ch. Andrunas, S. I. Beglov, S. S. Smirnov). When writing this article, we used the methods of system analysis, as well as expert analytical, descriptive, historical and theoretical methods.Conclusions. Globalization of information space, as an inevitable and extremely important phenomenon, affects all spheres of the socio-economic life of society, changing the motivation of economic actors at the micro level and modifying the macroeconomics in general.

Review essay: global and comparative perspectives on media and development

This essay reviews the works ‘Television and the Afghan Culture Wars’ (University of Illinois Press) by Wazhmah Osman and ‘Media Imperialism in India and Pakistan’ (Routledge) by Farooq Sulehria as recent contributions to the fields of global and comparative media studies. It considers the overlapping themes in these works through ruberics of media imperialism and development in terms of growth of television industry in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan in the broad context of globalization and transnational media flows.

Transnational media consumption dissonance and ambivalent sexism: How American and Korean television drama consumption shapes Chinese audiences’ gender-role values

Driven by globalization, modernity and the development of media technology, transnational media consumption is increasingly prevalent. Together with domestic media consumption, transnational media consumption constitutes the fragmentation and diversification of individuals’ media consumption behaviors. Yet research concerning the hybrid media effects generated by domestic and transnational media consumption is still underdeveloped. Using a sample of 556 Chinese Internet users, this study proposes a concept of transnational media consumption dissonance to compare the effects of hybrid media consumption on sexism and gender-role norms in marriage (GRIM). The findings suggest that individuals’ perceptions of gender-role norms are not only affected by domestic media usage but also altered through transnational media usage. We illustrate how transnational media consumption dissonance can affect Chinese audiences’ perception of GRIM through the mediating roles of perceived sexism in American and Korean dramas and their general sexism values.

Contesting the “Bad Hombres” Narrative: U.S. and Mexican Media Diplomacy and Presidential Strategic Narratives about Immigrants

During the candidacy and following the election of U.S. president Donald Trump, there was an emphasis on framing the Mexican immigrant as a criminal and on building a wall between the United States and Mexico. This narrative revived the debate on the treatment of immigrants and immigration in cross-national media. Within this context, this study analyzes the construction of the image of the Mexican migrant to the United States by both (former) President Enrique Peña Nieto and President Donald Trump during the first 100 days of the latter’s presidency, through news stories published in two U.S newspapers and two Mexican newspapers. Findings show that news stories describe Mexican migrants in contrasting ways, ranging from criminals (in the U.S. framing) to good migrants (in the Mexican efforts), and both frames are picked up by the transnational media, hindering long-standing public diplomacy efforts in both countries.